Winter Carrot Ferment

So here it is. The time of year when I make garlic oil, garlic/ginger,/onion syrup. Fire Cider, Elderberry oxymel or Elderberry elixir. I could go on but I think you get the idea. Winter is coming up and people get the crud (that term is of course scientific you know). As an herbalist I have plenty of tinctures, salves, herbal vinegars, herbal honeys, etc, etc. But we need to remember that FOOD is our medicine too, and utilize simple things to help keep us healthy.

Certainly good immune system begins in the gut and I don’t think too many people would argue about the benefits of fermented food and their benefits for keeping the gut healthy (thus your immune system) (certainly we could talk about other things like Vitamin D-Vitamin C,etc, but not today)

So here is a nice ferment to start now to have ready for the cold, crud, crap, flu, etc season.

Supplies:

5-7 carrots giver or take

½ to 1 bulb of garlic

½-1 red onion

1 ginger root (about 1-2 inch one, larger than I normally use)

1 heaping teaspoon of turmeric

Salt

1/8 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.

32 ounce mason jar with your choice of fermenting lid.

Directions:

I use a grater to grate all of the items mention above. Then I salted it and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

I then added the turmeric, cayenne to the mixture stirred and smushed up everything with my fingers, and placed it in the mason jar.

I added filtered water to cover the material and added more salt to taste. I put some glass weights on the material and added my fermenting lid. I will check it daily until it gets the taste I personally like (usually for me between 3-8) days. After it ferments, I remove the weights (scrape off any material at the top that doesn't look good and refrigerate it)