Wondrous Fermented Foods!

We all know the benefits of fermented foods, so why make up some beneficial healthy bacteria from something good from your larder?

Oat Yogurt is Easy to Make
First, Take Some Oats…
You can make oat yogurt from either raw or cooked oats. You can use oat groats, rolled oats or steel-cut oats, or oat flour, whatever you've got.

For the best flavor and nutrition, start with unprocessed raw whole oat groats. Groats is just another word for grains. For some reason, buckwheat grains and oat grains are called that. Start with either unprocessed oats or milled oats, then let them ferment.

Put the oat groats in a ceramic or glass bowl, or a glass jar. Add some water, enough to get them moist, with a little extra water covering them. After a few hours, or overnight, put the soaked oats and the soaking water in a blender or food processor or mortar and pestle. Blend until smooth. Pour back into bowl.

Oat Yogurt from Milled Oats
Put dry whole oat groats through a grain mill or food processor. Either grind them into flour, or roll them into flakes, depending on the capabilities of your machine. Or use rolled oats or steel-cut oats from the bulk bins at a store. Put the flour or flakes or whatever in a bowl with water.

…Next, Let the Oats Ferment
Use a ceramic bowl, since healthy fermentation produces acids that could interact with a metal container. You can cover the bowl with a plate or a cloth to keep out dust, and to keep the oats from drying. If you use a plate, it doesn't need to be a tight fit, in fact it's better to let some air in, and to let carbon dioxide out. Leave the oats in a warm sunny place, on your kitchen counter or windowsill. If you have a gas stove with a pilot light, you can leave them on top of that.

Stir them once in a while. If they have absorbed all the water, add a little. There should be a little water on top, or around the edges. After a few days, taste them to see if they're sour yet. Then taste them once a day. When they are as sour as you want, either use the yogurt, or put it into the refrigerator if you don't want them to get more sour.

You Don't Need to Buy a Special Starter Culture
Friendly micro-organisms called Lactobacilli are everywhere. They're related to the friendly bacteria that naturally live in your colon, and the ones in dairy yogurt. They like starch and fiber, and will reproduce happily if you give them a culture medium of water, starch and fiber. The kind of bacteria that grow is dependent on what food you provide them. Micro-organisms produce substances that help them and suppress their rivals, so the good lactobacilli produce acids that suppress fungi, yeasts, bad bacteria, etc.

Oat Yogurt or Oat Sour Cream
Oats are creamy, because of their high fat content, so the result comes out resembling dairy yogurt or sour cream. If you make it thicker, and let it get more sour, it will be more like sour cream.

Save Some Starter for Next Time
To make oat yogurt more quickly next time, save some to use as starter. If you're going traveling, keep the starter in a ceramic bowl with a plate on top, in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it. Cold slows down the growth of the lactobacilli, warmth speeds it up.

Health Benefits of Fermented Foods
The sour flavor comes from lactic acid, just like in dairy yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi, kefir, sourdough bread, etc. Beneficial bacteria produce acids that suppress yeasts, including candida. Eating fermented foods helps promote the growth of the good bacteria that live in your colon, and reduces the growth of candida and other problematic organisms.

You Can Ferment Other Grains
You could ferment any grain, just as people make sourdough from wheat, rye, etc. For pleasant recipes, oats are nice, since the result resembles yogurt. For more anti-candida activity, other grains with more carbohydrate and less fat would be good, since the healthy lactobacilli live on starch and fiber.

Unmilled Oats Are Raw
Some people have heard that all oats you buy are cooked. Only the rolled oats are pre-cooked. Whole unmilled oat groats are raw, and alive. Those are the ones that look similar to grains of brown rice. Steel-cut oats are raw, but they are not alive and fresh.

Oat Yogurt Doesn't Go Bad if It Ferments Longer
It just gets stronger. If you let it ferment a long time, it gets more sour. That just means there are more of the beneficial bacteria. If it's more sour than you like, just mix it with some un-fermented oats and some water, until you get the taste you want.

Oat Yogurt from Oat Groats