Cultured: How Ancient Foods Can Feed Our Microbiome

by Katherine Harmon Courage

Overview

Journalist Katherine Harmon Courage shows readers why and how we should be eating for the 300 trillion bacteria, fungi, and Archaea our bodies depend on to keep us healthy.
 
In Cultured, Katherine Harmon Courage investigated the essential role our gut—or as we now know it’s more accurately called, the microbiome—plays in our overall health and well-being. Through our efforts to keep our bodies and living environments clean and disinfected, we are actually wiping out the essential microbes we need to maintain our immunity. Fortunately, simple dietary changes may be all we need to right the ecology of our microbiome. By examining digestive health through a foodie’s lens—looking to other cultures and their gut-friendly food traditions, from kimchi to kefir, and teaching us the differences between probiotic and prebiotic foods—Courage is able to break down the complex science behind digestive health to make it accessible for all readers. Highly informative yet accessible and practical, Cultured is the resource readers need in order to learn what they can and should be doing to cultivate the essential microbes they need to live healthier, happier lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101905289
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/12/2019
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	652,615
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Katherine Harmon Courage is a contributing editor for Scientific American and a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, National Geographic, and Popular Science, among other publications. Courage has been covering the microbiome beat since 2009. Her first book, Octopus!: The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea, was published in October 2013, and her work was featured in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013. She lives in Colorado.

Table of Contents

Introduction: We Are Not Alone 1

Chapter 1 Microbes: In Our Guts and Under Fire 7

Chapter 2 What's in the Gut 29

Chapter 3 Feeding the Microbiome 51

Chapter 4 Quintessential Culture: Dairy 77

Chapter 5 Consider the Pickle: Produce 123

Chapter 6 Intoxicating Ferments: Grains 157

Chapter 7 Basic Beans: Legumes and Seeds 169

Chapter 8 The Undead: Meat 199

Chapter 9 Bringing It Home 223

Conclusion Saving an Invisible World 251

Further Reading 257

Acknowledgments 259

Index 263

Editorial Reviews

From Greenland to Greece, Courage explores the ancient gut-friendly foods that have become integral parts of many food cultures, and offers suggestions on how to diversify the kinds of foods we feed our microbiome.”
—NPR

“Deeply researched but conversational and even funny, Cultured is the guide we need to make sense of the hope and hype of microbiome science and what it means for our everyday lives.”
—Maryn McKenna, author of Big Chicken, Superbug, and Beating Back the Devil

“This enthralling book sounds the clarion call to end the senseless onslaught of warfare waged against our microbial symbionts. It is time to embrace the world within us and feed the ferment that keeps us happy and healthy.”
—Ken Albala, Professor of History University of the Pacific

From the Publisher

Winter 2018

Freelance journalist and Scientific American contributing editor Courage (Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature in the Sea) details the complexities of the human digestive system with regard to the tremendous diversity of microorganisms operating in the gut. In simplifying the evolving science, the author explains what a formidable role the gut plays in the human immune system and reveals the importance of fermented foods in maintaining a healthy balance of hardworking, health-supporting microbes. Courage vividly recounts details of her travels to places where daily consumption of fermented foods is embedded in the culture, such as Japan, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland. In these locales she meets people and learns about their fermenting techniques, here offering simple recipes for foods such as sauerkraut, yogurt, kimchi, pickles, and more. This well-written book differs from other works on the human gut in that it does not provide a prescriptive diet with dos and don'ts. VERDICT Highly recommended to general readers interested in the science of a healthy immune system.—Karen White, Univ. of Tennessee at Martin

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