Why Not Whey? A lacto-fermentation recipe for pickled turnips.

This ferment couples nicely with foods like falafel and chicken shawarma. Eating fermented foods along side heavier foods can increase their digestibility and help you feel more satisfied. With poor digestion being a risk factor for arthritis, eating a variety of fermented foods can help heal arthritis and sometimes even “untrigger” it.

Turnips are traditionally pickled with beets, giving them the bright pink color, in Lebanese cuisine. For the purpose of including this dish in a rotation diet, I prefer to leave out the beets. Photo by @joefoodie on Flickr.com

Makes 1 quart

Ingredients:
3 pounds turnips
2 tablespoons sea salt

Equipment:
2 wide-mouth quart-size mason jars
2 pint-size mason jars
2 regular size lids

Instructions:

1. Wash thoroughly and slice into a ¼-inch julienne.
2. Combine the julienned turnips and sea salt in a large mixing bowl.
3. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes to release the juices.
4. Pack the mixture into wide-mouth quart-size canning jars.
5. Using a spoon, press down until the juices come to the top and cover the turnips. The top of the turnips should be at least one inch below the top of the jar.
6. Once the turnips are packed, fill the pint-size jars with water and seal them. Use these as weights to push gas bubbles out of the fermenting pickled turnips (Insert the smaller jars of water in the open jars of turnips. Push down on the weights once a day and watch the trapped gas bubble to the surface).
7. Depending on the time of year and the climate, the pickled turnips will take between three days to several weeks to ferment.
8. When bubbles are no longer releasing, the fermentation process is complete.
9. After fermentation at room temperature, store in refrigerator.

Notes:
I adapted this recipe from the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook. My only major change is that I prefer to start my ferments from scratch instead of using whey. This is because ferments seeded with whey only work for people that don’t have a dairy or casein sensitivity. It’s important to me that dairy and casein sensitive people are able to create healthy ferments that are safe for them. If you don’t have one these sensitivities, it’s absolutely fine to start your ferments with whey.

However, even if dairy and casein are safe for you, if you are currently on a rotation diet, you might not want to use whey in all of your ferments. If all of your ferments contain whey, you’ll want to only eat them every four days so that you don’t over expose your immune system to dairy and casein.

For more homemade fermenting ideas and recipes, check out my list of non dairy probiotics.