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Fermenting – More Than Just Preserving

Fresh vegetables in the dark winter when supplies from the garden are dwindling and colds are on the rise? How do we save the harvest surpluses in this time? In addition to preserving, drying and freezing, we have (re)discovered fermentation and would like to invite you into the world of sparkling, spicy and crispy fresh vegetables from the jar.

The process of “living preservation” through fermentation is uncomplicated, resource-saving and the result is always a tasty, crispy, fresh surprise. The advantage for your health: The fermentation creates healthy lactic acid bacteria, which offer a cure for the intestinal flora and thus strengthen your immune system.

What is fermentation and what foods are fermented?

What sauerkraut is to the Germans, kimchi to the Koreans, soy sauce to the Japanese, kefir to the Russians and surströmming, which smells unpleasant to our noses, to the Swedes – all these products are fermented foods.

Fermentation refers to the microbial conversion of organic substances by probiotic bacteria and fungi. Acid, gases or alcohol are produced during this natural process.

Buy fermented products or make them yourself?

Many industrially fermented foods are pasteurized after the fermentation process, i.e. heated to high temperatures. This pasteurization enables a hygienically and tastefully standardized process.

What is practical and efficient for industrial processing, however, also destroys beneficial bacteria produced during fermentation, including cultures of lactic acid bacteria that can be beneficial for your intestinal flora.

When you make your own fermented vegetables (also called ferments), you can be sure that nutrients, enzymes and lactic acid bacteria will be preserved. You can vary your fermented vegetables with many different spices and herbs and thus have a new taste variation in the glass every time.

The own fermentation of vegetables brings you a spicy variety on your plate and is worth trying out!

The advantages of fermentation at a glance

It promotes a favorable intestinal flora through the proliferation of healthy intestinal bacteria. This improves digestion and absorption of nutrients.
During fermentation, vitamins are created that are only found in a few non-fermented foods. Among them the important vitamin K. This vitamin is essential for your bone and heart health. It also has a reputation for preventing some types of cancer.
A good three quarters of the immune system takes place in the intestines. They strengthen the immune system. If the intestinal flora is weak, the susceptibility to various diseases increases.

The wild fermentation

Fermenting vegetables at home is called wild fermentation. You can compare the fermentation with a cure for your vegetables. The vegetables enjoy a bubbling salt bath for a few days and emerge strengthened. In the wild fermentation of vegetables, you take advantage of naturally occurring bacteria. These are mainly found on the (organic) vegetables themselves or have previously come into contact with the vegetables through the air, soil, water or your hands.

The right accessories for fermentation

You only need a few accessories to ferment your vegetables. In addition to your favorite vegetables, the most important utensils and ingredients are:

Salt
Glasses or other suitable vessels
pounder
weights / smaller glasses
grater

The best vegetables to ferment

The best veggies to ferment are clearly your favorite veggies! Through the fermentation you will rediscover this taste in a completely new way. Organically grown vegetables are particularly suitable for fermentation, because the low level of treatment with pesticides and fungicides results in fewer pollutants but a greater variety of microorganisms.

Classic vegetables for fermenting are cabbage such as red or white cabbage, but also carrots, beetroot and radishes. Vegetables with a high water content such as tomatoes, cucumbers or lettuce can also be fermented, but they quickly become very soft as a result of the fermentation – it is important to explore your own taste there.

The fermentation process depends on the size of the pieces and the water content of the vegetables, as well as the salt content and the ambient temperature.

Salt when fermenting

The vegetables are either whole or chopped up in a jar and covered with salt. The vegetables are now swimming in a salty environment that is as airtight as possible. Many bacteria that are naturally found on the vegetables cannot survive in this and their growth is restricted. Others, such as the lactic acid bacteria, which are beneficial for us humans, begin to live and multiply in this salt water. The breakdown of macronutrients creates acids, which you can perceive as a sour taste and smell.

A salinity of 2% is ideal for wild fermentation. For example, 1 kilogram of cabbage requires around 20 grams of salt to ferment.

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Food

Toast is Unhealthier Than Bread: Does That Also Apply to Wholemeal Toast?

Because toast is considered unhealthy, more and more people are now turning to normal bread. Could whole grain toast be a healthier alternative to buttered toast? How does it compare to real whole wheat bread?

Fresh from the toaster for breakfast or as a juicy sandwich in between – toast bread is popular and versatile. However, toast has been criticized for some time: Compared to normal bread, it is unhealthy. Wholemeal toast, on the other hand, enjoys a better image, after all it contains the whole grain. We explain how butter toast, wholemeal toast and normal (wholemeal) bread compare.

This is what toast is made of

Every conventional bread contains flour, water, yeast and usually also salt. This applies to mixed rye bread from the bakery as well as to rolls from the discounter – and also to packaged toast.

Unlike conventional bread, toast bread also contains a whole range of other ingredients: in addition to fat and sugar, it often also contains milk, soy and numerous additives such as acidity regulators, acidifiers, emulsifiers, stabilizers, preservatives and enzymes.

In a nutshell:

Toast contains more additives, making it a more processed product than regular bread.
Toast bread provides significantly less fiber and is therefore less full.
At the same time, it contains significantly more sugar and fat than conventional bread.

Is Wholemeal Toast a Healthier Alternative?

The industry has now responded to consumer demand: in addition to classic butter toast, most supermarkets and brands also offer wholemeal toast products. These are considered healthier because they contain whole grains.

The Bavarian Consumer Advice Center states in a comparison of butter and wholemeal toast:

Wholemeal toast contains significantly more fiber than regular toast. As a result, it has a better satiety value than buttered toast.
Therefore, fewer slices of whole grain toast fill you up, which means you need fewer spreads that are high in sugar and fat.
A breakfast with whole grain toast therefore tends to be healthier as it is lower in sugar and fat than one with conventional buttered toast.

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Culture

The Profession of Barista – More Than Just Making Coffee

It is no longer just the coffee-to-go or a simple filter coffee. We combine a cup of coffee with aromatic coffee enjoyment and different coffee variations. But who actually conjures up the stylish little milk froth images on the surface of our coffee? It is the barista who conjures up a true work of art from a simple cup of coffee and turns coffee drinking into an experience for us. The term barista comes from the Italian and means nothing else than bartender. Roughly speaking, the profession of barista describes the activity of professionally preparing coffee in an espresso bar or a café. Much more important, however, is the passion and lifeblood of a barista, with whom every coffee creation becomes a work of art.

With know-how and passion to become a true barista artist

A barista is a true artist in his field. Passion and a fine taste make him a specialist in preparing various coffee specialties. A good barista can do them all: a strong and aromatic espresso, a frothy cappuccino or an excellent latte macchiato.

To prepare the perfect coffee, a barista needs a certain amount of theoretical knowledge and practical skills:

Theoretical knowledge for the barista profession
physical understanding
Knowledge about different types of coffee
Knowledge of coffee roasts and grinds

Practical knowledge for the barista profession
special care in the preparation
Brew coffee for the best aroma result
Operation and maintenance of an espresso machine and coffee grinder
frothing milk
Communication skills in dealing with customers
Professional customer advice
latte art
Is there training to become a barista?
There is no classic recognized training to become a barista. However, you can take part in courses and seminars with a final certificate in order to learn how to be a barista. The term barista is not protected, so in principle anyone can call themselves a barista.

Working as a barista – organization & passion

In addition to the passion for latte art and the magic of phenomenal works of art on the milk froth of the coffee, there is much more that characterizes a good barista. In addition to the technical understanding of the professional maintenance of the coffee machines, a good barista must be communicative when dealing with his guests.

Friendliness, empathy and helpfulness characterize the character traits of a barista. The barista job can be quite stressful, so baristas should be very organized. Most baristas develop their own system over time. Among other things, it can be helpful to consider which are the most popular coffee specialties.

Win coffee competitions as a barista

Trained baristas have the opportunity to compete against other coffee specialists to demonstrate their passion for coffee. In Germany, for example, there is the “German Barista Championship” once a year, in which all participants show their skills in the disciplines of cappuccino, espresso and their own creations.

Are you an absolute coffee lover and would like to drink a delicious, freshly prepared cappuccino or latte macchiato in your office that tastes like it was freshly made by a barista?

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Food

More than red wine – coffee culture in France

The French particularly appreciate their milk coffee with a delicious and leisurely breakfast. The obligatory breakfast croissant is often dunked in the steaming café au lait. The French milk coffee is traditionally served in a bol, a handleless bowl.

Important when preparing a real café au lait is the simultaneous pouring of coffee and hot milk into the bol. Otherwise it is not a café au lait! In France, if a regular coffee is to be ordered, a grand caé or a café double should be requested. Otherwise you will be served an espresso.

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Food

Ginseng Coffee: Is It Healthier Than Regular Coffee?

Ginseng coffee is considered a healthy and strengthening alternative to conventional coffee. Here you can find out exactly what the hot drink is all about and how it affects your health.

Ginseng coffee is now also a popular drink in Europe. Ginseng originally comes from Asia and grows mainly in the mountains and forests of China, North Korea and Siberia. For ginseng coffee, manufacturers mix the extracts of the plant with instant coffee powder or ground coffee beans and any other ingredients such as sugar and flavorings.

The hot drink is said to have a positive effect on the mind and body in various ways: Among other things, it is said to have a mood-lifting, relaxing and blood pressure-lowering effect.

How healthy is ginseng coffee?

The effects of the ginseng plant have not yet been sufficiently scientifically proven. However, some studies indicate that ginseng promotes concentration and energy (especially in chronic fatigue), has anti-inflammatory and antiviral effects and can thus prevent flu and colds. Ginseng could also lower blood pressure and prevent diabetes. In order to achieve the corresponding effects, you must take sufficient ginseng regularly.

However, make sure not to drink more than four cups of ginseng coffee per day. Otherwise, unwanted side effects such as headaches, digestive or sleep problems can occur. Pregnant women, breastfeeding women, children and people suffering from diabetes should generally avoid ginseng. If you take medication regularly, find out beforehand whether it interacts with ingredients in ginseng.

How healthy ginseng coffee actually is also depends on the composition of the respective product. For example, some ginseng coffee powders are very high in sugar and artificial flavors. Therefore, before you buy, make sure that sugar is not at the top of the list of ingredients. Vegans should also pay more attention to the ingredients: some products also contain milk protein or milk powder.

Ideally, the product consists only of coffee and ginseng. Then the finished coffee also contains very few calories. A ready-made cup of organic ginseng coffee from ginseng-laden.de provides you with just under 2.5 kilocalories. Nespresso ginseng coffee, on the other hand, contains almost 70 kilocalories per 200 milliliter cup, lots of sugar and some additives.

Ginseng coffee: sustainability and buying tips

Due to its slightly bitter and sweet note, which is vaguely reminiscent of liquorice root, ginseng is said to round off the taste of coffee. If you want to try ginseng coffee for yourself, you can buy it in powder, pod, and capsule form. You can’t usually order it in cafes. When buying, we recommend paying attention to organic quality in order to avoid chemical-synthetic pesticides. If you choose Fairtrade goods, you also guarantee that human and labor rights have been observed during production.

You can order ginseng coffee online. You can sometimes find it in well-stocked grocery stores, as well as health food and organic shops. In powder form, you can simply pour hot water on it and stir well. For pads or capsules you need the appropriate coffee machine. However, since this method also creates a lot of packaging waste, the soluble coffee powder is the more ecological option.

Basically, ginseng (like coffee) is not a climate-friendly product. After all, ginseng and coffee beans have to travel long distances to Germany and therefore release a lot of CO2 emissions.

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Food

Boil Carrots: That’s Why It’s Better Than Eating Them Raw

When you cook carrots, you ensure that your body can better utilize the healthy nutrients. Here you can find out what else you should consider when preparing carrots.

Vitamins and nutrients in carrots – It depends on the cooking

Carrots taste wonderful in a salad or as a snack between meals. But did you know that their valuable ingredients can be utilized even better by your body with the right preparation method?

A study conducted in Sweden in 2012 examined how the availability of the healthy, fat-soluble carotene varies depending on how it is prepared. The conclusion was that both adding fat and cooking the carrots made the valuable ingredients easier for the body to utilize. Above all, however, chopping the vegetables has a positive effect on availability, as reported by ZEIT online.

According to the study, around three percent of the carotene in whole or roughly chopped carrots passes into the gastric juice.
By cooking, the amount can be increased to six percent.
By adding additional oil, the value increased to eight percent.
However, if the carrots were strained or grated before consumption, the value increased many times over: the availability of beta-carotene in boiled and grated carrots increased to a full 27 percent. With additional oil, the value even increased to 45 percent.

Boil the carrots or cook them in a sieve

In order to preserve as many of the healthy ingredients in the carrots as possible during cooking, you should cook them as gently as possible. That’s how it’s done:

Using a vegetable brush and water, scrub the carrots thoroughly to free them from soil.
Cut off the base of the leafy greens and the carrot into small pieces – as you need them for the dish.
Just barely cover the vegetables in the pot with water. The carrots don’t have to be completely immersed in water to cook, as the vitamins are lost in large quantities in the cooking water.
Steam cooking with a sieve insert is even gentler. This allows the carrots to lie in the sieve without coming into contact with the cooking water. Vitamins and nutrients are optimally preserved. Make sure to close the pot and sieve insert with a suitable lid. This will ensure that the steam cooks the carrots properly.
The cooking time in the sieve insert is slightly longer than when cooking in water. Depending on the size of the pieces, carrots require between 10 and 15 minutes. Before the time is up, test your carrots for consistency by puncturing them with a sharp knife. Anything you like is allowed! If you prefer your carrots to be soft, let them cook a little longer. If you like them crispier, shorten the time accordingly.


Season the carrots with as little salt as possible. Salt removes water from the carrots and thus the healthy nutrients.
Tip: Use carrots from organic farming. It has been scientifically proven that organic vegetables and fruit contain more vitamins than conventionally farmed vegetables. Enjoy your meal!

 

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A Dessert Better Than Frequent Snacking

Those with a sweet tooth can’t get enough of sweets! The temptations are just too great: golden-yellow honey for breakfast, a piece of cake in the afternoon, and in between candies, chocolate and the like make you weak. But this permanent consumption of sugar is not healthy. It is better if the dessert is eaten immediately after lunch and frequent snacking is avoided.

A dessert after lunch

A candy here, a piece of chocolate there, and brightly colored rubber toys are also attractive. But frequent snacking has its pitfalls: the sugar bombs ensure that the insulin level keeps shooting up – and just as quickly falls again. This causes ravenous hunger and, with a corresponding predisposition, increases the risk of developing diabetes.

If you want to avoid a constant load of sugar, you should limit yourself to a light dessert – preferably after lunch. After the big meal, the sugar is not absorbed by the blood as quickly, as Silke Schwartau, a nutrition expert at the Hamburg Consumer Center, explains. Of course, you should also make sure that the dessert itself is not too sugary.

Sugar Consumption Guidelines

The World Health Organization (WHO) updated the guidelines for sugar consumption in March 2015. These now recommend consuming just 5 percent of your daily calories in the form of sugar – the equivalent of about six teaspoons a day.

This includes not only conventional household sugar and products made from it but also foods that naturally contain fructose, such as honey, syrup, or fruit juices.

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Food

Orange Juice Healthier Than Orange

Oranges are particularly popular in Germany during the winter months, because they provide the body with plenty of vitamin C and other valuable nutrients that strengthen the immune system. But it is not the actual fruit itself that provides a vitamin boost in the body: in fact, it is the pasteurized orange juice, as a study has now shown.

The study

In March 2015, scientists at the University of Hohenheim used an in vitro model in the laboratory to determine that the human body can absorb nutrients from orange juice better than from an orange. These results have now been confirmed in a human study.

In preparation for the randomized study, the twelve subjects had to go without carotenoids for two weeks. Green and red foods such as tomatoes, carrots, or spinach were removed from the menu and were not allowed to be eaten so that the carotenoids stored in the body could be washed out.

After the two weeks, the subjects received one standardized breakfast with oranges and one with pasteurized orange juice. Which test person got which breakfast was decided at random. There were 14 days between the two test phases.

After breakfast, the scientists took eight blood samples from the subjects within just under ten hours and then determined the carotenoid content.

The result

The human study was able to fully confirm the previous assumption from the in vitro study. “Orange juice is a better source of carotenoids than an orange,” says Julian Aschoff. During the investigations it was found that from pasteurized orange juice about twice as many carotenoids can be absorbed as from a commercially available orange, the graduate food engineer continues.

This is due to the production of the juice, as the initiator of the study, Prof. Dr. dr Reinhold Carle explains: “During the production of orange juice, dietary fibers such as pectin or cellulose are partially separated. These substances inhibit the absorption of carotenoids during digestion”.

According to Carle, there is more indigestible fiber in the orange than in the juice, which is why the absorption of the carotenoids from the fruit is greatly reduced.

Orange juice can contribute to a healthy diet

Consistency plays an important role when it comes to food intake: “When you chew the orange, the fruit is never completely broken up. Many cells, therefore, remain intact and enclose the carotenoids. This makes them more difficult to absorb and utilize,” explains Julian Aschoff.

Consumed in moderation, i.e. a glass of 200 milliliters of orange juice per day, the fruity drink can contribute to a healthy diet and provide the human body with the nutrients that the body needs, according to the researchers.

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Food

Healthy Canteen Food More in Demand Than Ever

Currywurst with fries or schnitzel: that’s the usual canteen food cliché. But the typical menu is in transition. More and more people are opting for a more conscious way of life, and regional and seasonal products are becoming increasingly important to consumers. This also affects the orders in the canteens, because healthy canteen food is more in demand than ever!

Healthy canteen food is extremely popular

Healthy meals are being ordered more and more frequently in the canteens of companies, clinics, homes, and rehabilitation facilities. This is shown by a survey of around 300 managers, which the Internorga trade fair presented in advance.

According to this, 80 percent of those surveyed said that they influence a healthy diet with the food they offer. Especially vegetarian and vegan meals are in demand, as Internorga reports.

A conscious way of life

It is also particularly pleasing that more regional and seasonal products are used for the canteen food. In this way, various dishes can also be offered more cheaply, which creates a renewed incentive to buy. Around 30 million meals a week are served in canteen kitchens.

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Food

Wild Salmon is Lower in Fat Than Farmed Salmon

On hearty wholemeal bread with a hint of spicy horseradish and a sprig of dill or steamed with a delicious mustard dip – salmon always tastes delicious! If you want to do something for your figure and the environment in addition to enjoying it, you should prefer the lower-fat wild salmon to the farmed salmon when shopping.

Wild salmon is the first choice

The range extends from one percent fat in wild salmon to more than 16 percent fat in farmed salmon. Wild salmon is, therefore, lower in fat than farmed salmon. However, the wild variant should not only be used for figure-friendly reasons: it is more expensive than farmed salmon, but the wild fish does not pollute the environment with medicines or excrement.

Of course, the wild salmon should still only be eaten sparingly. The following applies: the rare enjoyment of a wild fish is better than the frequent enjoyment of cheaper farmed fish. It is best for fish lovers to go for the products marked with the MSC seal. This seal guarantees that the fish comes from stock and is environmentally friendly fishing.

That’s why salmon is healthy

The fish with the pink flesh is extremely healthy. Salmon contains vitamins B6, B12, D, niacin, and folic acid. It also contains a lot of potassium, iodine, and omega-3 fatty acids.

The latter belongs to the group of polyunsaturated fatty acids and has a positive effect on cardiovascular health and rheumatic complaints. The omega-3 fatty acids are also involved in many reactions in the body’s cells and are stored less in body fat than saturated fatty acids.

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