Super Gut: A Four-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight

by William Davis

You can buy a fermentation kit, but it’s really simple to assemble your own with items you likely already have on hand. The basic ingredients are as follows: • Vegetables: Raw onions, peppers, asparagus, cucumbers, radishes, garlic, carrots, cabbage, green beans, daikon radish, and others—any vegetable can be fermented. Chop the vegetables into bite-sized pieces. Combine vegetables to create unique flavors, for example, asparagus and onions, green beans and garlic. • Herbs and spices: Peppercorns, dill, garlic cloves, coriander seeds, mustard seeds, caraway seeds, rosemary, oregano. Many people also add grape or berry leaves to increase crispiness. • Sea salt or other salt: Use any salt, but not iodized salt (iodine kills microbes). • Water: Use filtered water, spring water, or distilled water, that is, water without chlorine or fluoride. Fermenting vegetables is, like baking or pottery making, an entire world to explore. Basic Fermentation Fill a jar or fermentation vessel with water, then add salt until the water tastes lightly to moderately salty, typically 1½ tablespoons per quart of water. Add the vegetables and your choice of herbs or spices, such as peppercorns, dill, and coriander. Stir to mix the vegetables with the salt water and to release any trapped air bubbles. Submerge the vegetables and cover them with a plate or other clean object to keep them below the surface, then cover the vessel to keep pests out. The system should not be airtight but only loosely cov...