After burning out from a double major in biochemistry and linguistics and a year of medical school, Adam Lake took a year off to travel through Central and South America studying permaculture and herbal medicine. In 2008 he returned for his second year of medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia and helped start their alternative medicine interest group. Aside from medicine, Adam is interested in economics, rock climbing, wilderness survival, and all things food related.
After learning of Adam’s adventures with fermentation, I asked him if he would use his medical knowledge and practical experience to write a short article on the medical value of unpasteurized fermented foods. –Didi Pershouse
“Hey Adam!” my roommate Steve calls to me while looking in the fridge. I turn from the pile of dishes built up in the sink from a day or two of bachelor-pad living, and see Steve holding up a half-full container of milk. “Do you think this went bad?” Cautiously I swirl the jug a bit looking for obvious lumps. When nothing awry appears, I take a distanced whiff…but it smells more like sour cream than rancid milk.
“Huh,” I say, glancing over at the several bubbling jars next to the sink, “It’s not really bad…it’s soured instead. You could still drink it.” I take a sip to back up my guess. Nothing thrilling, just sour milk, on its way to becoming yogurt or some new cheese. The common bacteria that would tend to make milk rancid appeared to have been out-competed by tastier lactobacilli , and I suspect the sourdough and lacto-fermenting oat cultures next to the sink are the cause. I make a mental note about that, as this is the first kitchen I’ve lived in with so many fermentation projects going on.
A few months prior, I had run into a book by Sandor Katz called Wild Fermentation, which appealed to me for several reasons. (more…)
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