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What Are The Benefits Of Fermentation?
What are the properties of a “fermented” product which make it desirable? Isn’t “fermentation” a way to create alcohol? Isn’t a fermented product dangerous? Won’t a fermented product spoil more quickly? In this essay I’ll provide you with the answers to these and many more questions as well as give you good reasons to choose a fermented greens product, such as Bio 88+ (Plus), to help insure better health through better nutrition.
Historically, fermentation is a very natural process and naturally occurring simply given time. When it was first “discovered” by humankind and “consciously employed” as a preservation method for foods would be virtually impossible to discover. But that it was “discovered and subsequently employed” is historical fact.
What were some of the examples of fermentation being “discovered” and subsequently employed? And just where in the world did this take place?
The simple coconut will produce, under proper circumstances, naturally fermented “milk” with an alcohol content, and such is treasured, because it keeps both the milk and the solid of the coconut from “going bad”. Primitive peoples quickly learned to use this fermentation process in order to preserve the coconut. Of course this is limited to tropic and sub-tropic locales where the coconut is prevalent.
In Mediterranean and middle-Eastern lands where grapes were harvested for their juice and the juice placed into skins and containers (usually Amphorae), fermentation naturally took place. People probably noticed at first that their juice, so carefully stored, had changed. God only knows how long it took to discover that the resultant product was edible and pleasant, but that it was also nourishing and was self-preserving. But it was discovered and fermentation was widely employed as a method of preservation. We have examples of recovered Amphorae used to ship wines throughout the Mediterranean, taken from ships which were sunk in storms, preserved and still drinkable more than 2000 years later.
The practice perhaps originating in times of great stress or danger or even of surplus, excess foods were buried in skins. When the people returned weeks or even months later the food was preserved, by fermentation, and both edible and nutritious as well as in a completely new form. Modern examples of this are sauerkraut (ascribed to the Germanic peoples), a fermented cabbage and prized ingredient in several dishes and kimche, a fermented vegetable mix from Korea. Two possible other examples of what probably were originally fermented foods are Haggis (originating in Scotland) and Lutefisk (originating in Scandinavia). In all cases, this is a way of preserving the food, just as is salting it in a different day and age.
In point of fact, natives of North America used the fermentation process in their nomadic way of life very effectively. They would make a pemmican mix of meat, fruits, nuts and berries, place the excess into skins designed for the purpose, and bury the mix in a known location on their migratory route. When they returned, perhaps 6 months to a year later, they had a nutritious food source awaiting them until they could restock their larders.
In layman’s terms the fermentation process actually does two things. It converts sugar to alcohol, but it also changes the form of the food and, if there is no sugar, it converts the food to another form. It breaks down the cell walls of the foods so changed and makes the nourishment of the food much more readily available. To a nomadic people, such a nutritional blessing would almost seem to be a gift of the Gods. You have been following the food. All of a sudden, from a season of plenty, you have run out of game and fruits, berries and nuts, all at the same time. You are, as a group, short of food but you are headed back to your wintering location and on the way you get to stop at your cache of pemmican mix. You are saved, and you are saved by a food which is actually more nourishing and more readily digestible than it was in its original state.
The food craze of the 80’s and on is “greens”, or “digestive enzymes”. Greens are a natural digestive aid and generally have little to do with “being green” or “having a green origin”. It comes from the first major product, blue-green algae, marketed as a drink and a digestive aid. See my articles on enzymes in another location for more information on greens products, digestive enzymes and just what they are all about.
In October of 2004 along came a new “greens” product, Bio 88+ (Plus), which was produced from 88 traditional, natural and organic, grains, fruits, vegetables and herbs (100% vegetarian based) and contained 15 proprietary pro-biotics. It was made from these 88 natural ingredients by employing the ancient native North American fermentation process in its creation. In fact, it is “double fermented”, a process which breaks down the cell walls of the original
foods into the nitty gritty essence of goodness – the basic building blocks of life, all ready as enzymes to do their nutritional job and also to aid in our digestion, by speeding nutrition directly to our cells and by supplementing our bodies natural enzymes
The forestomach of ruminants and large intestine of caudal fermenters are magnificent, continuous flow fermentation systems containing enormous numbers of microbes. What do these microbes and the process of fermentation provide the herbivore? Basic fermentation chemistry the microbes that digest cellulose and other substrates also provide at least three other major services:
Synthesis of high quality protein in the form of microbial bodies. Caudal fermenters cannot take advantage of this service, but in ruminants, bacteria and protozoa are constantly flowing into the abdomasum and small intestine, where they are digested and absorbed. All vertebrates require certain amino acids which their cells cannot synthesize (the “essential amino acids”). Fermentative microbes can synthesize the amino acids and thereby provide them to their host.
Synthesis of protein from non-protein nitrogen sources. Fermentative microbes can, for example, utilize urea to synthesize protein. In some situations, ruminants are fed urea as an inexpensive dietary supplement. They also secrete urea formed during protein metabolism into salive, which flows into the rumen and serves as another nitrogen source for the microbes.
Synthesis of B vitamins. Mammals can synthesize only two of the B vitamins and require dietary sources of the others. Fermentative microbes are able to synthesize all the B vitamins, and deficiency states are rarely encountered.
The Products of Fermentation
Fermentation occurs under anaerobic conditions. As a consequence, sugars are metabolized predominantly to volatile fatty acids (VFAs). Additional major products include lactic acid, carbon dioxide and methane.
The principle VFAs are acetic, proprionic and butyric acids, which collectively provide for the majority of a herbivore's energy needs. The ratio of these VFAs vary with diet, although the majority product is always acetate. On a diet high in fiber, the molar ratio of acetic to proprionic to butyric acids is roughly 70:20:10
As described above, proteins are also important substrates for fermentation. In caudal fermenters, much of the dietary protein is digested and absorbed prior to the large gut, but in ruminants, all dietary protein enters the rumen. The bulk of this protein is digested by microbial proteases and peptidases. The resulting peptides and amino acids are taken up by microbes and used in several ways, including microbial protein synthesis. However, a large quantity of amino acids ingested by fermentative microbes are deaminated and enter some of the same pathways used for carbohydrate metabolism. The net result is that much of dietary protein is metabolized to VFAs.
Similar benefits, created very differently, accrue to other mammals from the fermentation process. Non-ruminants do not have the internal capacity to create the fermentation process during the digestion process.
The fermentation process breaks down the cell walls of the foods acted upon, making them more easily digestible. In this case, the double fermentation process used in the manufacture of Bio 88+ (Plus) breaks them all the way down to the basic nutritional, vitamin, mineral and enzymic levels where they are most effective in aiding the digestive process and speeding basic nutritional needs, vitamins and minerals and energy, directly to our cells where they are most needed.
Disclaimer: This article in no way should be taken as “medical advice” on any product, condition or course of action, nor does it constitute in any way “medical advice” endorsing any specific product, specific result, nor any possible cure for any condition or problem. This article is meant as a source of information upon which you may base your decision as to whether or not you should begin using any vitamin, mineral and/or herbal supplement for better health, or begin using a “greens” product as a dietary supplement.
If in doubt, or if you have questions, you should consult your physician and, if possible, consult a second physician for a possible different opinion. The author does not bear any responsibility for your decisions nor for the outcome of your actions based upon those decisions.
About the Author
Loring Windblad has studied nutrition and exercise for more than 40 years, is a published author and freelance writer.
This article is Copyright 2005 by http://www.organicgreens.us, http://www.organicgreens.ca and Loring Windblad. This article may be freely copied and used on other web sites only if it is copied complete with all links and text, including the Authors Resource Box, intact and unchanged except for minor improvements.
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