Hi everyone, I guess I am still in transition. I've been changing my eating habits since May and for the last 2 months have been almost all raw. i'm trying to learn all I can and I'm realizing that everyone has their own ideas of what is truly raw or living food. In a previous post about MSG in Braggs aminos i had asked about miso and it started me thinking about fermented foods.

I see many raw recipes in raw uncook books that call for miso or unpasturized soy sauce (Nama shoyu). The reasoning is that although they are made from cooked food, that they are fermented and therefore have benificial enzymes and bacteria. Also other fermented foods like saurkraut or kimchee and rejuvelac have been altered from their natural state and are supposed to be very healthy. I'm aware of the high sodium content of miso and shoyu and I'm slowly weening myself from that,but are there other benifits from the bacteria produced during fermentation?

I would be very interested to hear everyones opinions about this. Please feel free to rant and rave as I love the amazing collection of diverse opinions on this site.

Aloha and Mahalo, Greg

Fermented foods are a fine transitional food. There are many problems with fermented foods. One is many of them use salt, which is a poison. Then the byproducts of fermentation - alcohol and vingar, are a poison. Also, the foods themselves have lost a lot of their nutritional value (vitamins, minerals, enzymes) from being simply old. If that 4 month old cucumber you were eating weren't fermented, but instead it was just left in the refrigerator, would you be so excited about eating it?

Fermented foods are a digestive stimulant, so if you are eating a diet that is hard to digest, then fermented foods will help with digestion. However, it is possible to have a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables that is easy to digest using food combining principles, or to NOT combine foods at all (mono-eating or mono-meals).

I agree - transition food for some people - but not good for others.....like me. I ate lots of these fermented foods when I was raw a few years ago, but never felt well then quit raw altogether.

This time - raw 8 months - I ate some for the first couple of months before realizing my body can't stand any of them but I didn't get any digestive symptoms, just had to figure it out - fermented isn't very natural.

My personal opinion is that I don't find them as vital as fresh fruits (or veggies). If I found a fermented cabbage in a field vs. an orange tree........I'd have a Florida Natural afternoon (all rights reserved of course).

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com