[HN Gopher] Fermentation and Daily Life (2018)
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Fermentation and Daily Life (2018)
        
       Author : Tomte
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2022-06-25 15:55 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.notechmagazine.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.notechmagazine.com)
        
       | photochemsyn wrote:
       | The article mentions salt only twice, and sort of looks down on
       | canning (aka, pasteurization), but the fact is that before
       | refrigeration and pasteurization, salt was pretty essential for
       | the long-term preseveration of many foodstuffs, from fish and
       | meat to fruits and vegetables. People who try to do fermentations
       | without adding the necessary salt (which allows the
       | lactobaccillus type strains to win the microbial competition) end
       | up with rotting gunk. A lot of online fermentation guides gloss
       | over this, but that's why salt was such a valuable trading
       | commodity in the past.
       | 
       | Another common claim is you shouldn't use iodized salt - this is
       | apparently a myth as this article discusses, and that way you
       | don't get iodine deficiency:
       | 
       | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30166176/
       | 
       | And as far as this line in the article:
       | 
       |  _Stir up to three times a day, preferably with your hands: get
       | those skin microorganisms in there._
       | 
       | I'm going to vote strongly against this mentality, because
       | there's something called the fecal-oral contamination route which
       | modern microbiology has discovered, and which we don't need to
       | encourage. If you want starter culture, go to a store, buy some
       | raw fermented whatever from a reputable supplier, and use a
       | little bit of that instead - while wearing those blue food-
       | service gloves. Come on...
        
         | scns wrote:
         | > Maybe a thin tendril of mold sprouts out from the
         | strawberry's body. At this point, you can still eat it, simply
         | by cutting off the moldy bit.
         | 
         | Nope, you can eat it like fresh Amanita, but you should not.
         | Mold shows on the outside when the mycelium "saturated" the
         | host. Cutting of mold is only fine on hard cheese.
        
         | bravasaurus wrote:
         | Fermented foods have been around for millennia, long before
         | modern microbiology and food hygiene practices.
         | 
         | That tells me the microbial colonies are resilient to any
         | harmful pathogens introduced by getting your dirty hands
         | involved. Isn't that precisely the point?
        
       | carapace wrote:
       | I've come to believe that multicellular life is an art form. What
       | we see as individual organisms in relationship are really
       | extensions or dreams of the unitary cellular mind. We are
       | Solaris.
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_(novel)
       | 
       | - - - -
       | 
       | A fascinating article but there doesn't seem to be any mention of
       | alcohol?
       | 
       | Fermentation is a easy way to create your own fuel. (E.g. see
       | https://www.alcoholcanbeagas.com/ It seems they have updated
       | their website since last I looked.) It's easy, carbon-neutral,
       | etc.
        
         | lmohseni wrote:
         | Fermentation is a great way to create cheap or free fertilizer
         | and garden amendments. Look up the works of yungsang cho or
         | hankyu cho.
        
         | Qem wrote:
         | > Fermentation is a easy way to create your own fuel.
         | 
         | Not that easy. The problem is the crop growing and processing
         | you must do beforehand, to get your feedstock for fermentation.
         | I'm from Brazil. Here we have a large industry built around
         | ethanol production from sugarcane. To this day problems like
         | boiler explosions and people falling in sugarcane crushers are
         | not entirely unheard off, and also poor working conditions in
         | sugarcane fields. Not that easy.
        
           | carapace wrote:
           | Large agri-industrial ethanol production has lots of
           | problems, yes, but small scale local production integrated
           | with regenerative agriculture, as described and promoted in
           | the example link, is a different system. It used to be common
           | for farmers to "grow" their own tractor fuel.
        
       | flobosg wrote:
       | Last year I experimented with fermenting chili peppers after
       | watching the It's Alive video series from Bon Appetit [1]. In
       | particular I would spend time finding and photographing the gas
       | buildup in the jar. A fascinating process overall.
       | 
       | [1]: https://www.bonappetit.com/video/series/it-s-alive-with-brad
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2022-06-25 23:01 UTC)