Please Don’t Freeze! (Lacto-Fermented Foods)

Recently I’ve noticed a book circulating, and various posts online, encouraging the practice of freezing lacto-fermented foods.

My first reaction was, “WHYYYY?”.

There is absolutely NO benefit to doing so that is worth the trouble, and you lose virtually EVERY element that you want from lacto-fermented foods anyway!

1. You destroy the probiotics. Very few bacteria and fungus strains survive freezing and thawing. You just blitzed all the wonderful health benefits you labored to produce! Ok, so a few survive. Big deal. If all you want is a few, go buy yogurt.

2. You lose the crunch and freshness of the vegetables. That lovely snap and bite of good kraut, zesty dills and crunchy carrots. Freeze them, and they go to flop. Rubbery. Unappealing. If you want marginal food, buy canned. The whole point of making it yourself was to achieve something extraordinary. Not marginal.

3. It takes as much (or more) power to freeze foods as to fridge them. It takes none at all to root cellar fermented foods. If you repackage them you may save some space, but not a huge amount. No real significant benefit here.

4. It wastes time – no matter how you do it you have to take the time to thaw them. If you repackage them before freezing, it wastes even more. A convenience food goes from being fast and easy to being something you have to plan ahead for, or which you have to waste power heating before you use it.

5. You have to use it all soon after you thaw it, or it turns to spoiled goo. That’s right, once it comes out of the freezer it is ripe for contamination by opportunistic nasties, so it will spoil within a week or so of thawing.

So not only is it detrimental to the value of the food, it isn’t at ALL a convenience or time saver. It backfires all around!

The wonder that is lacto-fermented food is bursting with freshness, life, and convenience. Stick the jar in the fridge. When you want some, dig out what you need, and stick the jar back in the fridge. How hard is that? And it keeps for months (if it lasts that long), letting you use it as you like, no advanced preparation. SOOO nice for hurry up meals, unexpected guests, and your teenager’s surprise growth spurt (peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich anyone?).

Why spoil all that by taking an extra, unhelpful step? Rather mind-boggling that anyone ever thought it had any advantage, isn’t it?

“It takes genius to simplify the complicated. It is more common for people to complicate the simple.”

True, that!

CopyCat Notice

The ORIGINAL one-way valve fermenting airlock! Imitation IS the sincerest form of flattery, and we have noticed that our product has been copied by other sellers of fermenting products. Remember, if you see someone else selling a one-way valve airlock for fermenting, THEY copied US, not the other way around! Fermenta Lock is still the only original invention, handmade in the US. If it isn't orange, it isn't the original!

We invented Fermenta Lock, Fermenta Free, and the valve used for Fermenta Fido and other Fermenta Airlock products. We invented Fermenta Dunk Extender. Patents are prohibitively expensive, and designed by the government not to protect the rights of individuals, but to provide another source of revenue and control for the government and lawyers. We are good at what we do. We have endless ideas and endless creativity, and competition does not scare us. Impatient thieves do not scare us - they are too busy taking shortcuts to make a success of it anyway, and they won't want to take the effort to actually MAKE a product and fill orders.

So if you want to copy our idea, go right ahead. If you want to market and sell a competing product, you are welcome to do so, as long as you do not patent our idea - we had it first, and our posts on FaceBook announcing the invention and launch of it will prove that. This idea is officially in the public domain, placed there by us. We will NOT release supply sources, or part names unless you want to buy them - we'll be happy to sell you an instruction kit. If you buy our product, or look at the images and figure it out for yourself, good on you. Compete with us if you like, just don't screw us, and we'll get along just fine. Big companies who might want to screw us may have more money, and more lawyers than we do, but we have more to gain by suing the pants off a big company, and believe me, we will be well motivated to do so if anyone patents our idea and claims it as their own - this is a free idea. Everybody now owns it.

Published June 23, 2012

Wholesale, Export, and Manufacture of this product by other companies is an option. International distributorships are available for those wishing to export. Please email us to inquire about access to our wholesale website, or in regards to manufacturing any of our products.

Business Building Services Are Available - If you are wanting to build a business like this, where you make things in the home and sell them direct to the customer, or if you want to build a business that you can sell to other people as a complete business package, Firelight Heritage Farm is now offering Cottage Industry Services to aid small business owners in building a successful product or service business from the home. Don't know what you want to do? We can help you figure that out too (something original, and just yours, not a canned business). You get the wisdom and uniquely successful perspective and experience of people who have been business, marketing, and website professionals for more than a dozen years. For more information, visit CottageIndustrialRevolution.com. Why copy someone else's business when you can do something uniquely you and enjoy it so much more?