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ANCESTRAL FOODS ® Fermented Foods for Modern Men, Women, and Children |
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Pre-Industrial Age Nutrition For Post-Industrial Age Families Our Symbiotic Relationship With Beneficial Micro-Organisms Nature Uses Beneficial Micro-Organisms To Provide Its Bounty Our Ancestors Used Beneficial Micro-Organisms To Produce Fermented Foods Benefits of Traditional Methods Modern Food Technology Differs Vastly From Traditional Methods Forgotten Traditions Reclaimed - Ancestral Foods ®
Pre-Industrial Age Nutrition For Post-Industrial Age Families Bio-Foods has created a unique line of fermented foods that embody the wisdom of our ancestors and of Nature itself. Marrying the ancient art of fermentation of high quality foods to modern methods of quality control, water purification, and drying techniques, Bio-Foods offers an exciting line of highly nutritive fermented foods in powdered form that are convenient to formulate in ways that fit modern lifestyles and tastes. Our Symbiotic Relationship With Beneficial Micro-Organisms Humans have lived and flourished with beneficial micro-organisms since the dawn of time. Indeed, the important role beneficial micro-organisms play in “preparing” nutrients for the plants we eat, as well as their important intestinal role in further “preparing” our foods after they are eaten, suggests that human life itself may be dependent on our symbiotic relationship with beneficial single-cell organisms. Nature Uses Beneficial Micro-Organisms To Provide Its Bounty As ancient farmers observed, and modern organic farmers know, food plants need utilizable forms of nutrients for optimal nutrition just like we do. In Nature, soil micro-organisms transform rocks, sand, and clay into more complex mineral forms that plants need for nourishment. If food plants don't obtain optimal nutrition, how will the humans who eat those plants obtain optimal nutrition? It's no coincidence that organic farming methods nurture soil micro-organisms. The goal is to work in harmony with those organisms as opposed to waging a chemical warfare against them. Our Ancestors Used Beneficial Micro-Organisms To Produce Fermented Foods Sometime after the dawn of time, but prior to five to ten thousand years ago, our very intuitive and observant ancestors found they could harness the physicochemical transformational propensities of beneficial micro-organisms to produce "New and Improved" variations of available food items. Our ancestors were indeed ingenious. Consider that virtually every major grain and domesticated animal that exists today was first cultivated or domesticated by our Neolithic ancestors. The tradition of fermentation also originated in that time. In fact, yeast has been called humankind's "most ancient cultivated plant". Fermentation has been referred to as "fire-less cooking" and "nature's most precious gift". Since those ancient times, in virtually every traditional world culture, foods fermented with yeast and other beneficial micro-organisms have been a valued source of nourishment. Examples are Natto, Miso, and Soy Sauce in Japan; fermented Tofu and Soy Sauce in China; Tempeh in Indonesia; Yogurt, Chutney, and Idly in India; Yogurt in the Middle East; Fermented Grain in Africa; Fermented Corn in South America; Kefir in Russia; Sour Cream, Piima Cream, and Creme fraiche in Europe; Pickled Vegetables, Beer, Bread, and Wine almost everywhere. Those are the best known of many examples. When the tempo of human life was tuned to the biological clocks of animals and plants, fermentation of foods was a part of life's rhythm. Fermentation was traditionally valued as a preservation system, a way to improve taste and variety of use, and a way to improve digestion and nutritive value of the foods being fermented. Recently, science is providing support for the validity of those traditional views. Benefits of Traditional Methods Traditional pre-industrial age cultures utilized fermented or pickled foods including beans, rice, grains, dairy products, vegetables, fruits, and meats. What benefits might they have realized by their techniques? Whole grains and legumes contain phytic acid which can combine with Fe, Ca, Mg, P, and Zn to impede absorption in the intestinal tract. Fermentation is believed to neutralize phytates and to pre-digest grains making the nutrients more available. The best sources of protein in the plant kingdom are thought to be legumes (beans, peanuts, cashews, chick peas, etc.) and cereal grains. For amino acid balance cereal grains and pulses should probably be eaten together as some traditions direct (corn and beans in Mexico, chick peas and whole wheat in the Middle East, rice and soy in Far East Asia). Traditional cultures, when eating cooked meats often included enzyme-rich fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut, pickled carrots, cucumbers and beets. Although enzymes die after being subjected to heat over 118 degrees Fahrenheit, even fermented foods that have been exposed to such heat (a common way of stopping fermentation) may be more easily assimilated because they have already been pre-digested and enhanced by enzymes (less strain on the digestive mechanism). Grains, nuts, legumes and seeds may contain enzyme inhibitors which may put more strain on the digestive system. Traditional cultures' practices of sprouting, soaking in warm acidic water, leavening, culturing, and fermenting are believed to deactivate enzyme inhibitors, allowing enzymes (if not heated) to be more efficient, and nutrients (even if heated) to be more utilizable. Gluten and casein, the proteins of grains (rice, wheat, corn, oats, rye, and barley) and milk respectively, are considered among the hardest to digest. Soaking, sprouting, and fermenting by traditional cultures helped pre-digest those vitally needed proteins. Soaking of beans and legumes begins the process of breaking down their long chain starches, Farrinose and Stachyose. These can cause digestive problems because they may not be easily broken down by enzymes usually found in the intestines. Fermentation helps pre-digest them. Sea vegetables containing long chain polysaccharides that may be hard to digest should be simmered for long periods to aid digestion. Fermentation helps pre-digest them. Modern Food Technology Differs Vastly From Traditional Methods Modern food engineering, including partitioning, modification and processing are a far cry from the traditional methods of preparing foods utilized by our ancestors over the previous several thousand years. In the homes of our ancestors nourishing meals were prepared by cooks, often the mother or grandmother, and eaten either fresh or aged as tradition had individually established. Now, mass produced packaged foods are fabricated for us by chemists and engineers, all of it to be eaten "aged" by default due to the necessities of commercial mass distribution and storage. Today's food engineers, through the marvel of chemistry and physics, can take a farm product and partition it into its individual component groups (such as isolating the proteins away from the carbohydrates and lipids). Chemists can then separate those major groups into more distinct compounds (such as fragmenting the carbohydrate group into sugars, starches, fibers, flavonoids, etc.). They can then take each compound and further fractionate it into individual component chemicals (such as hesperidin, amino acids, isoflavones, fatty acids, etc.). Entire departments of universities devote their time to learning how to take foods apart and to finding new commercial uses for the altered chemical components, some of which are even designed to pass through the body unused! At various steps along the way food engineers and chemists can select desired components and further custom modify the physical, chemical, taste, color, odor, stability, flowability, foaming, gelling, dissolution, sticking, melting, suspension, aglomeration, extrudability, and numerous other characteristics. Those now unrecognizable (to mere cooks) but commercially useful components become part of the food chemist's "library" of constituents to be chosen as desired to construct various "designer foods" with various mass marketable characteristics such as "fat free", "reduced fat", "high protein", "no sugar", "natural", "lite", "fortified", "low calorie", "concentrated", etc. The constituents selected by the "designer" chemist are combined according to a formula, and according to the characteristics desired are then, dissolved, heated, flavored, colored, "fortified", "enriched", preserved, molded, extruded, textured, packaged, frozen, vacuum dried, freeze dried, tetra-packed, shrink wrapped, boxed, pasteurized, radiated, labeled, palletized, and sent to storage. Some modern processes utilize impressive technology indeed, drawing on knowledge derived from the nuclear, mining, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries. Browse through a few patents one day and compare them to traditional "old fashioned" techniques such as pressing, pickling, marinating, soaking, smoking, fermenting, drying, salting, and other processes that cooks understand. You may be surprised by both the degree and extent of change that has occurred since your ancestors (even fairly recent ones) toiled away on farms and in kitchens. Progress, migration to cities, decreased time at home, decreased awareness of fermentation methods, increased opportunities for women, and numerous other factors (some unquestionably good, others with a price) have greatly diminished the tradition of fermenting foods at home. In addition, the food industry's success with truly massive production, distribution, storage, and merchandising of processed foods and designer foods has helped to relegate many former commonly consumed fermented foods to the dusty regions of dim memory. Will humans gain or lose if we allow the nutritional wealth of foods produced through an ancient cooperation with beneficial micro-organisms to be lost? Should we let traditional techniques like fermentation fade from use? Or, can the tradition of obtaining wholesome nutrition and healthy goodness from fermented foods still be obtained in modern society with the convenience we now expect? After all, our culture may have evolved into the post-industrial age, but our digestion, metabolism, and nutritional requirements remain in the pre-industrial age. Forgotten Traditions Reclaimed - Ancestral Foods ® With Bio-Foods ® line of Fermented Foods for Modern Men, Women, and Children the legacy of nutritional wealth from our ancestor's knowledge and tradition of food fermentation can be regained without compromising today's lifestyles and tastes. Adults, more mobile and busier than ever, can benefit from the wholesome nutrition and healthy goodness of fermented foods without sacrificing the convenience demanded by modern life. Children, more demanding and finicky than ever, can achieve more nutritional variety in their diet via “delivery systems” they will accept, such as pasta, without parents forcing them to endure a daily nutritional lecture. Ancestral Foods ® encompasses exciting fermented foods inspired by traditional world cultures of Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. All are in spray-dried powder form, allowing countless formulating possibilities. |
