Cultured Food for Life: How to Make and Serve Delicious Probiotic Foods for Better Health and Wellness

Between this book and Donna Schwenks's YouTube videos, I have everything I needed to get started on fermenting foods. I started out with kombucha tea, them progressed with kefir. It took a few weeks to get the hang of it, during which I seemed to spend excessive amounts of time processing. However, checking back on the videos, I could see where I needed to improve and soon had both kombucha and kefir flowing smoothly. My next project is going on to fermented foods, which can use the kefir whey left over from making kefir cheese.After reading online reviews on the kefir cultrures, I ordered directly from Donna and received my grains in great condition and ready to produce from day one, Her grains are more expensive than some others, but she ships actual live grains in milk in a glass bottle, so there are not hit or miss products.The recipes in Cultured Food For Life are excellent. They produce perfect ferments with great tasting end results. Recipes I attempted from other books did not turn out well at all.

So far I have bought four of these books and given them all away. One if these days all keep one for myself. Lol. Cultured foods have saved my life after a bad infection and way too many antibiotics. I started the day after reading the first three chapters of this book. First I made sauerkraut, then cultured veggies. Next I tried kombucha and a love affair was born. This week I cultured my first batch of kefir and still experimenting with the taste and consistency. Everyone I gave a book to has began to some degree to use cultured foods in their diets. I feel this is too good to keep to yourself, and even though I'm living on a retirement income with not much left over, I will continue to buy this book and give it away because the healing I have personally experienced can not be hidden under a bushel.

Although there is some repetition of the information in Donna's three books, it's information that we need to hear more than once, and also in contex with the themes of each book. Her recipes keep getting better as well as her writing and each recipe has a beautiful photo. What I like best is that she includes the science to back up the whole idea of drinking and eating these cultured (fermented) foods. This is the first of her books, and after reading it, I just had to buy the other two! Keep on coming with the books, Donna, and with the updated science!

Good book for getting started fermenting. Schwenk gives good information on making your own kefir and kombucha. Her recipes and information on fermenting vegies are also good. I have tried a number of them and they taste great. If you are interested in fermenting, first try viewing Sandor Katz' videos on YouTube. Some of the things Schwenk recommends for fermenting are not really necessary and push the cost of your fermented vegies up.Unfortunately, almost all of her recipes for sourdough bread or other baked goods include sprouting and grinding your own wheat berries, or buying them from an online source - pricey! So her method is great if time is not an issue but for many of us, it is. Most of her recipes also include ingredients to "help" the starter raising the dough. With a good starter that has not seemed necessary to me.The book is worth buying and using especially for those not familiar with fermenting, especially if you combine it with some online research. You might want to find another book if you like to bake with a starter. I gave the book four stars despite its drawbacks because it is a good introduction to fermenting. It just isn't the last, or even the only, word.

Love this book! Found out a whole new world of probiotics outside of the grocery store. It's all about wrangling veggies into a jar and coming back with happy tummy food. Donna thoroughly covers many traditional fermented foods such as kefir, kraut and sourdough to mention a few. I have taken the traditional sauerkraut to the next level with her apple kraut on p102. Awesome and nutritious. The author emphasizes how easy it is to create and store cultured food, this book has taken away the mystery that this is hard to do. Oh and did it mention nutritious ? Meet your new health modality! Along with many of her own variations on traditional recipes this book is a great 'go to' for information for convincing skeptical friends. All it took was making one of the recipes and trying it. Donna's enthusiasm is contagious, I, too, have now inundated the digestive systems around me with culture. ;p

I love this book, and it has changed my thinking on how I eat. I never heard of cultured foods before, and had no idea of any of the things the author talked about in her book. However she made a convincing case for looking at cultured foods and I spread the word around my family. My daughter and her kids have changed their diets and even my son in law is making sour dough bread from scratch.They checked all the information out on the internet and watch the authors blog for more tips. I admit I am just buying stuff at the grocery store that she suggested but I saw an immediate improvement in my digestive system.. My grand daughter who is nine, no longer gets stomach aches on a weekly basis, which we can attribute to her drinking home made keifer daily. This book was a revelation and I am so glad I found it.

Love this book! I recently got turned on to kefir and kombucha by a friend and I'm going crazy with it. The kefir is so easy to make. But get a starter from someone who is also making it, don't buy a dehydrated one. I bought one from Cultures For Health on Amazon and all I got was sour milk. I wasted two gallons of organic milk and ended up throwing it all away. I've also done some of the cultured vegetables and fruit but I love the kefir and kombucha most.

Donna's book covers a lot of ground in the probiotic world and is an amazing resource. Basically Conna covers Kombucha, Kefir( both milk and water), Sourdough and Fermenting of vegetables. I had personally done both kefir and kombucha before I bought this book, but found recipes and instructions that were still helpful. Fermenting vegetables and use sourdough and sprouted flours was new to me.She has given me recipes for veggie fermentation that are are very helpful. I am still new at this and have not covered all her recipes, but what I have done have mostly been good. I got this book out of the library ( the older printing) and realized that this is one is like a resource library and needs to be owned. I would suggest this book for anyone interested in the breath of cultured food. It covers a lot and answers many questions widely. Then you can go on her website or on the Internet and find more recipes. She has a good website also with some free information and more if you want to subscribe to it. I can highly recommend this book if you are looking for a way to improve your health and have the energy to try some new ways to eat. My family is getting healthy and very rarely get colds now after we began combucha and kefir eating. I am also finding that it is easier to keep my blood sugar stable with a cup of kefir every day.

Fermentiert, das ist alles was wir heute vermissen in unsere Ernaehrung als Menschen. Die Rezepten sind lecker und einfach. Das ist mein neues Lieblingsbuch!

Recently I have come across so many discussions about gut flora and the keys balancing them may hold for our health. Its a fascinating subject - to me anyway - and I was following up on information I had found on gut health and asthma, allergies, etc. I really love this book and the enthusiastic, lovely Donna whose passion and desire to share it with us all shines from every page.The discussions and recipe suggestions are easy to follow and Donna's enthusiasm is infectious. My fridge is now packed with bottles and jars, my niggly digestive issues clearing fast and everyone else is seeing benefits too. Absolutely give it a try!

Excellent life changing book we are putting to the test right now. The recipes are great and easy to introduce to everyday diet.

Donna Shwenk has been fermenting foods for 30+ years and this book guides you every step of the way.I have followed her directions for Milk Kefir, Kombucha, kefir cheese and they all turned out beautifully!Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in fermentation.