Cultured Veggies for Acid Reflux in Babies

Sadly, reflux in babies is becoming very common, but it does not need to be.  Is there a magic pill for reflux in babies?  Well, this comes pretty close.  If you know a baby (or even an adult for that matter) who has acid reflux or GERD they will directly benefit from cultured vegetables.

What are cultured vegetables?  Think of kimchi, sauerkraut – fermented food.  They are a mixture of vegetables with a cabbage base.

Why do cultured vegetables help reflux in babies and acid reflux and GERD in adults?  Acid reflux occurs when the stomach contents spill into the esophagus because the gut does not have enough acid and or bacteria to digest the food and break it down.  The stomach literally rejects what it is having a hard time digesting.  Probiotics rebalance the gut, enabling the stomach to again digest food at a normal pace.   Fermented foods such as cultured vegetables are full of probiotics!  Probiotics are the good guys in the bacteria world!  Most people are familiar with the goodness of yogurt because the good bacteria in it.  Pro-biotic literally means for-life.  Anti-biotic means against-life.

How do I know this for certain probiotics and more specifically cultured vegetables help?  My son who had severe acid reflux went from throwing up 8 times a day and screaming for hours to smiles in 1 day simply from cultured veggies.  His gut just needed good bacteria.  He was 9 months old when we gave him the cultured veggie juice, so yes, cultured vegetables do help acid reflux in babies and are safe to use.  Read more of our story here.

I also have been fortunate to help many parents where reflux in babies is heartwrentching.  After they turn to cultured vegetables and cutting out processed foods, they again are full of smiles!

Here is how we made our recent batch of cultured veggies.  This batch took us under an hour and the health benefits are worth it for weeks and months to come.

Step 1

• Purchased 2 heads of organic cabbage, a bag of carrots and 2 red peppers.

Step 2

• Prepared quart glass jars and metal lids by washing and boiling them to sterilize.

Step 3

• Removed outer big leaves of cabbage and saved for later.  Shredded cabbage, carrots, peppers etc. and placed in bowls.
• Prepared the Body Ecology culture starter.  This ensures that the CV’s will be filled with tons of healthy bacteria.

Step 5

• Made a brine with a handful of cabbage, carrots and some water.
• Added the starter culture to the brine.

Step 6

• Packed veggies down in the jar with a wooden spoon.  This releases all of the juice and also gets rid of any air pockets.  
• Poured brine over the veggies and left a couple of inches of room at the top.
• Placed cabbage rolls on top of the veggies to keep them submerged under the brine.
• Placed the lid tightly on the jar.
• Put the veggies in a warm area of our house to ferment and produce the good, healthy bacteria.

Step 7

• We just opened a jar (they take about a week to ferment) and LOVED THEM!  At the table last night my son said, “more, more, more!”

While 1 hour of your time is worth your health if you or a loved one has acid reflux, if you absolutely do not have the time here are probiotics in liquid form from Body Ecology.  There are also certified organic probiotics from our sister company Seeds of Green, look under the Health Care tab on the left.  These are as close as you can get to fantastic healing probiotics without making them yourself.

To be healthy and work at its best, your body needs at least 80 % good bacteria in your gut.   For an overwhelming number of people their gut bacteria is exactly backwards at 80% bad and only 20% good.  The western diet is filled with sugar, preservatives, flavor enhancers, colors & dyes and food so processed that most of the nutrients have been destroyed.  Bad bacteria thrives on that stuff!

Also, antibiotics are given to many chickens and cows on factory farms.  Studies suggest these antibiotics are still in meat when purchased at the store, so you can be ingesting anti-biotics without knowing it.  Many, many, many hand washing products contain anti-bacterial products.   Remember anti-biotic means against life, they kill all types of bacteria good and bad.  If we are loosing the good bacteria, we are loosing our health.

I will leave you with a link to 8 reasons why to eat fermented foods.

To your health!

Summer Joy