# Banter 105: 04Feb26 Fermentation with Sandor Katz The first 30 minutes of this session provide a splendid introduction to Fermentation, including its very long history (think alcohol, bread) and its applicability to all our food. This is an education, and thoroughly recommended to anyone who wishes to learn about the topic. Sandor also points out the applicability of fermentation at community level as well as individuals, for food resilience and sustainability using local produce; and he includes a three-minute description of what to do to get started on your very first product, at min:sec 50:25 in the video {% embed url="" %} #### Video Timeline: (min:sec) 00:00 - 19:02 Presentation 19:02 - 50:25 First Q & A session 50:25 - 53:44 How to make your own fermentation 53:44 - 64:56 (end( Second Q & A session *** ### Presentation: No separate slide-deck in this session - the video is the presentation *** ### Books, websites, visits: To find out much, much more on this topic, visit: Sandor has also written several books on the subject: please see And finally, his next UK visits in 2026: * Cambridge May 16 - 17 * Whitchurch, Shropshire June 19 - 21: * He will also be doing additional, shorter events in London, Somerset and Cornwall - check his website for details as they are finalised: *** ### Meeting Summary: Feb 04, 2026 11:50 AM London ID: 834 5460 8536 ### Quick recap Sandor Katz, a fermentation expert, presented on the fundamental aspects of fermentation and its global applications in food production, sharing his personal journey and addressing common misconceptions about bacteria and their role in human health. The discussion concluded with conversations about local food production, biodiversity, and waste management, including potential applications of fermentation in converting waste materials into useful resources, and plans for future workshops and presentations. ### Summary #### Participant Introductions and Logistics Graham expressed gratitude to Sandor for joining from Tennessee, despite the early hour for him. #### Understanding Fermentation: A Global Process Sandor Katz, a fermentation expert, discussed the fundamental aspects of fermentation, highlighting its role in transforming microorganisms and its historical significance. He explained that fermentation is a process used globally to produce a wide range of foods and beverages, from bread and cheese to pickles and chocolate, and emphasized its safety and health benefits. Sandor shared his personal journey into fermentation, starting with a love for pickles and leading to his career as an author and educator, and addressed common misconceptions about bacteria, emphasizing their importance in human health and digestion. #### Local Food Production and Biodiversity Sandor discussed the importance of local food production and preservation methods, highlighting the role of fermentation in extending food life and the need to simplify regulations for small producers. He also touched on the diminishing biodiversity in our guts due to chemical exposure and a lack of dietary fibre, emphasizing the need for a more diverse diet. Graham appreciated Sandor's insights on biodiversity, linking it to broader discussions on biodiversity net gain. Stuart raised concerns about the rise of urban hydroponic farms, questioning their benefits compared to soil-grown produce, to which Sandor responded that hydroponics may lack the biodiversity of soil-grown food. Amanda shared her personal journey towards a healthier diet post-cancer treatment, expressing gratitude for the session and her interest in fermentation and gut health. Sandor advised that while fermented foods can improve gut function and immune health, they should not be seen as a cure for major health issues and emphasized the benefits of a simpler, whole foods diet and local food production. #### Fermentation Applications and Education Sandor explained the wide applications of fermentation, including the production of pharmaceuticals and the cleanup of oil spills. Graham proposed using Sandor's video presentation to educate others about fermentation, to which Sandor agreed. Amanda discussed a local council's interest in using fermentation to convert dog waste into useful products, highlighting the potential of fermentation to transform undesirable materials into useful resources. #### Community Composting Initiatives Sandor explained the natural breakdown process of animal excrement through composting, emphasizing the importance of mixing different organic materials to accelerate decomposition. Amanda suggested exploring circular economy practices at the parish council level, such as composting or wormery systems, to reduce waste and create community benefits. Sandor agreed that collective efforts are more practical and efficient, noting that larger compost piles generate enough heat to kill pathogens, making the process safer and more effective. #### Fermented Foods and Waste Solutions Sandor discussed the benefits of fermented foods, explaining how they can improve digestion and gut biodiversity. He shared his expertise on fermenting vegetables at home, emphasizing the importance of diversity and moderation. The group also discussed the potential use of human waste as fertilizer, with Stuart and Amanda sharing examples from other countries. David suggested exploring biogas digesters as a way to process waste safely. The conversation ended with a brief discussion about upcoming workshops and a future presentation by Lucy Eccles on community resilience. *** ### Chat: 00:18:26 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Marmite! 00:24:34 Mike Bundock: sorry I have another meeting so need to go, thanks Sandor, I will watch the recording later, I make Kimchi regularly so very interested in your talk - bye! 00:27:54 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: I'm getting hungry! 00:29:53 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: 00:31:42 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: [https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/63537.Sandor\_Ellix\_Katz ](https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/63537.Sandor_Ellix_Katz) 00:32:42 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: All very relevant to food security in the UK 00:39:59 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: So more allotments better than more hydroponics - and possibly cheaper too 00:48:19 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security ](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nature-security-assessment-on-global-biodiversity-loss-ecosystem-collapse-and-national-security) 00:53:49 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: ; 00:54:41 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: We have a postgraduate student working with us on guidance around food and local food security 00:55:44 Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Sandor’s website all about fermentation: 00:58:16 David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Biogas digesters on farms. 01:06:33 Amanda Davis: Tesco, for example has significantly increased its range of fermented foods or ingredients to ferment your own 01:10:10 Amanda Davis: Microplastics and PFAS is the problem with human excrement now though 01:10:35 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Here's a link to Max Cotton's year of only eating what we grow locally - "Food Britannia" ; 01:14:17 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: [https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/expert-answers/kombucha-tea/faq-20058126 ](https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/expert-answers/kombucha-tea/faq-20058126) 01:16:06 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Kvass [https://ancestralkitchen.com/2020/11/02/russian-bread-kvass-ancestral-cook-up-november-2020/ ](https://ancestralkitchen.com/2020/11/02/russian-bread-kvass-ancestral-cook-up-november-2020/) 01:18:23 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: So many thanks! 01:19:35 Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: *** ### Audio-transcript: (for AI indexing and search) 95 \ 00:13:47.230 --> 00:13:52.289 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So, whilst we're waiting for the last-minute arrivals, let me just, 96 \ 00:13:52.560 --> 00:14:09.570 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: astonishing you, astonish you with the goodwill of Sandor, who's actually based in Tennessee, so he's 4,000 miles and 5, 6 time zones away from us, so it's just 6 o'clock in the morning his time. So I'm very grateful to him for agreeing to come and 97 \ 00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:14.049 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Open up the, mysteries of fermentation for us. 98 \ 00:14:14.330 --> 00:14:14.950 \ Mike Bundock: Hmm. 99 \ 00:14:15.090 --> 00:14:19.709 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, I hope his coffee is good and strong. 100 \ 00:14:20.920 --> 00:14:25.280 \ Mike Bundock: Has anybody on this panel so far done any fermentation? 101 \ 00:14:26.920 --> 00:14:27.930 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Great question. 102 \ 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:30.270 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: I've drunk the products, yeah. 103 \ 00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:40.390 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): I've made beer, and I've made wine, and I researched, and I visited rum distilleries for my PhD. 104 \ 00:14:41.170 --> 00:14:42.270 \ Mike Bundock: Oh, very nice. 105 \ 00:14:42.270 --> 00:14:46.790 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Oh, wow. Okay, David, you're a never-ending list of surprises. 106 \ 00:14:49.640 --> 00:15:05.760 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, we're past the magical hour of 5 minutes, so I think it's fair to say that if anyone else wishes to join us, they're going to be a little late. So, Sandor, welcome, and thank you again for your early morning arrival, and we're very, very pleased to see you. 107 \ 00:15:08.020 --> 00:15:22.600 \ Sandor Katz: Well, I'm, I'm so happy to be here with you this morning, and, you know, it's always, it's always, fun having a reason to wake up. As I, you know, as I'm talking, I expect I'll see the dawn outside my windows. 108 \ 00:15:23.400 --> 00:15:27.380 \ Sandor Katz: So, okay, I, 109 \ 00:15:28.030 --> 00:15:46.340 \ Sandor Katz: I like to just start with, you know, the most fundamental question, you know, what is fermentation anyway? You know, I mean, it turns out, you know, virtually every human being on planet Earth consumes products of fermentation every single day. 110 \ 00:15:46.340 --> 00:15:53.659 \ Sandor Katz: And yet, you know, a lot of people have no idea about this phenomenon, or really what it is. 111 \ 00:15:53.900 --> 00:16:04.650 \ Sandor Katz: So, you know, broadly speaking, fermentation is the transformative action of microorganisms. 112 \ 00:16:05.210 --> 00:16:22.479 \ Sandor Katz: You know, it's a little bit more nuanced than that. If you come from a biology background, biologists would define fermentation a little bit differently as anaerobic metabolism, the production of energy without oxygen. I mean, in this sense, the cells of our bodies are capable of fermentation. 113 \ 00:16:22.980 --> 00:16:32.249 \ Sandor Katz: Most of the foods and beverages that we regard as fermented meet the biologist's definition, but there are a large handful. 114 \ 00:16:32.250 --> 00:16:55.489 \ Sandor Katz: that require oxygen. So, for instance, vinegar. The reason why alcoholic beverages are always sealed so firmly is because we need to protect them from oxygen, because once they have access to oxygen, there are these bacteria called Acetobacter that will metabolize the alcohol into acetic acid, which is vinegar. 115 \ 00:16:55.640 --> 00:16:58.450 \ Sandor Katz: You know, the other… 116 \ 00:16:58.880 --> 00:17:11.120 \ Sandor Katz: The other issue is that not every transformative action of microorganisms results in something delicious that we're ready to put into our mouths, and in fact, most of what we would regard as food spoilage 117 \ 00:17:11.119 --> 00:17:35.039 \ Sandor Katz: involves microorganisms, and, you know, we don't, you know, take the bag of decomposed parsley that we find that was hidden in a drawer in our refrigerator and hold it up and say, oh, look, the parsley fermented. You know, we use a different vocabulary for this. The parsley spoiled, the parsley decomposed, the parsley rotted. And generally, we reserve the word fermentation to describe desirable. 118 \ 00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:38.409 \ Sandor Katz: Or intentional microbial fermentations. 119 \ 00:17:38.640 --> 00:17:52.710 \ Sandor Katz: But, of course, you know, there is not a full consensus on what is desirable, and so, you know, there are certain fermented foods that can be very polarizing. 120 \ 00:17:52.800 --> 00:18:14.880 \ Sandor Katz: you know, certain very strong cheeses, for instance, that, you know, some people might consider the most delicious thing in the world, and some other people might be, you know, quite literally disgusted by. You know, so, you know, there's a large subjective component, you know, some of it is cultural, and some of it is just individual. 121 \ 00:18:14.880 --> 00:18:18.600 \ Sandor Katz: But anyway, fermentation is the transformative action of microorganisms. 122 \ 00:18:18.600 --> 00:18:21.179 \ Sandor Katz: People have been fermenting. 123 \ 00:18:21.210 --> 00:18:45.009 \ Sandor Katz: you know, according to the archaeological record, at least 10,000 years. You know, I would say actually probably much longer, because that mostly tells us about the history of pottery, because presumably earlier vessels, especially for fermenting alcohol, you know, would have been made out of hollowed-out wood, animal membranes, other things that are fully biodegradable. 124 \ 00:18:45.180 --> 00:19:01.569 \ Sandor Katz: so, you know, fermentation is, you know, is really ancient, but, you know, there, you know, we did not really have a clear, you know, understanding of what drove the process until. 125 \ 00:19:01.570 --> 00:19:17.259 \ Sandor Katz: you know, not even 200 years ago, about 175 years ago, Louis Pasteur, a French chemist, you know, really definitively, defined fermentation as the transformative action of microorganisms. And, 126 \ 00:19:17.620 --> 00:19:25.810 \ Sandor Katz: You know, what we now understand, thanks to the field of microbiology that his research really spawned. 127 \ 00:19:25.810 --> 00:19:38.700 \ Sandor Katz: You know, is that everything we eat is populated by microorganisms. you know, all the plants, all the animal products that make up our food, so there's a certain inevitability to microbial transformation of our food. 128 \ 00:19:38.700 --> 00:19:47.200 \ Sandor Katz: And, you know, people in every part of the world, without specifically knowing that, learned techniques to… 129 \ 00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:58.449 \ Sandor Katz: work with that underlying fact, so that rather than food decomposing into a disgusting, ugly mess, they would somehow harness this invisible life force 130 \ 00:19:58.450 --> 00:20:22.390 \ Sandor Katz: That's present on all of our food in order to produce alcohol, in order to make food more stable for preservation, in order to make food more digestible, in order to make food less toxic, in order to make food more delicious. So, you know, fermentation is broadly practiced. I mean, you know. 131 \ 00:20:22.390 --> 00:20:43.900 \ Sandor Katz: Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere in the world, there are ancient traditions of fermentation. And, you know, if we, you know, we think about a, you know, a standard Western diet, you know, whether it's, you know, in the UK, or here in the US, or anywhere in Europe, or many other places. 132 \ 00:20:43.900 --> 00:20:54.360 \ Sandor Katz: You know, bread, product of fermentation. Cheese, product of fermentation. Cured meats involve fermentation. All of the condiments that we put on our food. 133 \ 00:20:54.360 --> 00:20:59.680 \ Sandor Katz: You know, the ancient condiments of the world, like fish sauce, like soy sauce. 134 \ 00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:24.030 \ Sandor Katz: You know, these directly involve fermentation, and, you know, most of the rest of our, you know, contemporary condiments, whether it is mustard, whether it is a ketchup, whether it is chutneys, whether it is salsas, whether it is Worcestershire sauce, but they all involve vinegar, which is an important 135 \ 00:21:24.030 --> 00:21:25.939 \ Sandor Katz: important product of fermentation. 136 \ 00:21:26.070 --> 00:21:42.510 \ Sandor Katz: Chocolate is fermented, coffee is fermented, certain varieties of tea are fermented, many olives are fermented. Of course, pickles are fermented, sauerkraut, kimchi. 137 \ 00:21:42.510 --> 00:21:58.919 \ Sandor Katz: You know, so there's a really, you know, vast, vast array of fermented foods and beverages that exist in the world, and, you know, they touch the, you know, the lives, the mouths, the stomachs of, you know, almost every individual everywhere. 138 \ 00:21:58.920 --> 00:22:03.860 \ Sandor Katz: You know, fermentation goes beyond food. 139 \ 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:14.789 \ Sandor Katz: you know, compost. You know, the process that, you know, underlies the, you know, sort of maintenance and rebuilding of fertility in the soil. 140 \ 00:22:14.790 --> 00:22:36.890 \ Sandor Katz: is a fermentation process. It's, you know, microorganisms breaking down, you know, dead plant matter, our food waste, excrement, you know, everything back into, you know, humus that, you know, regenerates the soil. 141 \ 00:22:36.890 --> 00:22:42.410 \ Sandor Katz: Biofuels, you know, involve, fermentation. 142 \ 00:22:42.410 --> 00:22:57.339 \ Sandor Katz: Silage, you know, one of the ways that, you know, people in temperate regions, you know, feed their livestock during the winter involves fermentation. So, you know, fermentation has a lot of fiber arts. 143 \ 00:22:57.340 --> 00:23:13.770 \ Sandor Katz: you know, this word redding, if you're getting the fibers out of a fibrous, stocky plant to create fabric, you know, that involves fermentation. There's, you know, there's many, many applications of fermentation beyond food. 144 \ 00:23:13.860 --> 00:23:23.359 \ Sandor Katz: There's been some, you know, pronounced revival of interest in fermentation over the last decade or two. 145 \ 00:23:23.360 --> 00:23:46.220 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I mean, really, our grandparents and their grandparents were eating and drinking just as much, if not more, fermented foods and beverages than people in our time are, but suddenly there's a lot of, you know, interest and attention to this process, and, you know, I would say that, you know, that stems more than anything from 146 \ 00:23:46.250 --> 00:23:55.709 \ Sandor Katz: the Human Microbiome Project, and our growing awareness that bacteria are, you know, an important part of our functionality. 147 \ 00:23:55.710 --> 00:24:19.049 \ Sandor Katz: You know, for, you know, it looks like all of us, you know, grew up, you know, some, somewhere, you know, mid-century U.S, and mid-century 20th century, and, you know, we never heard a good word about bacteria. Bacteria were really, you know, to the degree that they were recognized at all, they were recognized as something dangerous, our enemies to be destroyed with chemicals. 148 \ 00:24:19.050 --> 00:24:36.890 \ Sandor Katz: But, you know, in the last couple of decades, you know, there's really, like, a growing recognition that, you know, we can't really think of bacteria as our enemies. Bacteria are our ancestors, and bacteria have been with us all along, and bacteria are an important part of our… 149 \ 00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:45.190 \ Sandor Katz: ability to function, our physiology, and, you know, the same is true for every kind of animal and every kind of plant. 150 \ 00:24:45.500 --> 00:25:08.240 \ Sandor Katz: So, so I think a lot of people have gotten interested in fermentation for, you know, what we call probiotics, you know, the idea of ingesting bacteria that can potentially increase biodiversity in our bodies, and potentially improve digestion, improve immune function. There's even some research suggesting that it can improve 151 \ 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:09.810 \ Sandor Katz: Mental health. 152 \ 00:25:09.810 --> 00:25:24.209 \ Sandor Katz: So I think that's the number one reason. You know, I know that, you know, since COVID times, there's been, and really, I think in the UK, since earlier than that, there's been a, you know, a great revival of interest in sourdough bread. 153 \ 00:25:24.210 --> 00:25:49.109 \ Sandor Katz: You know, and basically, if you compare a loaf of bread that was made with pure culture yeast versus a well-fermented sourdough loaf, you have a lot more nutrients in the sourdough loaf, because the fermentation breaks down chemical bonds and makes minerals that are in the grains more accessible to the people who eat the bread. So, you know, it breaks down gluten, so a lot of people who can't 154 \ 00:25:49.110 --> 00:26:01.800 \ Sandor Katz: eat, your standard commercial supermarket bread, can eat it, you get more nutrients out of it, it tastes better, and it has the potential to last longer. 155 \ 00:26:03.200 --> 00:26:22.639 \ Sandor Katz: you know, my interest in fermentation, I've been, you know, kind of obsessed with fermentation for, I'd say, 32 years now. You know, my first interest was, you know, as a kid, where I wasn't thinking about fermentation, but I loved pickles, and my grandparents were all immigrants from 156 \ 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:34.740 \ Sandor Katz: Eastern Europe and the kinds of pickles that we had in our home were fermented cucumbers, what sometimes people call kosher dills. You know, they're sort of the Polish style. 157 \ 00:26:34.740 --> 00:26:54.209 \ Sandor Katz: of gherkins that you, you know, probably can find sometimes in the UK. And I love this flavor of lactic acid. I wasn't thinking about how they were made, but I was very drawn from a very young age to this, you know, this flavor of fermentation. 158 \ 00:26:55.520 --> 00:27:18.290 \ Sandor Katz: When I was in my mid-20s, I spent a couple of years experimenting with a diet called macrobiotics. That's a sort of Japanese-inspired diet, and macrobiotics really places a lot of emphasis on the digestive benefit of pickles and other live ferments. And I started noticing during that time that these pickles that I'd been eating my entire life, whenever I would bite into them. 159 \ 00:27:18.610 --> 00:27:34.820 \ Sandor Katz: frankly, now, when I just think about them or talk about them, I can feel my salivary glands under my tongue squirting out saliva, and I really began to associate these foods in a very tangible way with getting my digestive juices flowing. 160 \ 00:27:34.820 --> 00:27:58.400 \ Sandor Katz: And I started really seeking out live fermented foods, but I still wasn't making them, because I was living in New York, where I grew up, and they were really quite readily available. But then I moved to, to Tennessee. I moved to rural Tennessee and started keeping a garden. And I had been such a naive city kid, I'd never even thought about the idea that in a garden. 161 \ 00:27:58.440 --> 00:28:21.420 \ Sandor Katz: all of the cabbage would be ready at about the same time. All of the radishes would be ready at about the same time. So, the first year that I was gardening and, you know, had a nice abundance of cabbage, you know, it occurred to me, oh, I love sauerkraut. I think that has something to do with preserving cabbage. I should figure out how to make sauerkraut. And, you know, I just looked in, you know, the most 162 \ 00:28:21.420 --> 00:28:46.390 \ Sandor Katz: common cookbook you would find in American kitchens, called The Joy of Cooking. And I found a recipe for how to make sauerkraut, and it was deceptively simple. I started making sauerkraut, I started playing around, experimenting with incorporating different kinds of vegetables in it, different seasonings, then I learned how to make yogurt. That summer, we had abundant blackberries, and I'd heard of blackberry wine, and I decided to 163 \ 00:28:46.390 --> 00:29:04.249 \ Sandor Katz: investigate how to make blackberry wine. And, you know, that just began me on a journey of, you know, trying to learn about different kinds of fermentations. And then I've, I wrote some books. My first book, Wild Fermentation, was published in 2003. 164 \ 00:29:04.660 --> 00:29:18.010 \ Sandor Katz: My biggest, most recognized book, The Art of Fermentation, was published in 2012. This is my most recent book that was published in 2021. 165 \ 00:29:18.010 --> 00:29:42.859 \ Sandor Katz: And I've taught all around the world. I'm actually going to be teaching, this spring, in the UK. I have two multi-day workshops there, one in Shropshire, one in Cambridge, and then also some, some events in London. But, I mean, I've probably taught in, like, 25 countries. 166 \ 00:29:42.860 --> 00:29:49.720 \ Sandor Katz: I mean, there's just… there's huge, huge interest in this everywhere. And, 167 \ 00:29:49.720 --> 00:30:02.169 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I think that because most of us were, you know, raised to imagine that bacteria are so dangerous, a lot of people project their anxiety about bacteria onto the process. 168 \ 00:30:02.170 --> 00:30:10.769 \ Sandor Katz: So, you know, when people get interested in this, a lot of people have a certain amount of anxiety about it. So really, most of the work I do is 169 \ 00:30:11.140 --> 00:30:29.700 \ Sandor Katz: demystifying fermentation. The fact is, fermentation makes food safer. You know, I have various jars of fermented vegetables right here. I mean, in the United States, there has never been one single case of food poisoning or illness from fermented vegetables. It's about as safe as 170 \ 00:30:29.700 --> 00:30:38.880 \ Sandor Katz: Food gets, because Acid, you know, the acidic environment that's created by the fermentation makes it impossible for 171 \ 00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:53.150 \ Sandor Katz: for any of the organisms that we associate with food poisoning and illness to grow. So even if the vegetables had been contaminated in some way with cells of salmonella, E. coli, something like that. 172 \ 00:30:53.340 --> 00:31:14.549 \ Sandor Katz: once you ferment it, they are destroyed by the acidity. So, you know, I mean, fermentation, in every case, is a strategy for safety. You know, when you're dealing with animal products, when you're dealing with milk, and when you're dealing with meat, you know, there's a little bit more potential for danger. You never have, like, a zero-risk situation. 173 \ 00:31:14.550 --> 00:31:22.229 \ Sandor Katz: But still, the process of fermentation, in particular the acidifying fermentations, just make food, 174 \ 00:31:22.230 --> 00:31:32.150 \ Sandor Katz: safer. So, you know, a lot of what I do is demystifying it, and that's really mostly what people need, but there's a huge hunger for information. 175 \ 00:31:32.390 --> 00:31:43.669 \ Sandor Katz: about this from people who are interested in trying it out. You know, I would say it goes, you know, really hand-in-hand with any kind of efforts to… 176 \ 00:31:49.900 --> 00:32:14.900 \ Sandor Katz: reinvigorate local food production, to, you know, sort of be encouraging, you know, efforts for, you know, a region to grow more food for itself, because it's just such an effective strategy for preservation. And, you know, while we're not today mostly thinking about something like cheese as a strategy for preservation. 177 \ 00:32:14.900 --> 00:32:22.690 \ Sandor Katz: I mean, that's what cheese is, is preserved milk. You take something that is, you know, among the most perishable of food products. 178 \ 00:32:22.690 --> 00:32:32.170 \ Sandor Katz: And then you make a hard cheese with it, and, you know, it can sit, you know, even in a, you know, ambient room temperature 179 \ 00:32:32.170 --> 00:32:56.020 \ Sandor Katz: for years. So, you know, it really extends the life of food, and, you know, it's just part of how people everywhere make practical use of the food resources that are available to them. So I think, you know, any kind of efforts to, encourage local food production need to, you know, encourage, you know, various preservation, 180 \ 00:32:56.020 --> 00:33:06.520 \ Sandor Katz: methods, including fermentation. And then the one other thing I'll mention, because Graham told me that many of you were involved in local councils. 181 \ 00:33:06.520 --> 00:33:31.440 \ Sandor Katz: is, the regulatory environment. I mean, a lot of the, you know, small producers, you know, just are suffocated by, you know, regulations that have been designed for large-scale food production. And, you know, if we want to encourage, local and regional food production, including fermentation, you know, we just have to make it possible. 182 \ 00:33:31.720 --> 00:33:40.350 \ Sandor Katz: For people to, you know, sort of begin production enterprises, and part of that is, 183 \ 00:33:40.640 --> 00:33:47.910 \ Sandor Katz: you know, being reasonable in the regulatory requirements. 184 \ 00:33:49.180 --> 00:34:01.880 \ Sandor Katz: I guess I will stop with that, and, you know, hopefully, some of you have, have, have, have, have curiosities and, you know, things you'd, you'd like to ask me to address. 185 \ 00:34:02.770 --> 00:34:27.579 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: That was fascinating. I must say, we spend a lot of time on these forums talking about biodiversity and biodiversification, net gain, net gain, and biodiversity net gain. And it's the first time I ever had suggested to me that, biodiversity is going on inside my body, so it's… that was very refreshing. Thank you very much. 186 \ 00:34:27.580 --> 00:34:31.270 \ Sandor Katz: Well, and let me just say one further thing about that, which is that 187 \ 00:34:31.830 --> 00:34:53.840 \ Sandor Katz: I mean, I don't think historically, you know, I mean, nobody really ever had to think about that. You know, and the same is just as true of, you know, a cow or a rabbit, and obviously they're not thinking about that. But, you know, sort of two factors more than anything else, you know, have caused 188 \ 00:34:53.840 --> 00:35:15.290 \ Sandor Katz: a diminishment of biodiversity in our bodies. And number one is chemical exposure, the most obvious being antibiotic drugs, but, you know, really, really many others, you know, agrochemicals, you know, different kinds of chemical exposures have caused a diminished biodiversity in our gut. 189 \ 00:35:15.290 --> 00:35:30.030 \ Sandor Katz: You know, as compared to our ancestors. And then the second is fiber in our diets. Like, with the amount of prepared foods that people are eating, you know, juices with the pulp removed. 190 \ 00:35:30.030 --> 00:35:53.549 \ Sandor Katz: you know, much less root vegetables, you know, we just have less fiber, than, than, than, you know, most people in the past have had. And so, you know, fiber constitutes the food for bacteria, you know, along the entire length of our digestive system, like the, you know, the, the, the… 191 \ 00:35:53.960 --> 00:36:05.379 \ Sandor Katz: the new jargony way to say this is, prebiotics. You know, sort of foods that feed the bacteria in our bodies. And so, you know, you know, we just have 192 \ 00:36:05.550 --> 00:36:15.229 \ Sandor Katz: You know, more reason that we need to diversify the bacteria in our gut, you know, and also eat more fiber. 193 \ 00:36:16.730 --> 00:36:25.860 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, I have a host of other questions, but I see there are some other people lining up, so let's go through them first. Stuart, would you like to press on, please? 194 \ 00:36:25.860 --> 00:36:39.969 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Yeah, I'd just like to say thank you for a very, interesting and entertaining, talk, and I would like to concur with you. I unfortunately have to have a Polish cleaner who regularly makes this for me. 195 \ 00:36:40.270 --> 00:36:45.370 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: You're fermented, cucumbers. Yes. No. 196 \ 00:36:45.780 --> 00:36:55.959 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: But my question, really, I've become increasingly interested in, soils, and obviously growing food. I do a lot of, 197 \ 00:36:56.800 --> 00:36:58.450 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Growing veg at home. 198 \ 00:36:59.150 --> 00:37:06.280 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And I'm becoming increasingly aware of the role of mycorrhizal fungi 199 \ 00:37:06.810 --> 00:37:14.790 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: But also now, there seems to be, as complex as the human microbiome, our plant's microbiome. 200 \ 00:37:14.980 --> 00:37:19.690 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: So, not only the fungi there, the bacteria, the viruses… 201 \ 00:37:20.070 --> 00:37:23.500 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And, I gather studies have shown that, 202 \ 00:37:23.890 --> 00:37:30.260 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: food grown in really good soil with lots of mycorrhizal fungi and bacteria. 203 \ 00:37:30.420 --> 00:37:35.240 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Apart from being better for you, they've actually done taste tests 204 \ 00:37:35.750 --> 00:37:39.900 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And I think it was on, corn, they made bread out of it. 205 \ 00:37:40.020 --> 00:37:42.670 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And testers could actually tell 206 \ 00:37:43.020 --> 00:37:50.869 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: whether this corn had been grown in a soil rich in mycorrhizal fungi, or soil without the mycorrhizal fungi. 207 \ 00:37:51.440 --> 00:37:55.780 \ Sandor Katz: So I'm just a bit concerned about the rise in, 208 \ 00:37:55.780 --> 00:37:58.150 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: urban hydroponic farms. 209 \ 00:37:59.180 --> 00:38:05.949 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Does the hydroponics confer the same benefits as growing it in good, natural soil? 210 \ 00:38:07.110 --> 00:38:10.570 \ Sandor Katz: I would say probably not. 211 \ 00:38:10.650 --> 00:38:22.690 \ Sandor Katz: But, you know, I mean, I'm certainly not… I'm not an expert in that. You know, what I can tell you is that there's a broad consensus among, you know, botanists and microbi… 212 \ 00:38:22.690 --> 00:38:33.149 \ Sandor Katz: biologists, that, you know, every plant growing out of soil on planet Earth is host to lactic acid bacteria. 213 \ 00:38:33.560 --> 00:38:43.320 \ Sandor Katz: And the same is not necessarily true of hydroponics, unless… It has specifically been introduced. 214 \ 00:38:44.860 --> 00:39:09.110 \ Sandor Katz: So, I mean, you know, that's my small window onto this larger question, but I would say that, no. I mean, you know, hydroponics, you know, fundamentally lacks the, you know, the biodiversity of, of, of, of the soil. Now, I mean, I, you know, to me, that would not be, like, a reason to. 215 \ 00:39:13.570 --> 00:39:36.509 \ Sandor Katz: you know, be against, hydroponic agriculture. It's just saying, like, hydroponic agriculture alone really cannot fully sustain us. Yeah, you know, it can certainly supplement, and maybe, you know, enable us to be able to grow food in places where we would not otherwise be able to. 216 \ 00:39:36.510 --> 00:39:52.529 \ Sandor Katz: But, I mean, I think it has to just be viewed as, you know, a little bit of extra, like, that needs to be on top of a base of, food grown in, you know, the more, traditional, you know, out-of-the-soil way. 217 \ 00:39:53.580 --> 00:39:54.640 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Okay, thank you. 218 \ 00:39:56.530 --> 00:39:57.760 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Amanda, please. 219 \ 00:39:58.240 --> 00:40:09.320 \ Amanda Davis: Hello! My profuse apologies and regret that my, laptop wouldn't let me in. So, I arrived, just as you said, so I'll leave it there. 220 \ 00:40:10.540 --> 00:40:27.049 \ Amanda Davis: So, I am so grateful that these sessions are recorded, because I was so looking forward to today's session. I… I'm a complete convert, if convert is the right word, away from, 221 \ 00:40:27.370 --> 00:40:29.800 \ Amanda Davis: High… highly processed food. 222 \ 00:40:29.980 --> 00:40:37.339 \ Amanda Davis: I can only guess what you've been speaking about, but, I've been involved with Zoe and Tim Spector's group. 223 \ 00:40:37.680 --> 00:40:47.419 \ Amanda Davis: gut health are from a scientific, academic, and NHS, foot in both camps, and my professional background is as a health economist. 224 \ 00:40:47.420 --> 00:41:00.910 \ Amanda Davis: so trained to, understand what is good research and what isn't, and what could be, cost-effective for our NHS, for our country. But also, what is good for us as individuals. 225 \ 00:41:01.110 --> 00:41:03.969 \ Amanda Davis: And I've had cancer twice. 226 \ 00:41:04.120 --> 00:41:21.130 \ Amanda Davis: So, not only have I had all manner of chemical exposure, but internally, my gut and my own microbe, if you like, biodiversity, has been completely shot, never mind antibiotics. I mean, this is about the worst thing you can do to a body. 227 \ 00:41:21.190 --> 00:41:27.020 \ Amanda Davis: And I'm still here, so I'm trying to resolve all of my… 228 \ 00:41:27.510 --> 00:41:45.519 \ Amanda Davis: what my body is… the state it's now in, and recover it. And, so I… and I have a good friend in Jennifer who's a friend to this program, this group, who's a water specialist, but she's helped me with, fermentation. 229 \ 00:41:45.590 --> 00:41:54.789 \ Amanda Davis: Whether it's seeds, or it's all the different bits and pieces that one can start… let's call them starters, for want of a better word. 230 \ 00:41:54.890 --> 00:42:00.560 \ Amanda Davis: And I was also blessed with a new neighbor a couple of months ago who's a Chinese specialist on mushrooms. 231 \ 00:42:01.010 --> 00:42:13.379 \ Amanda Davis: And, how mushroom, production, and how to keep it in its natural state, and yet spread it as widely as possible for all the benefits of human health. 232 \ 00:42:13.710 --> 00:42:16.410 \ Amanda Davis: And whilst being kind to the planet. 233 \ 00:42:16.810 --> 00:42:30.690 \ Amanda Davis: So, those were my reasons for wanting to come and to, you know, curiosity. And also, I don't mind sharing with anybody who's going to listen to the playback on this that, I am a druid in my Outlook. 234 \ 00:42:30.900 --> 00:42:34.010 \ Amanda Davis: So, a great believer that the Earth 235 \ 00:42:34.430 --> 00:42:49.450 \ Amanda Davis: We don't need to try and recreate how clever the Earth is. It does what, naturally, it does best, because it's like survival of the fittest, and whatever you want to believe as far as the Earth looking out for us, and itself. 236 \ 00:42:49.930 --> 00:42:53.979 \ Amanda Davis: And, you know, if it does it, why don't we try to recreate it? 237 \ 00:42:54.240 --> 00:42:55.830 \ Amanda Davis: Just let it do it! 238 \ 00:42:55.910 --> 00:43:15.830 \ Amanda Davis: So I, any reflections that you might have to turn this into a question on how somebody recovering from two lifetime doses worth of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, all the other things that, can go wrong with the gut? I definitely feel that my gut is very different to what it was before treatment. 239 \ 00:43:15.830 --> 00:43:18.720 \ Amanda Davis: And it's been 5 years now that I've been trying to… 240 \ 00:43:19.010 --> 00:43:20.930 \ Amanda Davis: Get it back to what it was. 241 \ 00:43:21.990 --> 00:43:22.710 \ Amanda Davis: It's not a. 242 \ 00:43:22.710 --> 00:43:23.150 \ Sandor Katz: Well, I'm. 243 \ 00:43:23.150 --> 00:43:26.889 \ Amanda Davis: It's not a medical question I'm asking you, it's purely from a… 244 \ 00:43:26.890 --> 00:43:29.070 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah, no, no, I understand. 245 \ 00:43:29.190 --> 00:43:47.709 \ Sandor Katz: So, I mean, what I can tell you is I have done, you know, a handful of workshops over the years, with cancer survivor groups. You know, groups of people in exactly the same situation that you are, who, you know, have survived, but, 246 \ 00:43:47.710 --> 00:43:55.490 \ Sandor Katz: You know, with new problems, you know, caused by the… the treatments that they received. And, 247 \ 00:43:55.490 --> 00:44:03.819 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I think a lot of people find that incorporating live fermented foods into 248 \ 00:44:03.820 --> 00:44:22.989 \ Sandor Katz: you know, the diet can, you know, improve gut function in different ways. You know, and then the other, you know, then the other related issue is the ways in which, you know, you know, eating bacteria-rich foods by 249 \ 00:44:23.700 --> 00:44:35.209 \ Sandor Katz: Increasing biodiversity in the gut can also help overall immune function, and a lot of people have, like, you know, come out of that with some kind of suppressed immunity. 250 \ 00:44:35.210 --> 00:44:46.259 \ Sandor Katz: So, you know, I'm definitely not a medical professional, but I like to share information about how to make these foods with people, and I know that, you know, some people in your situation have found these foods helpful. 251 \ 00:44:46.260 --> 00:44:54.160 \ Sandor Katz: Let me also just say that, like, I have, you know, encountered, you know, more than a few people who are 252 \ 00:44:54.160 --> 00:45:13.079 \ Sandor Katz: promoting various fermented foods on the basis of health claims that I would consider to be unsubstantiated. So, you know, for instance, like, you know, there are known to be these compounds called isothiocyanates that develop in fermented vegetables, which 253 \ 00:45:13.080 --> 00:45:20.869 \ Sandor Katz: You know, may in some regard be considered anti-carcinogenic, preventing the kinds of mutations that can lead to 254 \ 00:45:20.870 --> 00:45:43.840 \ Sandor Katz: to cancers, and then some people have extrapolated from that, that, like, eating sauerkraut is a treatment for cancer. I mean, I would never, ever recommend to anyone that, you know, if they're facing a cancer diagnosis, all they need to do is eat a lot of sauerkraut, although I have met people who are convinced that they cured their cancer by 255 \ 00:45:43.840 --> 00:46:03.219 \ Sandor Katz: eating fermented vegetables. So, I mean, I think we have to regard these things as, you know, supplemental, that have the potential to improve digestion, improve immune function. They're generally not, like, the answer to a huge health challenge. 256 \ 00:46:06.820 --> 00:46:29.720 \ Sandor Katz: You know, and then more broadly, I mean, I think, you know, the move away from processed foods, I mean, you know, not only for people, you know, facing huge, health challenges, but, you know, maybe even more so for people who haven't yet, but, you know, just moving towards, you know, more, more, a more wholesome. 257 \ 00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:47.209 \ Sandor Katz: a whole foods diet, rather than these, you know, sort of foods, you know, made in a laboratory that, you know, have, you know, fragmented parts of so many different things with so many, you know, synthesized chemicals added to them. 258 \ 00:46:47.210 --> 00:46:51.589 \ Sandor Katz: So yeah, I mean, I'm a real proponent of, you know, 259 \ 00:46:51.590 --> 00:47:11.169 \ Sandor Katz: a simpler, you know, simpler diet, and I think that, you know, they just serve our well-being better, and even further than that. I mean, I would say I'm a proponent of trying to, you know, move away from centralized food production and global. 260 \ 00:47:11.170 --> 00:47:27.579 \ Sandor Katz: global food distribution and really reinvigorating local and regional food production, and I think that they really, you know, go together. And I don't say that as someone who's, like, dogmatically opposed to 261 \ 00:47:27.580 --> 00:47:38.369 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I mean, I love to eat oranges, and I love to eat bananas. I mean, I think… I don't think it's wrong to eat things that come from far away, but I think what creates huge, 262 \ 00:47:38.370 --> 00:47:52.440 \ Sandor Katz: vulnerabilities is, you know, when we have a society that is so completely dependent on food resources that, you know, come from such faraway places, and it just makes everybody more vulnerable 263 \ 00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:56.639 \ Sandor Katz: To, you know, any kind of disruptions, whether it's, you know, 264 \ 00:47:57.160 --> 00:48:10.620 \ Sandor Katz: pandemic, like, like, COVID, or, you know, whether it's, you know, war, tariffs, political violence, you know, I think that, 265 \ 00:48:10.620 --> 00:48:21.279 \ Sandor Katz: You know, everybody is in a more secure, less vulnerable position when, you know, more of our food is being produced locally and regionally. 266 \ 00:48:23.010 --> 00:48:29.090 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Fantastic. I've got a bunch of questions for you, Sandra, so let me move on to David, so that he isn't waiting forever. 267 \ 00:48:30.220 --> 00:48:31.709 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It's all yours, David. 268 \ 00:48:31.850 --> 00:48:32.910 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Yes. 269 \ 00:48:35.960 --> 00:48:43.449 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): I wanted to ask about… Fermenting industrial chemicals, not food. 270 \ 00:48:43.900 --> 00:48:52.459 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): I actually visited a… I was doing a PhD in youth suicane byproducts, and I visited a place in… 271 \ 00:48:52.460 --> 00:49:04.709 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Egypt, where they made acetone and butanol by fermenting molasses, using the process they do in Russia for, based on potatoes. 272 \ 00:49:05.490 --> 00:49:12.529 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): It's actually part… it used to be, before the rise of the petrochemical industry. 273 \ 00:49:12.590 --> 00:49:23.769 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): mostly after the Second World War, pretty well everything came from nature. In fact, Egon Glesinger, who's spent his time preventing the 274 \ 00:49:23.770 --> 00:49:32.839 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Nazis taking over all the woods in Europe, after the war, wrote a book called The Coming Age of Wood, of how everything we wanted 275 \ 00:49:32.840 --> 00:49:43.830 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Be it food, chemicals, whatever, could be synthesized from wood and natural products, some of them by fermentation, other by other things, like, 276 \ 00:49:44.380 --> 00:49:50.260 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): So, I was wondering what else we can get by fermentation. 277 \ 00:49:50.450 --> 00:49:51.870 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Apart from food. 278 \ 00:49:53.860 --> 00:50:15.769 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah, I mean, I couldn't really speak to the full extent of that. I can tell you that, like, a huge number of pharmaceutical products are made by fermentation, generally by bacteria that have been genetically engineered to create specific chemical byproducts. 279 \ 00:50:16.560 --> 00:50:27.060 \ Sandor Katz: you know, and I, I, I, I, I would assume, you know, all, all, all kinds of, chemicals are. 280 \ 00:50:27.060 --> 00:50:40.840 \ Sandor Katz: can be produced in ways like that, but I don't know much about that. I mean, you know, I have no formal background in this. You know, I'm certainly not a microbiologist or a food scientist. I… 281 \ 00:50:40.840 --> 00:50:50.479 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I've… you know, I got interested in this from my garden, I've, you know, I've been obsessed, but mostly with the food aspects of it, and I don't… 282 \ 00:50:50.480 --> 00:51:02.880 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I don't know that much about, you know, the full range of industrial applications of fermentation, except to know that they are, they are many and varied. 283 \ 00:51:03.320 --> 00:51:18.760 \ Sandor Katz: And then I would say, you know, the one other thing I would add is, like, you know, the effort, you know, when there have been oil spills, in the end, it's, you know, it's applying bacteria to break down the oil that is what is able to break it down, and I think that a lot of the… 284 \ 00:51:18.760 --> 00:51:29.900 \ Sandor Katz: You know, you know, environmental catastrophes that we've had, you know, bacteria, you know, like, offer the 285 \ 00:51:29.900 --> 00:51:33.549 \ Sandor Katz: You know, the best solutions that we've come up with. 286 \ 00:51:34.440 --> 00:51:36.670 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: It's huge bounce. 287 \ 00:51:36.870 --> 00:51:38.639 \ Sandor Katz: Sewage plants, yeah, yeah, sure. 288 \ 00:51:38.970 --> 00:51:43.130 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: So I have a couple of questions for you that I hope are pertinent to 289 \ 00:51:43.320 --> 00:52:06.320 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: councillors generally, Sandor, because I felt that the first 30 minutes of your chat were a wonderful education that we could use at council level to, exactly as you say, demystify and perhaps take away some of the dire feelings that people have about bacteria. And I loved your idea of 290 \ 00:52:07.180 --> 00:52:24.450 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: converting milk to cheese was taking one of the most perishable foodstuffs that we've got and changing it to something that's really long-lasting, as well as being safe and nutritious. So, I think we all have a sort of a duty or a desire to educate locally, to, help 291 \ 00:52:24.450 --> 00:52:30.140 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: the local food presentation or production that you're advocating, because I think… 292 \ 00:52:30.720 --> 00:52:46.910 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: over here on the same ballpark of thinking. So, I just wanted to check that… would you be okay with us using your video of you as a local guide? Because I think it was fabulous at helping people understand, actually, what 293 \ 00:52:46.970 --> 00:52:51.110 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: your offering, or the process for fermentation is offering. 294 \ 00:52:51.740 --> 00:53:14.100 \ Sandor Katz: Yes, I mean, absolutely, I'm happy for you to, you know, use the recording of my presentation today, and if you look at my website, which is wildfermentation.com, if you go to the page called Media Links, I mean, I just list, you know, sort of hundreds, many of them are just articles, but many of them are videos of earlier presentations that I've done. 295 \ 00:53:14.540 --> 00:53:32.179 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Perfect, because I do think that you've done us a great favor by going into what can be done, and I think that the more we generate more food locally as part of our resilience and sustainability programs, the more fermentation is going to play a major part. 296 \ 00:53:32.680 --> 00:53:40.960 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And I do think he did a lovely job of educating us, so thank you for that. Let me pass you over to Amanda, please. 297 \ 00:53:41.800 --> 00:53:49.520 \ Amanda Davis: Yes, only if everybody else has had to go number one first. Then I'll be greedy and have my second attempt. 298 \ 00:53:50.830 --> 00:53:58.309 \ Amanda Davis: I would like to draw everybody's attention, if you're not already, and if she's not on the call, to one of our councillors in Stroud. 299 \ 00:53:58.700 --> 00:54:11.300 \ Amanda Davis: Who is working… I'm fairly sure it's Stroud, now I've said that, not Forrest, of Dean, but it's here in Gloucestershire anyway, who was rather taken by the idea of all the doggy-do 300 \ 00:54:11.590 --> 00:54:13.609 \ Amanda Davis: So we have that much poop. 301 \ 00:54:13.650 --> 00:54:26.809 \ Amanda Davis: that gets collected, and what happens to it, and could something more useful be done with it? And all the whole idea about how do we break down undesirable into something that could be really positive and useful. 302 \ 00:54:26.810 --> 00:54:42.110 \ Amanda Davis: And I'm very aware that my gut appears to be much better since I've started fostering guide dogs and having animals in the house. Now, I'm not suggesting anything untoward here. I'm simply saying that she's managed to find quite a good way using wormeries. 303 \ 00:54:42.260 --> 00:54:44.600 \ Amanda Davis: to, to… 304 \ 00:54:44.890 --> 00:54:59.100 \ Amanda Davis: convert something that is regarded as waste and a problem into something that's useful, and healthy, and reduces a problem. So, I'm just wondering whether fermentation, accepting that I've missed your presentation. 305 \ 00:54:59.250 --> 00:55:09.090 \ Amanda Davis: But, is there something that fermentation might help us with the undesirables converting them into something useful? 306 \ 00:55:09.920 --> 00:55:10.440 \ Amanda Davis: No. 307 \ 00:55:10.440 --> 00:55:27.400 \ Sandor Katz: Well, I mean, basically, you know, the reason why, you know, the Earth isn't just a pile of excrement, of, you know, dogs, every other animal, humans, is because it breaks down so readily. And so, 308 \ 00:55:27.520 --> 00:55:37.490 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I mean, as Graham just mentioned, you know, sewage treatment. That's all based on bacteria. but, 309 \ 00:55:38.160 --> 00:55:49.760 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I think, you know, any kind of animal excrement, I mean, nobody really talks about dog poop as, you know, as full of fertility as, say, cow poop. 310 \ 00:55:49.760 --> 00:56:01.180 \ Sandor Katz: You know, but it will break down. And, you know, you know, composting the microbial breakdown of organic matter. 311 \ 00:56:01.180 --> 00:56:15.069 \ Sandor Katz: you know, is basically based on mixing different kinds of things together. So if you just made a giant mountain of dog poop, it would be very, very slow to break down, but if you mixed it 312 \ 00:56:15.070 --> 00:56:38.939 \ Sandor Katz: If you mix that with, you know, various, you know, dead leaves and, you know, fallen leaves and dead plants, it would, it would break down quite readily, and just sort of, you know, disappear and, you know, potentially be a source of, soil fertility. 313 \ 00:56:39.250 --> 00:56:44.369 \ Sandor Katz: But I think that, you know, the… you know, I mean, his… 314 \ 00:56:44.570 --> 00:57:00.509 \ Sandor Katz: historically, there hasn't really been the concept of waste that we have now. You know, like, you know, everything, you know, everything just recycles back into the earth, and it's really, you know, quite, quite, quite elegant. 315 \ 00:57:02.920 --> 00:57:10.940 \ Amanda Davis: Because what I was thinking of from the perspective of this particular councillor's inspiration to our council… 316 \ 00:57:10.940 --> 00:57:19.059 \ Sandor Katz: Or is one of, instead of seeing waste as something you've got to manage away and out of your environment, and then becomes a problem. 317 \ 00:57:19.140 --> 00:57:29.519 \ Amanda Davis: Can we do more at parish and town council level to have a circular economy in waste? In other words, produce something useful at a parish council level. 318 \ 00:57:29.520 --> 00:57:42.470 \ Amanda Davis: that our community can then benefit from. So, not just composting, but whether it needs to be wormery, whether there needs to be tests done to check that all the nasties that are in dog poop are not there when you've finished your processing. 319 \ 00:57:42.470 --> 00:57:46.870 \ Amanda Davis: You know, that whole thing of how do we make it easy for people? 320 \ 00:57:47.120 --> 00:57:50.850 \ Amanda Davis: To, to have that circular waist… 321 \ 00:57:51.270 --> 00:58:03.019 \ Amanda Davis: management in such a way that we all can learn from it easily, and it's kind of like in a kit, a do-it-yourself, you know, take away all the… maybe you still need the red dog 322 \ 00:58:03.020 --> 00:58:16.449 \ Amanda Davis: Poop bins. But it's the parish that collects instead of district having to send out vehicles that have to travel a long way, and then the incinerators, and all the other stuff that is just unnecessary if you put your worms to it. 323 \ 00:58:17.630 --> 00:58:35.809 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah. I mean, you know, what I would say is that it's a lot more practical at some sort of collective level than at the individual level. And with composting, the reason is that once you reach a certain critical mass, you generate a lot of heat. 324 \ 00:58:36.080 --> 00:58:48.910 \ Sandor Katz: If you have a tiny little compost pile at home, not necessarily, but the larger the mass of it, the more heat you will generate, and heat is the key to making it safe. 325 \ 00:58:49.190 --> 00:58:51.410 \ Sandor Katz: Because that's… 326 \ 00:58:51.410 --> 00:58:53.860 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Once it generates heat. 327 \ 00:58:54.500 --> 00:59:00.689 \ Sandor Katz: It will generally kill any of the pathogenic bacteria that might be present in it. 328 \ 00:59:00.690 --> 00:59:19.649 \ Sandor Katz: So, I mean, the collective level could really be, you know, sort of quite limited and small, but it's the accumulation that, you know, sort of enables the process to be so effective. 329 \ 00:59:22.940 --> 00:59:24.030 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Okay. 330 \ 00:59:24.030 --> 00:59:42.669 \ Amanda Davis: for another quick question, Graeme, which is simply, if I may, does that mean that, in your opinion, the size at a parish and Town Council level would be too small to generate that heat, or is it a question that, actually, just leave it as it is, because when all that poop gets collected from a whole district. 331 \ 00:59:42.670 --> 00:59:44.879 \ Amanda Davis: That's the sort of scale that we need. 332 \ 00:59:45.190 --> 00:59:51.190 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Parishes, you should say, Amanda, sorry to interrupt, something between 2,000 and 5,000 residents, you know. 333 \ 00:59:51.800 --> 00:59:52.470 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Nope. 334 \ 00:59:53.270 --> 00:59:55.699 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: So, a certain number of dogs. 335 \ 00:59:55.700 --> 01:00:14.479 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah, I mean, I think the key is, it can't just be the dog excrement. It needs to be mixed with other things in order to, you know, sort of generate that heat and effectively break down. 336 \ 01:00:14.480 --> 01:00:22.639 \ Amanda Davis: Perfect. So keep going with the composting, and include, animal pet excrement within that. 337 \ 01:00:23.210 --> 01:00:23.680 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah. 338 \ 01:00:23.680 --> 01:00:27.429 \ Amanda Davis: Have it of scale. Thank you very much, thank you, that's really helpful. 339 \ 01:00:28.730 --> 01:00:33.389 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Coming back to an earlier question, Sandor, you were… 340 \ 01:00:33.520 --> 01:00:40.750 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Suggesting how fermentation can help your microbiome recover after cancer treatment. 341 \ 01:00:40.980 --> 01:00:49.570 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: What sort of timescale are we looking to affect these changes after you've wiped out virtually everything with radiation and chemicals? 342 \ 01:00:50.650 --> 01:00:53.340 \ Sandor Katz: Well, okay. I mean, I… 343 \ 01:00:53.340 --> 01:01:11.549 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I am not a practitioner. I can't give people, I can't really give you, give anyone a timeline. What I can offer is anecdotal reports, and I can say, like, you know, in, you know, my career as a fermentation educator, I have heard 344 \ 01:01:11.600 --> 01:01:31.159 \ Sandor Katz: Many hundreds of people tell me that, you know, when they began introducing live fermented foods into their diet, whatever kind of chronic digestive problems that they were having started improving. 345 \ 01:01:31.510 --> 01:01:48.409 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I have heard people who say, I've never eaten foods like this, you know, when I first ate them, I had a lot of gas, I had some kind of digestive disruption, but then more often I've heard the story, but I kept on eating a little bit, and everything started to get better. 346 \ 01:01:48.460 --> 01:01:59.390 \ Sandor Katz: So, you know, I would say it's not about a singular food, it's not… I'm not saying, like, oh, you have to eat sauerkraut. It's about diversity. 347 \ 01:01:59.390 --> 01:02:24.159 \ Sandor Katz: Eating a variety of different kinds of live fermented foods, eating some yogurt, eating some sauerkraut, eating some kimchi. You know, it's about the variety. It's not about eating a lot, you know, people, you know, people sometimes imagine, you know, that I'm talking about, you know, eating a big plate full of sauerkraut. 348 \ 01:02:24.160 --> 01:02:27.770 \ Sandor Katz: It's about trying to eat a little bit Frequently. 349 \ 01:02:27.770 --> 01:02:51.240 \ Sandor Katz: And with some variety. And I can't give… I can't give you a timeline. I mean, you know, part of the problem is, you know, everybody's body is… is different. And, you know, the… the problems that people… and I wouldn't recommend this specifically just for people who are recovering from chemotherapy. I mean, I think that 350 \ 01:02:51.240 --> 01:02:56.920 \ Sandor Katz: You know, almost everybody can benefit from improved digestion. 351 \ 01:02:56.940 --> 01:03:21.149 \ Sandor Katz: You know, we live in a society where, you know, vast, vast, vast numbers of people experience constipation. Some people experience more serious disruptions, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease. And I'm not saying that fermented vegetables are just the cure-all for all of these things, but… 352 \ 01:03:21.150 --> 01:03:44.320 \ Sandor Katz: You know, so consistently through the years, I've heard feedback from people that their digestion seemed to improve as a result of incorporating these kinds of foods, but I can't say 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, you know, everybody's, you know, everybody's different, and the… 353 \ 01:03:44.320 --> 01:04:09.319 \ Sandor Katz: condition that people are beginning with is always different. There's nobody, nobody who's had chemotherapy, nobody who's taken antibiotic drugs for years, nobody's starting with zero bacteria in their gut, because it would just be utterly impossible for us to survive with zero bacteria in our gut. But, you know, all of these kinds of processes, you know. 354 \ 01:04:09.320 --> 01:04:13.689 \ Sandor Katz: You know, have the result of diminishing biodiversity. 355 \ 01:04:13.690 --> 01:04:29.849 \ Sandor Katz: So, you know, just, you know, strategies for improving biodiversity are a great way to go, and this is not the only one. I mean, there's certainly more radical ways people do this. You know, there are, 356 \ 01:04:30.190 --> 01:04:54.970 \ Sandor Katz: you know, basically like, you know, suppositories, you know, microbiome suppositories that people sometimes take to, you know, try to dramatically improve, gut biodiversity. But this is an extremely accessible one, you know, where you don't need, you know, you don't need, you know, to go to a doctor, because these are, these are just incredible. 357 \ 01:04:54.970 --> 01:05:04.040 \ Sandor Katz: incredibly safe foods that are more and more widely available. I mean, the first time I taught in the UK, which was probably 2007 or 8, 358 \ 01:05:04.040 --> 01:05:21.549 \ Sandor Katz: I mean, I couldn't find live fermented vegetables anywhere. But now, you know, my more recent visits, I mean, they're really, I mean, I wouldn't say that they're everywhere, but they're really, like, quite available if you seek them out. And then, you know, beyond that, you know, this… 359 \ 01:05:22.090 --> 01:05:42.899 \ Sandor Katz: you know, making a jar of fermented vegetables is, you know, I can tell you in 30 seconds how you do it. Like, you chop vegetables, you create surface area, there's no single way to do it. You can do it finely, you can do it coarsely, whatever you like. You salt them, there's no magic number. A lot of people throw around 2% salt, that's 360 \ 01:05:42.900 --> 01:06:07.879 \ Sandor Katz: perfectly fine, but, you know, personally, I prefer lower salt. I probably do, like, 1.25% salt, but I don't measure it, I just lightly salt it, mix it all up, taste it. You know, it's just like anything else. Like, you just salt it to taste, and we don't all have the same taste for salt. Then you can add other kinds of seasonings as you wish. You know, I love caraway seeds, you know, sometimes I make kimchi and I have 361 \ 01:06:07.880 --> 01:06:29.939 \ Sandor Katz: I put chilis and ginger in there. I've had some beautiful curry krauts. Some people like dill. You can keep it really plain. You know, the only limitation is our imagination. And then you mix up the salt and the seasonings with the vegetables. I like to spend, like, a few minutes just squeezing the vegetables with my hands, and what this does is 362 \ 01:06:30.080 --> 01:06:36.430 \ Sandor Katz: You know, the salt starts drawing water out of the vegetables, and then squeezing them 363 \ 01:06:37.080 --> 01:06:46.940 \ Sandor Katz: Squeezing them, basically breaks down cell walls and helps them release more juice more quickly, and the key is simply getting the vegetables submerged, and so then you just take a jar. 364 \ 01:06:46.940 --> 01:07:00.979 \ Sandor Katz: You know, any kind of a jar. A wide-mouthed jar is easier to deal with than a narrow-neck jar, but whatever, you can work with any kind of jar. And then you just force the vegetables in there until they're submerged under their own juices. 365 \ 01:07:01.210 --> 01:07:04.830 \ Sandor Katz: And then you just wait, and then… There's no… 366 \ 01:07:06.270 --> 01:07:31.240 \ Sandor Katz: fixed length of time. You know, one variable would be temperature. If you make it, like, in a summer heat wave, it's… everything's gonna go much faster. If your kitchen is cool, or if you have a cellar that stays the temperature of the earth, the process goes very, very slowly, and you can really potentially preserve the vegetables for many months. I mean, you know, this was made in October. 367 \ 01:07:31.240 --> 01:07:47.370 \ Sandor Katz: This has never been in the refrigerator. I have a cellar under my house with a big, with, oh yeah, okay, you've got one there. So, but you don't have to wait for months. Like, you know, you… I mean, I generally recommend people wait, like, 4 or 5 days, and then taste it. 368 \ 01:07:47.370 --> 01:08:06.270 \ Sandor Katz: And then press the vegetables back down under the juice, and then give it another 4 or 5 days. Taste it again. The acidity builds over time. So, it turns out that many people who have not been eating these foods their entire lives prefer a milder version that's not as acidic. 369 \ 01:08:06.270 --> 01:08:11.920 \ Sandor Katz: That's… that's easier, that's faster. That, you know, that might take a week or something. 370 \ 01:08:12.160 --> 01:08:18.369 \ Sandor Katz: If you let it go longer, it develops a more pronounced acidity. 371 \ 01:08:18.450 --> 01:08:37.349 \ Sandor Katz: And, you know, really, if we're thinking about biodiversity, you know, because it turns out it's a successional process where you get different bacterial strains coming into dominance at different stages in the process, if you eat it at different stages of its development, it develops greater biodiversity. 372 \ 01:08:37.350 --> 01:08:41.600 \ Sandor Katz: But it's a really straightforward process, especially with vegetables. 373 \ 01:08:42.100 --> 01:08:59.639 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Well, I'm delighted you gave us that. Thank you very much, Sandor. There is a quite fascinating television program going on in the UK at the moment called What Not to Eat, and that's alarmingly horrifying and alarmingly, or rather, supportively reassuring at the same time, where 374 \ 01:08:59.640 --> 01:09:16.789 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: They're basically stating that more than 50% of the UK's natural diet is ultra-processed foods, and they want us to change that. But it's intriguing to me that none of the solutions that they've put forward, which do seem to make a big difference to the control 375 \ 01:09:17.250 --> 01:09:28.259 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: victims that they're trying it out on has suggested fermented foods. It's obviously behind the times. But anyway, let's go on to Stuart, please. 376 \ 01:09:28.600 --> 01:09:47.479 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: Well, I was just very quickly going to say, or tell Amanda that, human waste has been collected for many, many years. I think the British military were doing it to extract urea nitrogen to make explosives with. 377 \ 01:09:47.580 --> 01:10:01.299 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: The Japanese have been doing it for a long, long time, going around… there's somebody actually paid to go around and collect, night soil, which they then compost and spread on the farmland. 378 \ 01:10:01.460 --> 01:10:17.950 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And I do think we've taken a retrograde move by abandoning these things. I think there's a huge amount of natural resources. We're just wasting in water treatment plants and then pumping it into the ocean. 379 \ 01:10:18.220 --> 01:10:22.839 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: We will be conserving it and using it on our own land. 380 \ 01:10:24.130 --> 01:10:30.759 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: The Koreans famously do that. They spread the human feces as fertilizer. 381 \ 01:10:30.760 --> 01:10:33.270 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: They might well do, I don't know. 382 \ 01:10:33.270 --> 01:10:35.370 \ Amanda Davis: Graham, we do it here in Borton. 383 \ 01:10:35.670 --> 01:10:53.330 \ Amanda Davis: There you go. There you go. There's a big tank in the field by the, just off the Fosway, there's a lay-by, and the tankers are repeatedly in there with their hoses, putting it into this big container in the field, and then the farms from around here just help themselves to it. 384 \ 01:10:53.330 --> 01:11:01.699 \ Amanda Davis: But, as I put in the chat, it's the PFAS and the microplastics and the human waste that's the problem. If we put that out on the soil, we've got problems. 385 \ 01:11:01.970 --> 01:11:04.710 \ Cllr.Stuart Withington, Gt Dunmow TC, Essex: And all the drugs and stuff like that in them. 386 \ 01:11:05.610 --> 01:11:06.480 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes. 387 \ 01:11:06.720 --> 01:11:08.220 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: TV, please, what's a… 388 \ 01:11:10.490 --> 01:11:13.390 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Yes. 389 \ 01:11:13.670 --> 01:11:18.349 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Just, if you're thinking of things at parish council level. 390 \ 01:11:18.660 --> 01:11:23.840 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): speak to some of the farmers. They may already have a biogas digester. 391 \ 01:11:24.000 --> 01:11:27.230 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Which can take… the excrement… 392 \ 01:11:27.230 --> 01:11:27.840 \ Sandor Katz: Hmm. 393 \ 01:11:27.940 --> 01:11:28.710 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): and… 394 \ 01:11:30.050 --> 01:11:40.460 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Waterweeds. I actually do a research project on how much energy we could get from aquatic plants. Seaweed, if you live near the coast. And… 395 \ 01:11:41.020 --> 01:11:53.989 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): Ideally, first in a biogas digester, so you get some methane, and then into a compost heap. And by that time, you'll actually have reduced the risks of spreading it a fair bit. 396 \ 01:11:55.810 --> 01:11:57.580 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Splendid, thank you. Yeah. 397 \ 01:11:57.580 --> 01:12:02.960 \ David Newman (Blackbird Leys): And I was going to ask Sander, what's your favorite kind of beer? Completely wild yeast? 398 \ 01:12:02.960 --> 01:12:11.110 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah, yeah, sure, I mean, I love, I mean, I love, you know, 399 \ 01:12:11.210 --> 01:12:25.730 \ Sandor Katz: I mean, I love those, like, you know, wild, wild ales and, you know, sour beers, like the Belgian-style ones. I love Saison's, but I love all beer. I mean, I have yet to meet a beer or ale that I didn't like. 400 \ 01:12:25.860 --> 01:12:32.600 \ Sandor Katz: you know, I have, I have very, a wide-ranging, taste in beer. 401 \ 01:12:34.610 --> 01:12:36.200 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Including alcohol-free. 402 \ 01:12:36.850 --> 01:12:53.749 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yeah, yeah, sure, no, I mean, I've really… I mean, I think that that, I mean, the techniques for that have gotten a lot better. you know, I would say in the… in the 20 years that I've been doing this, the… the dairy-free cheeses have gotten much, much better. 403 \ 01:12:53.750 --> 01:13:10.619 \ Sandor Katz: But, you know, I do, I do enjoy alcohol, I do enjoy dairy, you know, I, I mean, I can admire how, how much the techniques have improved, and still, you know, my favorites are the, the classics. 404 \ 01:13:11.600 --> 01:13:18.710 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Yeah, I think some of the early no-alcohol beers, I think they boiled it to get the alcohol out. Anyway, carry on. 405 \ 01:13:18.710 --> 01:13:42.999 \ Sandor Katz: And then, okay, so Amanda just asked about kombucha. So, sure, I mean, you know, kombucha, I mean, I can see that, you know, in the UK, as in the US, it's kind of exploded in popularity, and, you know, it's another potential source of live bacterial cultures. You know, for myself, I'm, you know, I'm trying to not drink, you know, too much sugary stuff, and… 406 \ 01:13:43.000 --> 01:14:07.370 \ Sandor Katz: you know, kombucha still has sugar, you know, it has, you know, some other good stuff that develops as a result of the fermentation, but, you know, I'm just… I'm personally not interested in, like, everyday consumption of sugary beverages, but I think certainly for people coming off of, like, a soda pop habit, you know, kombucha, you know, is a great sort of transition off of that. 407 \ 01:14:07.370 --> 01:14:11.319 \ Amanda Davis: Are you talking about tinned kombucha, like you buy from the shop, or homemade? 408 \ 01:14:11.730 --> 01:14:13.009 \ Sandor Katz: Either way, I mean. 409 \ 01:14:13.010 --> 01:14:16.180 \ Amanda Davis: Because I don't put so much sugar in, I just do it from black tea. 410 \ 01:14:16.370 --> 01:14:34.309 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, the sugar's what ferments. Yeah. So you need to add some sugar in, and then most people, if you… like, if you ferment it till all the sugar's gone, it's like vinegar. And, you know, kombucha vinegar is wonderful, but, like, you know, most people don't want to drink it like that. 411 \ 01:14:34.450 --> 01:14:44.030 \ Amanda Davis: Most people like it when it's, when it's, you know, got some residual sugar so that it tastes sweet. 412 \ 01:14:45.590 --> 01:15:03.499 \ Sandor Katz: But, and there's, you know, I mean, in the UK, I know there's, there's also people making and selling water kefir, there are, you know, there's a, there's a wonderful, like, you know, Russian, lightly fermented beverage called kvass. 413 \ 01:15:03.630 --> 01:15:10.519 \ Sandor Katz: which, which, which I really love. But, you know, there's really, 414 \ 01:15:10.800 --> 01:15:18.089 \ Sandor Katz: You know, the lightly fermented soft drinks is an area where there's, you know, sort of expansive. 415 \ 01:15:18.090 --> 01:15:41.700 \ Sandor Katz: infinite possibilities. I make this Mexican pineapple beverage, sometimes called tepace, where you basically ferment the pineapple skins in a sugar water solution. I love this Caribbean beverage called Mabi that's made from the bark of a tree that grows 416 \ 01:15:41.700 --> 01:16:04.429 \ Sandor Katz: On many of the islands of the Caribbean, but this idea of these lightly fermented soft drinks in the vein of kombucha is a whole other realm of fermentation. But, you know, maybe I can wrap this up by saying, like, there is nothing that any of us has ever eaten that cannot be fermented. Like, everything can be fermented. 417 \ 01:16:04.480 --> 01:16:22.469 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I have right, right, right here, this is a batter made from lentil, lentils and rice. this is, the, the, the, the batter that will make the, the Indian crepes called dosa. 418 \ 01:16:23.490 --> 01:16:39.629 \ Sandor Katz: But, you know, I mean, anything, you know, like any kind of meat, you know, any kind of grain, any kind of pulse, any kind of vegetable, any kind of fruit, like, anything we can possibly eat. 419 \ 01:16:39.630 --> 01:16:44.759 \ Sandor Katz: Can be fermented, and not just in one single way, in a variety of ways. 420 \ 01:16:44.760 --> 01:16:46.280 \ Sandor Katz: Yeah. 421 \ 01:16:47.250 --> 01:16:50.080 \ Amanda Davis: Graeme, can I ask a wrap-up question? 422 \ 01:16:52.250 --> 01:16:56.520 \ Amanda Davis: Yep, thank you. Okay, quick one. Can you have too much fermented food? 423 \ 01:16:59.850 --> 01:17:00.590 \ Sandor Katz: Sure. 424 \ 01:17:00.670 --> 01:17:19.610 \ Sandor Katz: Sure, I mean, everything in, everything in moderation. I mean, just think if you just… if you just, like, you could eat bread all day and you wouldn't feel very good. You know, you could drink beer all day and you wouldn't feel too good. You could eat cheese all day and you wouldn't feel too good. So, I mean, everything in moderation. There was a guy who wrote a book that I actually… 425 \ 01:17:19.630 --> 01:17:30.750 \ Sandor Katz: didn't read, because I thought it was a terrible idea, but the book was called Fermented Man, and it was this guy documenting his year of eating only fermented foods. 426 \ 01:17:30.750 --> 01:17:47.499 \ Sandor Katz: You know, I just wouldn't recommend that. Like, I just think it's a terrible… I mean, ferment… I mean, fermentation has its place, and it has a huge place, but, you know, who would want to, you know, forego the pleasures of, you know, fresh fruit in the summer and the autumn? 427 \ 01:17:47.500 --> 01:18:00.030 \ Sandor Katz: You know, based on some idea that it's best to ferment everything. So, I mean, I think that, you know, all things, including fermentation, in moderation. 428 \ 01:18:00.690 --> 01:18:01.520 \ Amanda Davis: Thank you. 429 \ 01:18:02.270 --> 01:18:10.379 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Tandor, that was a wonderful presentation. Thank you so much. I think you did a lot to certainly improve my ignorance, and 430 \ 01:18:10.510 --> 01:18:17.229 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Or reduce it, as is a better word. And it was a pleasure to have you on, and thank you so much for getting up early for us. 431 \ 01:18:17.230 --> 01:18:26.289 \ Sandor Katz: Okay, well, it's my pleasure, thank you for having me, thank you for your interest, and for your wonderful questions, and I wish everybody a good day. 432 \ 01:18:26.680 --> 01:18:34.810 \ Sandor Katz: So, Graham, if there is a link where this will be on the internet, if you send it to me, I would post it on my website, if that's appropriate, or… 433 \ 01:18:34.810 --> 01:18:48.200 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yep, you get that automatically, and we've got links to your website here, which will be available to people to look, and hopefully it'll produce vast numbers of book sales for you, so… 434 \ 01:18:48.350 --> 01:19:00.959 \ Sandor Katz: Well, and, you know, please, if any of you are interested or know anyone who might be interested, I do have these, you know, workshops coming up in the UK in May and June. 435 \ 01:19:00.960 --> 01:19:06.660 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Yes, could you… if you could send me those in an email, I'll put them on the website so that everyone can get hold of them. 436 \ 01:19:07.010 --> 01:19:18.610 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: Okay, great. Because then that will spread the word for you. Okay, good. And, next week, I just let people know, because I'm organized to the point where we're going to get a discussion 437 \ 01:19:18.830 --> 01:19:26.250 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: From Lucy Eccles, who is a Community Resilience Officer in Gloucester. 438 \ 01:19:26.470 --> 01:19:41.509 \ Graham Stoddart-Stones - Great Collaboration - Bembridge: And, I'm hoping that she'll help us all improve our resilience. And in the meantime, have a great week. Thank you for coming. The weather here is fantastic, as you'd expect from the Isle of Wight, and I leave you with a lot of sorrow that you aren't all… 439 \ 01:19:41.890 --> 01:19:52.610 \ Amanda Davis: Living here. Bye-bye. Thank you. Graham, I work with Lucy, I thoroughly recommend next week's session. Thank you very much, Amanda, that's great stuff. See you all, take care, bye-bye. 440 \ 01:19:52.610 --> 01:19:53.940 \ Andrew Maliphant Great Collaboration Gloucestershire: Bye-bye. Thanks, Dan. ***
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