I'm on a sauerkraut kick. I just made my second batch and it's delicious, one of my new favorite condiments.
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| Latest batch results. |
I never liked it growing up, but I'd only had the store-bought stuff. The most important difference is that the sauerkraut you buy at the store that's sold unrefrigerated has none of the key nutritional values that home-made has.
It's not only rich in vitamin C and other nutrients, it's rich in enzymes and probiotics. I love the fact that we can eat food instead of taking a powder or capsule. Well guess what? So can our dogs. Yes, dogs can eat sauerkraut. It's just fermented cabbage. It's actually closer to prey animal stomach contents than straight raw vegetables, and is an excellent addition to a fresh food diet. You can add other veggies to the cabbage too, like seaweed, to make it even more nutritious.
How much? Well of course there's no dose for this sort of thing. It's food, just be sensible.
So how do you do it yourself?
- Read the simple instructions on the Wild Fermentation website (this is the method I use).
- Buy a crock. You might be able to find one at a thrift store, but I found them at a great price here. You need to have the straight sides (vs. most jars that are small at the top) so you can press it.
Have fun! Encourage your dogs to taste it and enjoy it yourself. When I found out how easy it was to make I was shocked, and happy to find an easy way to improve my own and my dog's diet.
5 comments:
oooohhhhh THANK YOU!!! I have been searching for, and querying folks about, a homemade kraut recipe for YEARS!! And the link to a crock is helpful to have too. This is going on my Christmas list for sure!!
thanks again Margaret, I'll let you know when I've made my first batch!
I just made my first batch of sauerkraut last night! The dogs were very interested in what I was doing and munched on some pieces of the cabbage core while I was prepping it all. I used whey from homemade kefir (which my dogs also love to have with each meal!).
Marnie,
How are you using the whey?
I'm allergic to milk protein so am ignorant about how it would work for this.
Margarat, I'm using Sally Fallon's recipe from Nourishing Traditions. It calls for 4 Tbsp of kefir whey and 1 Tbsp of salt - ferment for 3 days. I make the kefir myself and separate the curds from the whey. I am not sure if a dairy allergy would be ok with kefir but I believe there are some that can tolerate it. You can also use nut or soy milks to make kefir but I'm not sure how the whey is with those.
On another note, tonight is night 3, so I tested one of my jars... on my husband first, haha. He said "it's very kraut-y"... so I tried some = not bad! Not too salty, either. Then I gave some to the dogs... one ate some after a little hand-feeding but the other wanted nothing to do with it. Oh well. She'll come around. ;-)
I should have added... the Fallon recipe called for only 1 cabbage head. Also, she called for carraway seeds but I didn't have any so I used dill seeds.
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