Sharon Flynn on Ferment for Good: A Love Affair with Fermented Foods

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics. Now, you've heard fermented foods are all the rage in terms of gut health, but you have no idea where to start. You've been perhaps buying these store bought ferments like Kefir or Kombucha, but you're wondering, are they really beneficial? Well, guys, it is super easy to make fermented foods at home. With a kit from Nourish Me Organics, we have amazing partners, Mason Tops from Canada and also Kefir company from Slovenia which makes fermentation super easy. And combine that with the best, highest quality probiotic rich starter cultures and real kefir grains and scobys from Noshmi Organics and you've got a partnership from heaven. So guys, www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code Sharon for 10% off. Hey guys.

Cribbin Govender from the Gut Health Gurus podcast. I've got a background in food science. Today I have one of my friends, my fermentation friends, Sharon Flynn. By popular demand, I do post quite regularly on our Facebook group, the Gut Health Gurus on who people want us to get a hold of. And people have just been screaming at me to get the one and only Sharon Flynn, author of a book called Ferment for Good, onto the podcast. She's an Aussie and she's making big waves in the fermentation world in Melbourne and in Australia. Sharon, welcome to the show.

Hey, Kevin, thanks for having me. I'm so flattered that people asked for me to come on.

You're a superstar, Sharon. You don't realize you're inspiring so many people and doing so many great things. And what we like to do at the start of every podcast is to get it from the horse's mouth. Who is Sharon Flynn?

Who am I? Oh my gosh, I am. Well, firstly, I'd say just a army brat, you know, grew up moving around a lot. That really has defined my character quite a bit because when you move there's a certain openness, you know, you have to make friends easily. And then I just kept moving. And then secondly, I'm a mum and a stepmom of five kids.

Wow.

And I do add that to who I am, definitely, of course. But because all the different personalities in our house add so much to our decisions every day and how we run the business and how I able to run the business and my own personal growth, you know, and then, well, do I stop there because, you know, separated and repartnered Big deal too. Gone through a lot of growth over the last five years thinking about that. And then lastly, I have this amazing growing business that's really taken over my mind and heart for the last six years. Yeah, If I didn't have all those children and partners, it wouldn't be as good. But I'd love to be able to spend 24, 7 on this little business. I'm in love with it. Yeah. And I'm a 6 foot person who spent her whole 20s in Japan. Just kind of should have been in Amsterdam or somewhere where the other tall people are.

I'd imagine you'd still stick out, that you'd be sticking out like a sore thumb in Japan.

It's one of those things when you, when you don't, you can't see yourself from the outside so you're just bumbling along in life. And it's pretty similar to how I am. I'm in a workspace with a lot of younger people and I just, I feel like I'm their age until one of them will say, oh, you're just like my mum or something. And I'm like, oh, I could be your mum. I feel younger than I look, I guess. And I felt smaller than I am or shorter than I am in Japan. And it was only when I was leaving finally it was like, you know, after being there for a long time, I hired a friend to come in and replace me in my job and she couldn't find me. I was working at a girls university high school and she was walking all around and she would ask the different security guards, where's Fudin Sensei? And they would be like, huh, huh? And they're like, oh, Jumbo, Jumbo. I didn't know by the time I was just leaving, you know. And she's like, you know, everyone here, everyone calls you Jumbo. You know, after the first two people I just said, do you know where Jumbo is? And I was pregnant at the time too. So I was just like, oh, how offensive.

Yeah, that's an amazing story. And if I could just side note, the first time I ever came across the fermentary and that's Sharon's beautiful business, the fermentary. My wife and I often go out to Daylesford to collect spring water. And so we stopped off at this local health food shop and we bought some water kefir because we were starting to get interested in water kefir at that time. So we stopped off, we said, oh wow, they're selling water kefir. We opened it and when we opened it it kind of like was really fizzy and it was like spraying all over the place. It's like, oh, this is proper water kefir. And we tried it and it was the most amazing water kefir I've ever tasted. And I just fell in love with the product and we've been huge fans ever since. And then I was pretty much working in industry for a company called SA Brands. And this was years and years ago and they were interested in, I would.

Call it SA brands.

You saw brands or SA brands, whatever you want to call, I think are the ways acceptable. And then the essay brands. People were interested in water kefir. And straight away I was like, yep, I gotta reach out to Sharon. And Sharon was the most amazing, warm, welcoming person. She welcomed me into her space and showed me what she does. And incredibly kind and generous soul. I'm very blessed to have Sharon as a friend. So that's a side note. So Sharon, how did you begin this love affair with fermented foods?

Really? When I was in love with it, I didn't. Wouldn't have called it fermented food. It was just at the beginning probably When I was 16, 17, I started my interest in fermented foods and wild and fizzy, interesting flavors. So each time I was an exchange student in Denmark and they lived in a big old beautiful old pig farm and they had, it was an old house so they had a fridge. Instead of a large fridge, they had a large walk in cold room and they put all the meat and the soups and all the leftovers like we would have done in our fridge at home in that cold room. Not a cool room, literally a room that was just sort of stone and cold and things would go a little bit fizzy or they would sour and then she would say that was on purpose, you know, and they liked it like that. They would make a beautiful sweet pie, like an apple thing and then put the soured cream on it. And I'd be thinking, see, you know what, that's sour, you know, that's not that something's awry. And slowly I learned that was the, that's what they were aiming for and it wasn't dangerous. And you know, we didn't need Glad wrap and they had local honey and beautiful local milk and it was just part of their life. I'd never been exposed to that. My mum bought Flora margarine and tip top white bread and just like a 70s mum and you know, it was a miracle to her that Those things are so convenient now. So I grew up with that. And then going there and having just hard butter and fresh food was pretty mind blowing. And we moved around a lot. I lived in Malaysia and Denmark in my teens and was exposed to a lot of flavors. But it was when I moved to Japan probably that I started fermenting. And I still would never have called it fermenting. I would have said things like, oh, my God, I'm learning so much. You know, as a single Australian woman, 6 foot, living in a very small country town an hour outside of Tokyo, they never had anyone living there like that before. And there are a lot of Australians there now. But back in 93, there weren't. People showed me what they were doing. And I had this thing called dinner service. Dina Sabisu. And that's like hello, fresh now. But this was 30 years ago. That's how I learned to cook, because I was too busy. And I'd get my little box and it would have the recipes and I would make the food. And the neighbors down the road and the ladies in the garden down the hill, they showed me, you know, almost Suzuki Method style by grabbing my hand and doing, you know, miso and natto and nuka. And it was all fascinating. And I was really lucky. I mean, you might not think it's lucky. Like, I sort of sound lonely. Like I didn't have any friends in that town. I was too different. And all the old people, they took, they liked me, you know. And then eventually a couple years in, I got some friends. And by the time I got those friends, they would come to my house and be like, the house looks like a grandma's house because I've been donated all this weird furniture and stuff. But that would have been my first real experience, digging my hands in things and making these beautiful ferments. But they would have been for me, writing, literally writing home to my mum was miso. I wouldn't have said, I'm fermenting, you know. And then I moved to Chicago, where we lived near in a Jewish neighborhood. And I say that was literally the public school had different holiday programs and things to us learned a lot there. And there was a lot of pickles in the supermarkets and the little stores. They would give your kid a pickle in the trolley, you know, And I just thought that was from the barrel and it was so lovely. And I got interested in that. But they didn't have. In my neighborhood, I couldn't get good bread. And I'd been in Japan for so long and there's just. I needed good bread. So I. Then I had two children and I got into making my own bread. And there's just a moment where I was sprinkling the yeast on and I was like, who makes the yeast actually, like. And so I went to the baker and I said, how do you get your yeast? He goes, oh, this, you know, this block. So I was like, cool. And he goes, here, you can just have some. So then I felt that next level, I was like, I'm the person who's got like straight from the baker. And then there was a point where I went as well, where the hell did he get this block of yeast from? You know, what is it? And that was all that was happening there. And I started making cheese, buying cultures and watching it on a vhs. How to make cheese. So I was going through this thing. We moved to Seattle from Chicago. That's where I joined a csa, which is a community supported agriculture. You're probably familiar with it. No, it's where a farmer will decide how many families they can feed over a year with their size land. And you join by paying in advance. So you might pay $800 or $. It always feels like quite a lot and it should do because then you're committed to, this is where I'm getting my vegetables from for the year. If anything goes wrong for that farmer, like there's floods, their people will come from the city and help out or give more money. When they have abundance, you get it too. So it's just this wonderful thing. So ideally a family would say, I can feed 20 families, for example, and you give them the money in advance. They have that, they can live off that for the year and they can plan their planting season for their people. It's really lovely. I happen to be involved with quite a big one because Seattle's like that called Jubilee Farms. Look them up if you're interested in this. And they, you know, literally at the beginning you do go, I paid $1,200 and it's just lettuce, you know, or it's just early spring stuff. This is a rip off. You know, when you're new at that, you do feel kind of annoyed and you start getting veggies that you're like, I never use this. And now I've got all these leeks or, you know, I've got too many Jerusalem artichokes or something. But you've committed your money to it. So you're like, I'm going to keep going and buy end of summer. You just get so much, you know, that it's like, take as many watermelons as you want or as many pumpkins. And then they had pickling days and fermenting days where you could learn to keep the harvest. And that's the real meaning. Then. Then you're like, okay, in abundance. You need to hold onto it because next spring it's just lettuce again for a little while. So, you know, like, if you want to do this for two years, you need to get involved in the preserving part. And Sandor Cats was in town and I heard about that and I went, not as a guru, just as part of this sort of naturopaths thing that they were doing. So I went and saw that and got his first book. It was a little magazine. And then he had this wild fermenting book. And I read about sourdough. And that's sort of the answer I'd been looking for in Chicago. Like, how the hell do you make bread without this packet? And it was. That was like almost a spiritual awakening because I felt that with all my moves everywhere, and I was lucky enough to be a full time carer of my kids and look after the house and spend time on the food, I felt like I was knowledgeable foodie, you know. But when I read about sourdough, I was like, I know. Literally don't know anything. And wow, what an awakening. Because the what's what you don't see there's so much that we don't see that's so powerful and that just. I got. I still get goosebumps when I think about that because I was like, okay, let's try it. And water and flour and some thyme made my bread fluffy. I was like, what? And why don't we all know this and what's happened? And I just. That was it for me. Then I went, I went, oh, I'm gonna. You know. But then we moved, actually, I got through this, went through the bread making, the cheese making phase, even made my daughter, because we're in America and they do science projects, you know, and so I made them do their science projects on. We put a grape in the sourdough, the bread. Flour, water, water and flour and a grape. Water and flour and something else, you know, And a skittle. You know, you always have these assumptions, but I was trying to prove it to my kids. Like, this is terrible, you know, but the skittle actually gave us the best result. Of course, yeast loves sugar. And so I learned a lot in that science experiment too, you know, and don't be too cocky with your. With your assumptions. That was pretty funny. So I did get right into that and then we moved to Belgium and I didn't have the room to keep experimenting like I was. Plus, I was so busy relocating everybody and enjoying everything that was there, the beer and the bread, everything was good there. I didn't really need to make anything. But towards the end, we're there for three years. The last year, my youngest daughter got really sick. No one really knew what it was. One of those things that only you can only really map out retrospectively, you know, because when it's happening, you sort of just go, no, gee, that hasn't fixed yet. Let's go to the doctor. And it suddenly just started snowballing and they couldn't pinpoint it. And a few other kids had it in her school, but they were older. And it was this really random thing where she would get a fever every 12 hours, like 2pm and 2am, really high. But every time, you didn't know how long it would go for, really. Like, you never got to that relaxed point where you're like, ah, yeah, just relax. It's going to be finished in 40 minutes. Because it was 40 degrees. Sometimes you're going to be like, Jesus. And sometimes I would take her to the hospital and she had so many scans and in the end they said, it's pretty strong antibiotic, but what else are we going to do? So it'll knock her around a bit. And, you know when people say that, when a doctor says it's going to knock you around, you think of, like, I don't know, what do you imagine it's going to do? Knock you around? I don't know, feel a bit tired, achy or something. You don't think it's going to wipe your entire system out of any bacteria and you'll suffer for the next years, you know, I didn't think that. So she took it. And from that moment, she couldn't really digest food, so she would eat something and vomit and then not eating. She lost weight. She was only four and she was a tall kid, so she was quite skinny and lanky, you know, and she looked pretty skeletal pretty quickly. She had all kinds of other things, you know, bronchitis and she'd get things. And it was just. In the end, we were going to the doctor and they were saying things like, maybe she has childhood depression or maybe Mum does, you know, like, maybe you seem very vulnerable, because I would tear up in the doctor's office trying to tell them the history of what's been going on with her and why can't someone sort of get to the bottom of it? So it was going into the realm of autism spectrum eating disorder, childhood depression. And I, of course, I knew that wasn't the case. Is that too bright?

That is pretty bright. That's better.

So I just had to hunt it down and I wanted to move home. By then. We'd been on the road literally for 20 years. Marriage was not great, so I wanted to come home. You know, sickness can do that, you know, can bring out the real reality of things. Came home. But before I did, a lot of people started talking to me about, oh, you know, what's going on? And one lady mentioned that her naturopath had said, stop putting, stop chasing the virus and perhaps just try and put bacteria back into her gut and from what the antibiotics might have done. And then she gave me a list of food and all of that, all of the things on that list had been a hobby. So I was just like, I can do this. If you've ever had someone. I know you have. I mean, if you've had someone in your life that needs your help and you haven't been given many things to do to deal with it other than medicating, and then someone gives you some kind of empowerment, it's just wonderful because you can go, right? At least I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do it really well and, you know, let's go, let's deal with it. So when I got back, I kind of. I didn't. I got this book, the Gaps book. And that was ages ago. Like no one had heard of that. We're talking 2012. I got that book. I couldn't. I was single mum then and I couldn't do all of that bone broth, cutting everything out. Really strict thing I would have, but at the beginning, was just settling into a new school. I put it down a year, we're in a very small school, and started just adding these things. So the first one was the water kefir. No, I probably wasn't, but there were a few things. Natto, yogurt, miso, just store bought, you know, I just started being really aware. And then I'd cut out the carbs because by then she was well and truly one of those people, you know, where you can go, oh, you're addicted to carbs. You're getting like a glazed look while you eat this pasta, which was in the Gaps book. You know, all these things about the poop and Everything. I was like, yes, yes, yes. You know, it's hard not to start diagnosing all the friends and people that you know along the way when you're reading things like that, isn't it? Try and be too evangelical. Within three months, three weeks, literally, she would wake up and start going, can I have my drink? And that was. I was like, yeah, have as much as that drink as you want. And things just started changing. She just started eating and, you know, and I just kept putting different things, different Krauts, different meats and kraut and potato and kraut. And she just started eating it and getting better. So a lot of people who were going to that little school noticed the change, or they were my new friends and they came over and I talked about it quite evangelically. And I did have different language back then. It was. We were talking about everything I'd read in the GAPS book. You know, die off, die back. You know, we were all waiting for that to happen and talking about that. And then that was a great stage. And I was trying to show people how to do it themselves because I was just doing that. Then word of mouth got around and I'd be like, well, I've got so much here. Just take it, take it. I had a few people early on say, this could be a business and be business partners and things like that. But it was usually very casual arrangement where I was still doing all of the making. You know, I was the one with the passion and the like, I needed to keep doing this. But what happened early on, I think, was I attracted a lot of pretty sick people. And those people would say, I went to my naturopath. They don't know anything about it because this is 2012, 13. Then a catalyst, catalyst happened and everyone saw that. A lot of people saw that and said, oh, I saw that. Maybe you are right, you know, so that was a slow burn. So until that came out and research started mounting to. The evidence was there and science was helping us out. I ended up trying to teach people how to do it themselves. And at the end of my lectures, no matter what I'd said, people would always go, how much did I take? They just want to know that. And I really was always left with what's going on in Australia because I've been overseas a lot and the food had been quite different. I've been telling these stories to my kids that were not true. Like, kids in Australia don't swear. You know, kids in Australia eat really good lunches. Nobody has small packets of chips. Or anything, you know, like, idea from the 70s when I was a kid at school. And none of that was real. But also, the food system was pretty crappy. You know, there wasn't. There were no fermented foods you could buy other than yoghurt with sweeteners, and there was nothing. So then I realized, oh, this is pretty sick, really. And people are asking me how much I should take when I'm talking about food. What. You know, this is delicious food to add to your diet. That's been missing in our Australian diet for a very long time. All there is to it, make it or buy it. But they couldn't buy it. So that's when I started saying, all right, I'll sell it to you. So I had three fridges in my garage. People could come and just put money in. I would take an esky in my car. I started teaching at the girls school, and I'd have an esky there, and people could take it from the boot of the car and put money in the jar.

Wow.

I know. I felt like the lady from weeds, but not. I didn't feel anybody. It just got to the point where I felt like, oh, people. We had a. I got home one day and there were two guys in the driveway, and they're like, are you the sauerkraut lady? Yes. And I was like, I need to not have people riding up to. Because we were in the country. So it's a long driveway. So I asked the local health food store, can you. Can you put this in? I'm not going to cause any trouble, but just. I'll put, like, cribbing or, you know, cribbing. Here's the orange one you wanted, or little messages. And then he gave me food. So we didn't even give invoices or anything. It was just like. He'd say, oh, it's about $800, you know, whoa, that's a lot. And then if you're starting a business, I think, and you're in a smallish town, that's a great way. I didn't. I can't say I didn't think of it being great marketing, but I didn't really plan it. But people want to have their name on a tag in a fridge, you know, they were like, why is. What's that? You know, what's going on there? Why has Cribbon got his name? I want it. And they're like, no, that's Cribbin. So people wanted it more and more. And while I was still using funnels and you still use funnels. But while still in my home kitchen making. Every night while the kids are asleep, people from restaurants started going to that store and then calling me and saying, can I have this in my restaurant? And I was saying, no, this is not my intention. So I think it was about. Took me about six months to say, I better quit my job and Because I'll make more perfect. Like I was making $20 an hour at the school I was working at. It's not very much like if I sell a bottle for $15, that's an hour's work at the school. So I did. Took a big brave step and did. But gosh, I didn't know what I was getting into. You told me when we met you were like, I would never do that. I was like, I think it's too late because I think we might have met really right then and there when I was just. I just quit my job. Right.

I think so.

It might have been very early. Yeah.

You were down at that. Was it Port Melbourne or something like that?

Yes, South Melbourne.

South Melbourne coffee. Yes. And we did. And that was the first time I met your other friend Cynthia, who's going on to do great things as well.

Amazing.

Yeah, exactly. The smoothie bombs.

And they're in the, they're in the States, you know, she's just, I think they're in Walmart.

Wow. She's. She's done so well. I'm so, so pleased for her. It's amazing.

I mean, it's hard work through business.

So, so hard.

Knows that people like me who are just like innocent people, ask us, oh, how did you. How you know, how do you do this? How you build a business? I'm like, optimism, naivety. You have to be naive.

And passion. I think the passion just shines out in what you do because you take so much pride and you're so meticulous and so rigid in the way you do things, which is great because you have your standards, it shines in the product. And then I'm not surprised that high end restaurants would want to reach out to you and get a hold of that because it's so difficult to do what you do because the food industry will shortcut things. They'll use additives and they'll use different cultures and whatnot to make the product faster, cheaper, more efficiently commercially. But the way you do things is small batch, by hand, incredibly labor intensive, time intensive, cost intensive, intensive. But the end product is out of this world. So I'm so proud of you.

Thank you. Thanks for Knowing that about us, we do. It's not a very profitable way to run a food business, that's for sure. I mean, it's our fifth or sixth year and we're just starting to see where we might, where it's going to, you know, the sweet spot we are. I mean there's a point where I was like, do I keep at farmers market? You can't be in the middle because that's where you have to buy some machinery. You have to buy a lot of quantities of jars or something. You can't afford it. It's pretty tough. But I think because I started where I did, where it was for people that I was talking to and friends with gut issues. There's never been any other way to make the product because I want to be proud, I want to give it to you and be like, here, taste this. This is the real thing and it's a rare thing. And along the way, because I wasn't in food manufacturing, every ingredient I had to buy, I learned more about and how heartbreaking that is to know. You know, we couldn't get, we can now, but we couldn't get organic raw sugar in Australia where we knew. What is Queensland in your mind? Where do you get sugar? You know, it's where you get sugar from and we had to get it from Sri Lanka or South America.

That's it.

It's cheaper to get strawberries frozen from Chile than to get a farmer to deliver them to you even. There's some really seriously wrong things and it's time consuming to find solutions for it. But it always just comes back to, oh, we started this for our family. I don't want to give my mum. My mum is so proud and she'll go to little health food stores when I first get into it and she'll buy something but I would hate it for me to go, don't drink it though. You know, like get, get the real one from me. You don't have to be. What I want my mum to have is what I want for your mum to have, you know, so that's how it, that's how we built it. And there, yeah, we're still hand jarring and bottling.

That's amazing. It's, it's a real deal. It's definitely real. I highly encourage people go out and find the Viventi products because they're amazing. Now, Sharon, let's segue to I guess some of the issues that firstly you've highlighted some of the challenges. But what about, let's explore some of the other products that are entering the market and comparing that to people actually do it properly. Because I do get a bit annoyed that some out there are writing a trend and putting products in the market because fermented foods are not regulated. And both of us sat in at that session with the Department of Health, so we know intimately the challenges and what's going on in industry. So some people actually writing a trend, putting products in the market that are very new, it's very cowboy days. So there's no regulation around what you can call a product. For instance, kefir or kombucha are prime examples. I think the fermented vegetables are pretty good on the market. So that doesn't really concern me about what's coming out. But what does concern me, for instance, if you go into any major supermarket shelf, you'll see the explosion of kefir kombucha, firstly, is huge. Now it's mainstream, and then secondly, kefir, which is emerging. So let's talk. What's your thoughts on those products? How do they compare to a product that's made that you make, for instance, with proper kefir grains?

The easiest way that I describe the end result is that you're getting a wide diversity. I'd say, you know, what the food standards want is predictability and consistency. They want to know exactly what's in there. So when you don't know what's in there, part of the magic, you know, a is this is nature's intellect, you know, this is, don't play with that. You know, we don't know everything. And that's one thing that's very frustrating to me in this, the science realm of food. Don't manipulate it. We have a symbiosis with these things. And we don't know best, necessarily. We don't always know everything. And we're discovering that. And, you know, one thing is all that mainstream media coming out or the research around gut and brain health, you know, oh, my gosh, when you sort of sit back, you're like, we've had that knowledge for a very long time. We just haven't had the exact details. One thing for sure is, so there's the diversity in the bacteria. A lot of the places the labs that would get our watercophea measured at don't even have the technology to read what bacteria they are. They don't know them. We'd have to send it, I think, to Wisconsin or someone's told me that there is a place that can do it. So that's something. The next thing is that our products are naturally carbonated. And, you know, I've spoken to a lot of food science people and they're like, so what? Carbonation is carbonation. That's not true. Because the reason people have had to force carbonate predictability and consistency and everything. But also, there's no carbonation without alcohol. Right. So they've been forced to make a crappy product because of our fear of alcohol. And, you know, at times I've thought, how do I tell that story? Like, functional alcohol or, you know, like, this is very low. Don't worry about it. So we did decide to become licensed so we can keep the product real. It was, you know, as I said before, it's that or nothing. I didn't want to be making another product that I didn't want to make for my own kids. So the natural fizziness in a drink and having a little bit of alcohol carries the flavor further in your mouth. It feels better. Not only that, but in. I don't know if you how much. You know, like with herbs and nutrition, you probably do know when you put a spice or something in an acid and an alcohol, it's intensified and it does its job a lot better. That's how we've always given medicine and tinctures and preserves. So there's that aspect as well. So you're missing out on quite a lot of the health benefits when something is watered down. Initially, when we were like the only water keffiyeh there was, and then there was another one, and that was lovely. It was also people who made them at home themselves and were selling them at farmers markets. That was great. When I started seeing the kombucha like, products, you know, it bothered me at the beginning. I'll be like, hey, you know, that's not real, or that. But it doesn't bother me as much anymore. I think every industry has its early days. Gosh, think of the wine industry or beer. It would start at this place where it was cleaning the beer was great for water, Right? Purified water. Wine was just something humans have done. And then that's taken itself off into this mainstream thing where you've got cast wine and stuff that doesn't resemble what you'd make at home. So I feel like I can't be too judgmental on this because this is a market that needs to sort itself out and people need to learn. The best thing I can do is make sure there is one to compare it to. So this is the beautiful, real one for you? Yes, it's a bit more expensive. Yes. It might fizz. It might take you one minute to open my product. That's because it's real and good, you know, and if you have to go to the BP when you're driving somewhere and you get petrol and you get yourself a drink and there's all kinds of kombucha and kefirs and whatnot available, you know, at least you can come and find the real one when you want it. So that's sort of totally settled down and being like, you know what, there's a place and a time and I've got a book out there that teaches you to do it. If you want to buy the grains from you or me, I do workshops. I offer the knowledge freely and also the product for people who don't want to make it themselves. And that can't do. We can keep doing what they're doing, like, you know, teaching and talking and hopefully the market will change a little bit. People will be starting to want better quality.

Yes, I think you hit the nail on the head there, Sharon, and I'm totally with you. I think the missing piece of this puzzle is that the consumer could potentially be very confused and not have the right information to decipher what the real deal is versus a product that is more processed and doesn't contain the same benefits. And I think one way that industry could deal with it, and we had that discussion with the DHS to actually put onto the label the percentage of the active. So, for instance, if it's kombucha, because the way they get around the alcohol legislation is to heavily dilute the product. Say, for instance, getting companies to actually put down this product is 10% water kefir or 15% kombucha. And then that will give clarity to the consumer. Well, Sharon's product is 100%. This is the fermentary versus another product that's mainstream, that's on the supermarket shaft, that might be 5%. So then that gives them, I think it's needed from a almost a trade practices false and misleading legislation. So hopefully industry does wake up to this and they put in place some new labeling laws around what you can actually call kombucha or kefia. Because the other thing is kefir and kombucha, they can only really be made with the cultures, whether it's a kefir grains or a kombucha. Scoby now we're seeing products entering the market using yogurt cultures, for instance, to make kefir very cheaply.

Kefir cultures. And you're like, well, you could call this anything because there's a lot of bacteria, a lot of, you know, bacteria. A lot of things.

Yes.

One of the things that I don't love is that probiotic water or probiotic orange juice. They're just adding probiotics to anything. Like, get your privilege while you can. Like, fiber. Fiber. Went through a stage like that without adding fiber. Or, you know, calcium in milk, extra vitamin. What was it? D. So you can get. There are things like that that you can spend time being sort of like, frustrated and angry, and then you're like, well, gosh, where does it begin? Why don't people know more about their food? It would hopefully come from up above, but they're also very. They're also people in our community, and they don't know either. So even though it's their job, I'm learning because we have a lot of people come into the factory all the time to see if we're doing it properly, and they're generally very, very afraid of what we're doing. Like bacteria. No. You know, our sauerkraut. I mean, yes, the labeling is fine, but you don't realize what you. If you're going to make a lot of sauerkraut. Can you hear me all right with that? There's somebody grinding.

It's fine. Perfectly fine.

Yeah. The initial reaction to our sauerkraut making was horror. Almost got closed down.

Oh, wow.

You need to. As soon as they think of a vegetable that's shredded, so something that's going to be shredded and then packed into bags and sold like coleslaw or to another manufacturer to do something with it. So the rule of shredded cabbage is that you would shred it, and as soon as you have, you have to make it a blank slate by not just washing it in water, but adding a citric acid or a bleach essentially to the cabbage. And I'd be like, no, no, because there'll be no bacteria on it then. And then you can start with your recipe. So I'll be like, my recipe is just cabbage and salt. You know, if I salt a blank slate, nothing's going to happen. I need the cabbage to have bacteria on it. And I'll be like, why am I allowed to buy a raw cabbage in coles and eat it however I want to? You know, like, they can cut a cabbage up and wrap it in. Glad Wrap and sell it like that. Why isn't that dangerous? You know, they're not bleaching that. So it was very. All of a sudden became like, how can I do as you say, when I can see so many variances of this rule and I'm growing bacteria on this. So that is the rule. Cut, bleach, sprinkle, probiotic powder on there. And then you're right. You know, we didn't want to do it that way. So we've had to get a lot of testing and a HACCP plan. And HACCP's are fine. It's a lot of paperwork. And you can pay someone to write your HACCP for you, but you have to have a factory designed so that everything flows properly. And that's been the expensive thing for us. It's taken us all this time, really, to get where we are. We still, we've had our HACCP in theory checked off. They've got yet to come out and see the practice part, but it's quite expensive for a small business to abide by. Sharon, do you not see that this is the safest way to do it? You know, like, don't pick on someone growing sprouts. And.

It's such a flawed system because you look at companies like nourishment, organics or the fermentary, and we've got HACCP plans, extremely expensive, heavily regulated. And then you've got ebay guys or Etsy guys or all these other companies that don't have to go through the scrutiny. And these guys are unregulated guys from home. But look, that's. That's a story for another day. But it is extremely frustrating when you got frustrating.

Yep. I mean, but then, like, you're a leader in your field, and I guess we need to work out our responsibility. Now it's very different to five years ago, and we were going, hey, this not fair. You know, what have you done? What are you doing? And now it's more. We want to make sure we're doing it right so that other people are trained in a way to do it as well. However, like I said, most industry is after cheaper, faster and more. And I always tell everybody that's how we got here in the first place. We've got to bring it right back. And the first thing to have been cut out in industrialization was were things that they couldn't make faster, which were fermented foods. So it's a prime example of a pickle. Right. People are like, why? When I give them a lacto fermented pickle, and they're like, can't believe that that's Sour with no vinegar, you know. Yeah, well, because it's much easier. Much easier. You could get any kind of cucumber and vinegar, you know, we need to have thick skinned ones. We need to take the flowering end off. We have to do all these things. So I understand it's better to do it with vinegar for a financial point of view. And then you heat it up so you've got this vinegar is in effect imitating the sour flavor that you get naturally from lacto fermentation. Something wrong with vinegar. But you're like, why wouldn't you try and get the sour flavor naturally, you know, and then you've got all this beautiful life and you feel good, you know, straight away. And people often go, oh, that's pretty salty. That's not as what I'm used to. As soon as it hits their gut, they're like, can I have another one?

Yeah. And the gut bacteria will change. And then you've got. You got your gut bacteria telling you what you want. It's interesting.

Give more pickles and milk kefir to the people making the decisions.

That's right. We'll get them from the inside out. Sharon, we're pretty much coming up to time. We were such good flow. Let's segue now to something a little bit more actionable for people listening. Now let's talk about people at home that want to start on a ferment. So are you able to suggest a nice easy one to start, and how would they make it okay?

I always think brine vegetables are the easiest because right now in anyone's home, you might be listening. They probably have carrots in their fridge. Everyone has them in the bottom drawer, the fridge. So all you need to do is have a jar or some kind of a vessel, even if it's just an open vase, pottery thing. Go and clean those carrots. Cut them into either circles if you think you'd like to eat them like that, or planks if you want to dip them into hummus or sticks. Pretty easy. And you'll pop them into the jar and then you'll get maybe a liter. It's easy to measure a litre of water and put a tablespoon of salt in that. And I'm not a person who boils the water to dissolve the salt. I'm too lazy, you know, so just get normal water. But the best salt is sea salt, local sea salt. I'm not one to recommend chipping away at the Himalayas to get the salt from there. Australia's on an island, so we're surrounded by sea salt. So get your sea salt and make sure it's nice and fine and that way it'll dissolve and you don't need to heat the water up anyway. You'll get that brine. So that's your brine. Pour it over your carrots. That could be it if you wanted it to be. And, you know, cover that and make sure they're. They're underneath the brine. But flavoring a brine is a pretty fun thing and easy. A couple of black peppercorns, some mustard seeds. And these things also have antibacterial properties. So they, you know, mustard seeds are well known for that. It'll help keep the brine a little bit balanced if it needs to be fresh. Ginger will do that for you as well. I don't like ginger carrots, personally, but coriander seeds, mustard seeds, maybe a bit of dill, something like that, coriander root, and then just leave it. And carrots are fast. If you put that in Monday, you'll have them by Thursday or Friday. Yeah, and that's the thing. You don't want to. Then you'll need to refrigerate them. And that's why, going back to where we began with that house in Denmark. If only we all had this room, you know, that was. Sits around 5 degrees all year. Just pop things in. That's what we used to have. Now with carrots, you really don't want them to keep fermenting because they lose their crispness quite easily. They get a bit of slimy. They can get that calm yeast on the top. And if you're trying to learn and convert your friends, slimy, yeasty, soft carrots aren't the way. So four days. Four to five days. Taste it. Taste. Pull one out. Taste it. It should be nicely sour and brighter orange than when you started, which is pretty amazing. They're great things to put into lunch boxes. Just like if you think about the Japanese bento, they will always put something sour and fermented to preserve the lunchbox during the day. I haven't got any proof. Maybe you can enlighten us, Cribbin. But I feel like when I put something fermented like a carrot stick in a lunchbox, it's safer. The lunches is safe.

Totally, totally.

Who is it?

I had someone on my podcast recently telling me about the history of sushi and how the actual. The sushi was actually a fermented product to keep the product around. It was sour because the fermentation with the rice and then the Protein sitting on top preserved it. So I wouldn't be surprised if you added this good bacteria into the lunchbox itself.

They put the plum in the rice now because it's crystal rice.

That's it. Because the lactobacilli will get in there and start producing all these antibiotic compounds that then increase the preservative life of the actual food product in a natural way, of course. Which is amazing the way we've always.

Done it and we've made it this far.

Yeah, that's it. Totally.

So without all these allergies and all the problems that we all going through. So add a little bit and I would recommend going at it with a sense of joy and wonder. Not to be like too preachy, but instead of fear, because a lot of people like, oh, mine didn't work, you know, I'm like, no. How many times have you made a cake that was dry? Did you cake anymore or give up? No, like, give it a go. It's something you haven't seen growing up. You're always told everything should go in the fridge, you know, and now I'm saying to you, take the milk out, add a milk, if you askoby, let it sit on your bench for two days. I know it's foreign, but how else do you think we use milk before refrigeration? Which is, by the way, not very old. Home refrigeration is so new.

Totally.

Just have a little think like about the home refrigeration situation, how new that is and how we've survived this long. And yes, people might have become sick sometimes, but they're getting sick now, I think more from Latin bacteria. So the carrot recipe is, you know, it's a, it's a pickle recipe really, but it's one that's pretty fail safe. And you can do that with beans. Green beans are fabulous. Broad beans, kidney beans. Beautiful snacking foods to have brewing away on your kitchen bench and pop them in on the table when your friends are over and just nibble at these things and start adding them into your life without any fear or guilt or like, I should be doing this or taking this for my gut bacteria. Just remember that we there was like a generation or two that got rid of these foods because they had margarine and white bread and they didn't know better. Now we do, and it's up to us to bring it back. Because I read somewhere it only takes two generations to lose something, you know, and we haven't lost it. So how lucky and what a great time to be alive, that we've got this knowledge. We know what plastics do, we know to stop all this stuff and to slow down. So don't be depressed about it. You know, it's like, lucky us, we have power, we can change things. So, yeah, just by making carrots.

Make more carrots. What I love about you, Sharon, is just the positive mindset and the positive approach and sometimes I can be a bit cynical in my own mind. But I really appreciate you shining your positivity on this conversation and. And I think you've given us some amazing practical tips. And I'm going to try out these carrots. Yeah, I'm going to give these carrots a go and I'll let you know how it goes.

If they're for you, cut them in the round because just a little bit, you know, when you're at your desk and you put a little dish, you want to nibble at something, popping one in your mouth, you know, it's just less annoying for the people around you, by the way, and they're more grown up. And for the kids, I do them in plates and they just dip them into homicide.

Yum. I love that we could talk for hours. We're pretty much coming.

Simple ferments, that's what it is. It's very simple. Everything simple.

I know you're incredibly busy and you've got some new team members coming on board today, so I want to get you back to your regular job. But just before we finish, if there is one thing that someone could do for their gut health, what would that be, Sharon?

Oh, my God. Cribbing. Everyone asks me that. I really believe in the power of milk kefir.

Kefir?

Yeah, milk.

Oh, milk kefir. Oh, yes, milk kefir.

I mean, wow, look, I'm drinking my water kefir. I love water kefir to pieces. I have seen so many people's lives change from milk kefir. I can't even. And I don't like to be that one who says that, but that's a whole other podcast. So many people's lives changed from milk kefir. If you've got your own scoby and you make it yourself, where you can find a way to have a co op and buy it from someone else. It's magic.

It is magical. We're on the same page there, and I'm not sure whether we've spoken about this, but I'm embarking on a clinical study on milk kefir because it is. I'm with you. It is the most miraculous food in my mind from a scientific perspective on the planet.

Not the stuff that isn't milk kefir.

Yes. Not the supermarket stuff.

The one that's like Tang to orange juice.

That's it.

The theory is there. It looks like orange juice. It's not.

Totally. And from our research, the benefits of milk kefir actually lie in not so much the bacteria, but the functional peptides that the bacteria produce. And if you look at the studies, the functional peptides are what we call molecular mimicry. So they mimic a lot of the pharmaceutical drugs. So if you think about having 10 to 15 of these, these peptides in the product that can, for instance, be antihypertensive, so lower your blood pressure or antimicrobial, meaning killing bacteria or lowering blood sugars. And you've got all this in a product that takes 45 minutes to make. Sorry, 24 hours to make it home. Prep time is literally three seconds. Add milk to it, leave it for 24 hours, and you've got this product.

That you can make for the rest.

Of your life from one packet of milk kefir grains.

Yes. And you can. I mean, gosh, Also people who struggle to drink the milk kefir, there's so many ways to make it delicious. I mean, for me, yeah, I've heard that there's tryptophan in it, which I think I often recommend. People who are beginning, and I know they don't really. They're not fond of the texture. They don't usually drink dairy. And I always say just before bed, a shot glass, drink it down. Because we are a giant tube, right?

Yeah.

Literally goes out. So you have to keep doing this. And this is not something you go, oh, I had some of that last week. No, this is. Remember, we're a tube and everything has to keep going in all the time because it's going to go out all the time. But milk of you, if you have it at night, at least the tube's laying flat. And it's just stay in there. This is just my old mother sibling into your intestinal wall and do some work. And actually it's tryptophan. So you're going to go to sleep and your body's relaxed. When your body's relaxed, it does a lot of great stuff, detoxing and building and fixing and healing. So that's my first thing. It'll be like if you can make your own milk. And I mean, my daughter's going away on exchange to France and she's. That's one of the things in a, you know, in a jar. I'm like, you have your milk affair because it, it helps with acne and you can put it on. When Roger, who is my partner now that he joined as a chef early on at the fermentary, he was taking. What do you call that, Pepto for heartburn.

Ah, yes. A lot of people take proton pump inhibitors.

Ah, he was, he was just taking them all the time when he got heartburn and he also had reflux. He was burping and stuff. And I was like, whoa, whoa. If you work here, you know, you can't have, you can't be taking that. And he didn't like the milk of you. He was like, I don't like drinking my goat's cheese. I don't like drinking my feta. I'm like, in three weeks he was drinking, he would have a 750ml bottle sitting on the bench as he was working. Drink the whole thing. I kid you not, it's been five years and he hasn't had that medicine since. And every time he lets it go, you know, he gets lazy. We don't have it in the house or whatever, he'll get it back and just, you know, get the milk fever out again. And I've heard so many stories like that, even for pets and animals who are inflamed and they've got arthritis in their bones or whatever, and people feed them milk, their grains. I mean, sometimes I just have to slow down because I don't want to sound so evangelical about things, you know, but. And then when people ask me, I'm like, no, I can't tell you because I don't want to sound like this for sure. I'm so glad to hear you're doing research on it.

Totally. It needs to happen. It needs to happen because no pharmaceutical company is going to invest in that because it's so cheap for one packet of grains that a customer buys once in their lifetime. I mean, a $20 lifetime value. Whereas you got pharmaceutical drugs that you spend thousands, hundreds of thousands potentially in a lifetime. It just doesn't make sense for a pharmaceutical company to invest in that or nor would they. So I thought, well, we're going to do it.

Dairy industry, I mean, they're probably struggling right now because of all the vegans and the coconut milk and things like that. Maybe the dairy industry has some spare.

Money, maybe, hopefully, because diabetes is a huge issue. So that's what we're hoping to get. The, you know, the funding from the government to actually help us with the trial. Because obviously, you know, milk if is great for things like diabetes, anxiety and depression. They're very topical and huge problems our society faces. So let's do something about that.

I've had circles of mums who, you know, get into it because I'm into it from school. And when they get into the milk of the year, they're saying, I don't want to spread this word, but is it an appetite suppressant? It's totally. It does that. You can have a big glass of milk here in the morning and literally not even remember that it's lunch and it's two o' clock and you're like, wait, oh. Because you feel, and you know, the other thing is you can make smoothies with it that if you've got a green smoothie and you put milk of your in it, it will stay green for a couple days. Doesn't go brown if you put a banana in it because there's antioxidants in there. And I feel as though the things that taste good in milk kefir are also really good for you, like cinnamon. Cinnamon is great for your blood. It just seems to match with things that are good for you. I hope you can get that through and if there's anything I can do.

Thanks, Sharon. No, absolutely. Let's keep talking about how we can collaborate and get this word out there because we both know it's transformed both our lives and both our lives are really parallel since that 2011, 2012 and the GAPS diet. There's so much similarities. Sharon, I want to thank you so much for coming onto this podcast. It's such a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it. But don't be a stranger and let's catch up pretty soon.

Yes, please. I love that.

Awesome. Sharon Flynn, thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus podcast with Sharon Flynn, author of the book Ferment for Good. Guys, guys, your support means the world to us. So if you enjoyed this podcast episode or any of the previous episodes, please share with your friends and family members so they can benefit from this life changing information. Also, hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. Leave us a five star review, a comment, any feedback that can help us improve our podcast and also to attract better guests. So if there's anyone you want to listen to on the podcast, leave a note in the comments and we'll try and reach out to them and get them onto the podcast. Now this podcast is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, the premier gut health store in Australia. In this podcast episode we talked about making your own kefir fermented vegetables. Kombucha Nourish Me Organics have some nice really simple to use home fermentation kits to make all these products and they're far more cost effective and also beneficial than any of the store bought stuff. Say, head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code Sharon for 10% off. Guys, thank you for tuning in. Until next.