National Airport in response to turbulence times of injuries that were sustained on board Austin Emergency Services says 73 people were on board the flight 2 were hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries Wall Street staged an impressive rally Wednesday the Dow close with a record point gain of 1806 as Chief Beckner reports it's a welcome search after the market delivered its worst performance in a decade last week and took another big tumble on Christmas Eve The market has far to go to get back to its highs and it's premature to think it strange volatility is over but for now investors can feel relieved they more than recouped what they gave up Monday though not last week's deep loss if traders needed an excuse to go bargain hunting the day after Christmas they got it from strong retail sales rising oil prices and he's done certainty about the Federal Reserve the president had bass chairman Jerome Powell for raising interest rates but one of Trump's top economic advisors Kevin Hassett says Powers job is safe led by retail and tech stocks the Dow and s. And p. Rose 5 percent the Nasdaq surged almost 5 and 7 eighth's percent for n.p.r. News I'm Steve back in or Asian stocks posted gains Thursday following Wall Street's rally to Pan's Nikkei index rebounded about 4 percent you're listening to n.p.r. News in Washington. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now recuperating at home following surgery for early stage along cancer a supreme court spokesperson says the 85 year old justice was released from a hospital in New York on Tuesday after the operation Ginsburg surgeon said there is no evidence of any remaining disease and there is currently no more treatment planned it is the justices 3rd cancer diagnosis these nodules were discovered in her left lung during tests to treat rib fractures that she sustained in a fall last month the opposing sides in Yemen civil war have met with the u.n. Team in who data N.P.R.'s Michele Kelemen reports all parties are hoping to maintain a ceasefire in the key port city a u.n. Advance team led by retired Dutch Major General Patrick America arrived in who data last weekend and a u.n. Spokesman says Camaron has now held his 1st meeting with Yemen's warring sides to discuss ways to ensure that a cease fire holds they also talked about the need for humanitarian access Duhoux data a key port city in a country where millions are facing famine a Saudi led coalition has been fighting for several years now to restore Yemen's government which was ousted by Iranian backed who the rebels a u.n. Spokesman says the warring sides had to clear minefields so that a government delegation could get to that meeting in who data city Michele Kelemen n.p.r. News Washington the Coast Guard is searching for a 20 year old crew member of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in the waters northwest of Puerto Rico the crew member is thought to have gone overboard into the Atlantic Ocean Tuesday night Royal Caribbean says he's a member of the ship's entertainment team this is n.p.r. Support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the doors do charitable foundation whose clinical scientist development awards support promising early career physicians scientists and their research efforts to improve human health and Americans for the Arts. Cheese tough food chocolate wine beer bread yogurt kimchi so good for me and even coffee What do you think these apparently unrelated consumable substances have in common Well they're all the result of the unique process of fermentation and in almost every corner of the world you'll find some kind of food or drink produced like this people have been fermenting food for millenia. Hello and welcome to the forum on the b.b.c. World Service I'm rajin data it's only within the last 200 years or so that we've come to understand more about fermentation and the world of microorganisms that transform everything we eat both in and outside our bodies and in knowing more about the microorganisms we're also starting to appreciate the potential health benefits with hundreds of scientific studies focusing on fomented foods to discuss fermentation I'm joined on today's forum from Nashville in the USA by sandal Katz the author a wild fermentation and the art of fermentation from Denmark by Dennis Nielsen a microbiologist in the food science department at the University of Copenhagen and in London we have Hercules a food writer and chef originally from Ukraine and the author of 2 books on the cooking of a homeland and surrounding region my. And calculus is as our aperitif I want to ask each of you in turn What's your favorite fermented food and why send you this well this is always an impossible question for me and I'm very devoted to sauerkraut and kimchi and I love to eat them but I don't know if I love them more than I love cheese I don't know if I love them more than I love being here I don't know if I love them more than I love chocolate or coffee so really what I love about the world of fermented foods is its incredible diversity and assertive flavors but your nickname is sandal kraut I believe well this is try to say I'm very devoted to sauerkraut I have certainly made more sauerkraut than any other fermented food or beverage but I would hate to have to pick one to the exclusion of all the other Ok you Dennis what's your favorite being about just this little bit like asking a parent to choose between his or her child or children but if if I really have to choose I guess it can it for me it boils down to 2 wine because it's love the product but perhaps also Jute all the cultures around the product I think many people would agree with you Janice and Alia tomatoes for me I think because I really miss the ones that we have in Ukraine so I guess that has to do with home for me so if I had to pick champagne tomatoes as my mom calls. To say Ok let's get down now to basics and before we go any further establish exactly what fermentation is now in English the wood fermentation comes from the Latin for very meaning to boil but sandal What does fermentation mean to you the reason why we use this word that evokes boiling is that in liquids fermentation creates bubbles and I would say broadly speaking I define fermentation as the transformative action of micro organisms but we really reserve this word for desirable or intentional microbial transformations in which. We discover some greens decomposing in a plastic bag in the back of the refrigerator we don't pull them out and say oh look these are fermented we use a different vocabulary to describe them we call them rotten or spoilt and for mentored really means a desirable or intentional microbial transformation I mean there's a fine line isn't there between spoilage and fermentation and earlier the word for mentation exists in Ukrainian but do use a different term from it and yeah when I go back home and use the word that I meant that my aunty and my mom and everyone kind of laugh at me you know it sounds so scientific to them we use the word question which comes from class that they all class makes our. Various points throughout the program you're going to be preparing some ferment advantaged balls and we'll eventually be tasting some of your homemade recipes tell me what you've got here and what you're going to do to begin with I'm just going to cut the cabbage What are you actually making. Out just the simplest kind of recipe that my mom does all the time which is cabbage and carrot a few spices like Caraway salt and sugar which is massage it until it becomes a really says moisture some lovely smell so you know actually. I mean I know you love the idea that food is alive basically that because of the microorganisms in France and sound oh bread you like tell me about that that's like having a pet at home specially with the sour do you need to feed it you need to look after it you know it gives you like a nice feeling itself is fighting a find like so your food is your pets Yeah your food is if that. Brings you joy and then if it does makes me think it. Is there are different types of meditation which will look at it in more detail in a minute but the kind of thing that Ali is making now what's happening there what kind of fermentation is it in. What is happening is that you put off and somehow chop the raw material could be kept for instance and you will as some sort of a mess after it and the salt will then draw water and with a ball it also should go out of the plant cells into liquid and this is happening then microorganisms and this will mainly be electic as a bacteria that naturally our present under the surface of French and the cabbage will start to convert this sugar into a well they are sort of preferred in product and this would normally be like to get it and then you have a souring and as if occasion of the product so we're talking about a succession of different bacteria operating here in the beginning you would normally have one type of place to get a picture called to look at a stock that thrive but they're not super tolerant to as it so wants to as a concentration reaches a certain threshold to a normally have other lasik as a bacteria that tolerate like to get it to a higher degree they will then take over because then they would have a competitive advantage it's so this would only be for instance a guy called x. Was sort of fun Tom but it could be just for shorter and shorter like to get a picture you might to that's like tick acid fermentation sound or tell us of the main types of fermentation and how they would probably the most widespread style of fermentation is alcohol fermentation in which yeast which is a fungus consumes sugars and transforms them into alcohol and carbon dioxide then if you fail to protect your alcohol from oxygen there are bacteria called a c.d.o. Back sure they can metabolize alcohol into acetic acid they're also alkaline for man they are for mince where we grow moles on greens or being really there's an incredible diversity of. Types of fermentation process sees in many foods and beverages in more than one type of organism more than one type of fermentation byproduct is occurring simultaneously and just to be clear fermentation is going on all the time because it's an interaction with the environment right so when you leave a bottle of wine out with a little off it'll eventually become vinegar is that right precisely I mean what's keeping it why is the fact that we're protecting it from oxygen that's why it's always sealed so securely that if you leave it unsealed with access to a flow of oxygen in a really before too much time passes it begins to develop a sour edge as the a c. Go back to her beginning to generate city gas it and the longer you leave it the more acidic and vinegary it will be can't. Tell me how important is climate in all this and the temperature once the ferment kind of gets going you need to make sure to put it somewhere cool that's kind of slow it down but back at home I don't know if it's not only just the climate but also being in the countryside and as opposed to an urban environment I have to crane this yeah in Ukraine so my mom lives in the countryside and they kind of leave things quite open in big tubs and covering it's a little bit but not fitted lead or anything and it works and it's I don't know if maybe if there is more wild beasts floating around but in my London flat I always have problems with that so often best that you know but some just for mentation stuff and it seems to work better but I don't leave anything in tubs anymore it's just took 2 days and it's that so all your How's it going with the fermenting what's next so now that we've chopped everything fine we'll we'll just add sugar and salt and then I'll just flush the cabbage and till it really says some water and becomes a little bit limp and then we'll leave it for a little bit and then repeat. Action again. Now at the beginning of the program I mentioned some of the mental feeds that you'll find on every continent if I listed all of the we'd be here forever you got things like clearly fermented like sauerkraut which we talked about made from cabbage you'll get made from fermented milk wine from fermented grapes and many kinds of bread of course now Dennis there are other foods there that we probably don't realize undergo some kind of fermentation like chocolate for example or rather which is called in its rules state which you've studied extensively some years back when I was doing my my Ph d. And I was working a lot with a feminization of cocoa invest Africa and try to describe was this microbiological a process that has to take place to produce could cook or beans that you can use to produce a chocolate of a good quality once you're there cook or fruit you would then place the beans in often in there in a heap the ground is covered with plants in leaves and in to place it on the ground covered with plants in the us and in dissemination runs for 56 days and this is a. Session of different microorganisms that act one after Charles the 1st you have yeast that pave the way for like to get a bacteria that been responsible for assimilating some of the citric acid ration the P.A.'s making the environment nice for acidic as a bacteria and then they're said to get a big Syria. Of course to produce acetic acid but also raise the temperature so if you put your hand in to have a heap of familiar core beans they were likely to be pretty warm because the temperature might easily reach 48 even 50 degrees some types and only things happening during the fermentation during the drying process and in the end when the Scorpions finally reach the top to produce the beans would be roasted and safety during the roasting process that the flavor potential of the cool beans are sort of really. At least because all the spring start of fall during the feminization and the drying process react with the char the fall being all the flavors that we associate with the chocolate Ok so that's a fermentation traditional process which presumably has been done for centuries if not longer but some don't tell me what's the earliest evidence of people from minting foods according to the archaeological record the earliest evidence that has been identified is pottery shards from a site in China which are more than 9000 years old and have evidence of alcohol but really fermentation is much more ancient than this and the cultural practices of fermentation predate recorded history and it's important to bear in mind that fermentation does not require human intervention fermentation is a natural phenomenon anyone who has ever harvested a lot of berries has recognized that some of the berries are already ferment and there's a lot of evidence of insects and birds and mammals being attracted to this smell of fermented fruit and sometimes actually even becoming in the abreviated So I think that we can presume that before human culture developed any insight into how to make fermentation happen our primate ancestors in the earliest humans were occasionally stumbling upon fermenting fruit and enjoying the alcohol that's generated by it and one of the hallmarks of culture is that we figured out both the technology the vessel's the pottery and also the methods to you know take this natural phenomenon and make it happen on our own terms it is difficult to establish exactly what prehistoric people would have ate because of a lack of evidence but by the time we get to ancient civilizations we do have text . That Tell us more about the human race his relationship with fermented foods here is an extract from the Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Mesopotamia which is the region around modern day Rog Now this poem dates back more than 4000. They put bread before him he narrowed his eyes gazing and staring thinking did not know the bread for eating and for drinking he had never been shown the heart opened her mouth and said to him eat the bread and he do the think proper to life. The lot of the land. The bread until he was sated he drank the 7 jugs for his mood became free he was singing his heart became merry and his face shone bright part of the Epic of Gilgamesh translated by Andrew George and me strick for the School of Oriental and African Studies in London now only are I don't know if you can trace your history back 4000 years but clearly fermenting foods runs in the family for you tell me what kind of things they used to do mad things as well as getting more of a normal kraut tomatoes gag and you know but everything that they grew essentially because there was a big lot so we used to make sour then watermelons whole and start the fermentation process my Grandad used to do it in that bath tub weirdly in the south of Ukraine is very famous for their what it was that everywhere the small ones would be put into the bus and then the big ones would be juiced and a brine was made with the watermelon juice and you'd cover the watermelons with this and plus a little bit of normal Brian would be added in and then you leave in there to get started and then there would be transferred into barrels and taken downstairs in the cellar and about 34 months by winter you will have what amounts that have ferment it's to the point of you can eat the sky. And that's a snack for you Ok Another example there of how fomentation is practiced all over the world and has been for thousands of years but let's get to this point 1st of all why did people actually ferment foods in the 1st place well I mean there's a certain inevitability to fermentation and I think it's hard for us in the 21st century to appreciate this because we all have these fermentation slowing devices our refrigerators but we can't even really imagine what we do with food without the refrigerator so I mean the benefit of fermentation is rather then there's microbial transformation being the decomposition of your food into something to Scott's thing that nobody would ever put into their mouth you're turning the food into alcohol you're turning it into a form that is more stable for storage whether it is short term storage or longer term storage you're making the food more delicious you're making the food more easily digestible so you know one benefit is always the food isn't decomposing but there's always some practical benefit of every fermentation process and Dennis some foods can't be eaten unless they're actually fermented a tool is that right you know is correct well known at least to some people in this basically based Africa example would be a saga I guess of as kind of the potato of West Africa so it's an important part of the diet for millions of people but if you don't somehow process and this means Fed meant that a salad before you before you eat it will actually be toxic for you because contains quite a lot of Senate side so it's a very toxic but that are created by the feminization So here it's essential that you have a feminization process to make the food safe to eat what's fascinating about all this is that people with amending foods in an intuitive way without any knowledge of the science behind it they hadn't identified bacteria to. Development of the microscope in the 17th century and once scientists began to discover this world teeming with microorganisms that gave us a greater understanding of what goes on during the fermentation process and I want to take us through some of the earliest scientific discoveries regarding famine Taishan it wasn't evident to all scientists that these tiny beings that were visible under the microscope had anything to do with with fermentation and as a matter of fact during the 18th and early 1900 century it was considered rather old fashioned in retrograde to you know imagine that fermentation was a biological life process and most scientists were thinking about it in terms of a simple chemical transformation and it was really Louis pester her a French chemist who was hired by a wine manufacturer to help improve the process of wine making who 1st recognize that the yeast that were visible under the microscope were the agents of the fermentation of the wine and he is the person credited with really defining for science that fermentation is a biological process and importantly he began to distinguish between and among different types of fermentation organisms and he isolated strains if ye sed he came up with methods for destroying all of the bacteria and fungi in a food so that you could put in the isolated species just a kind of 5 Dennis before there was this popular idea of spontaneous generation what is that basically I think it this idea of spontaneous generation I fully expect all the way to the into creeks where I start. At this belief that living organisms could fall without that to so. And from from similar organisms l.p.c. To that living things could have eaten made from from non-living matter and pester was sort of the I guess the one who really nailed that that this was not the case so what he did was some in principle pretty simple experiments but of course it takes a lot of pretty good thought of a Anyway so he puts some broth so basically what I go substitute into bottles and these bottles at let's say it's one shaped neck so kind of bending in the shape of s one neck and then he he paused about its And he showed that. After boiling in these bottles feminization would not stop there would be no bike but article activity whatsoever because all the micro in his arms had been killed by the falling process and then he showed that if he chopped off the neck of the bottle swell then soon after fermentation would stop because they had been contaminated with microorganisms by now inoculate of the by talking isthmus from the air and it did as serious of experiments basically yet on the same lines where he showed that as long as you buy the software and you keep microbes out fermentation will not stop so that his life will not generate and if you make sure that microorganisms can inoculate from the surroundings Well then fermentation both stop and Sunda I would just say that the illumination of fermentation by microbiology did not end with Louis pester and really only since the beginning of the new millennium have we begun to have effective tools for looking at communities of microorganisms and it's really important to understand that in the natural world microorganisms are everywhere but they're never found singularly but on all of these substrates which are manifestations of the natural world you find these elaborate communities of organisms and really the. Practice of fermentation amounts to creating selective conditions so as to encourage the growth of certain organisms while simultaneously discouraging the growth of other types of organisms and certainly microbiology continues to illuminate what's going on what are the dynamics of fermentation Now just before we break for the news I want to ask you to describe what you're going to do with the vegetables you've prepared and what's happening now. Just pummeling it down and a little bit just to help it get compressed and what and what was the reason for that was the purpose of that for you want the cabbage to be tightly packed so there's no end up pockets of ice might go wrong so the program will be tasting some of this and I am looking forward to that and exploring some of the health claims made for fermented foods that's in part to this forum for the b.b.c. Will service straight after the new summary. The b.b.c. World service connects audiences to the world from international news to science sports arts and culture programming b.b.c. World service offers listeners a global perspective distribution of the b.b.c. World Service in the us was made possible by American Public Media a.p.m. Produces and distributes programs that informant inspire entertain and engage audiences everywhere. Pro football players are used to treatment for physical pain not emotional pain when you're looking at a hyper masculine environment such as football it's still you know getting over I don't have to be tough all the time like it's Ok to be vulnerable it's Ok to cry the n.f.l. Is 1st full time psycho therapist Plus the latest on the partial government shutdown that's on the next Morning Edition from n.p.r. News listen during your commute Thursday until mine on p.c.l. You. Still to come on the floor and we continue our look at the fascinating world of fermentation and ask how much of the game changer the discoveries of Louis passed away what are the health hazards and health benefits of concocting food and drink with living microorganisms and my guest aficionados will explain why in spite of refrigeration technology fermentation survives even thrives today and we take the taste test on especially for men to feast in the studio that's after the new summery b.b.c. News with Neil Eunice they Indonesian authorities have rerouted all air traffic around the erupting and a crocodile a volcano They say the steps been taken due to ash being spewed out by the volcano last Saturday the volcano triggered a tsunami resulting in hundreds of deaths President Trump has used a surprise Christmas visits to u.s. Troops in Iraq to defend his decision to pull American forces out of Syria he also said that if other nations want the u.s. To do the fighting there have to pay for it on his way back to Washington Mr Trump made a brief stopover at Ramstein Air Base in Germany shares in Tokyo have closed nearly 4 percent higher following earlier gains in New York u.s. Shares bounced back after publication of data showing that u.s. Holiday season say retail sales grew by over 5 percent their strongest performance for 6 years police in the Democratic Republic of Congo have fired tear gas at Crown's protesting against the decision to further delay the presidential election a b.b.c. Correspondent in the city of Goma said demonstrators are being dispersed the vote which was due to take place on Sunday has now been postponed until March in 3 areas of the country because of insecurity and an Ebola outbreak. Japan has executed 2 inmates on death row the 2 men were convicted for the strangling of an investment firm executive and an employee in 1988 the hangings bring the total number of executions in Japan this year to 15 police in the Greek capital Athens say an explosive device left outside a judge has wounded a police officer who was examining a suspect package the blast happened early in the morning in the call Anakin district in the city and to terror police have cordoned off the area b.b.c. News. Welcome back to the forum on the b.b.c. World Service I'm Raj data and today we're exploring the world of Fermentation the science the history the potential health benefits and the taste I'm joined by 3 experts in fermentation from Nashville in the United States by Sendo Katz a man who clearly for minutes with attitude from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark by microbiologist Dennis Nilsen and in London. Who is steeped in the culture of fermentation we've been talking about how people started to understand more about the science in analyzing the kind of bacteria work during the filming Taishan process and Louis is remembered today full pasteurization the method way you heat food to a given temperature to kill off certain bacteria sandal what would you say was passed legacy I would say that many of the early microbiologists regarded the traditional fermented foods with broad communities of bacteria with some suspicion and one of the early projects of microbiologist was let's say to take a culture like yogurt and to look at and under a microscope and try to really identify of the many bacteria that were there most of which were unknown and presumed to potentially be dangerous which ones were necessary for the production of yogurt so you know one of the legacies of the early microbiologists was sort of the the dumbing down of fermentation or making fermentation more simple which had certain advantages for industrial production but has had the effect of let's say disempowering generalists people who are fermenting at home because traditional starters could be refreshed generation after generation and in families were often passed down through the generations whereas the supposedly improved cultures often didn't. Have that kind of resilience and structural durability because they were you know made from isolated bacteria that have been propagated in the laboratory rather then passed down through practices over the course of many generations so I think it's been a mixed bag really and there's also an irony isn't this and all that in a sense with past as legacy of boiling milk or whatever the degree you actually lose interesting parts of foods that you could create through feminization Yeah absolutely you get less diversity of fermentation by products which means less complex flavor you know and in certain cases you know reduce safety and it's really important to bear in mind that fermentation as much as anything else is a strategy for safety and that that acids and alcohol that are produced in many of the ferment limits the ability of organisms that would be regarded as pathogenic to even survive Well there have been concerns over the safety of amended food with reports linking them with bunches and which is a potentially fatal illness in the United States for example between 1990 and the year 2000 there were 263 confirmed cases of botulism primarily in the state of Alaska and from traditional fermented meat and fish products so Dennis tell me how safe do you think fermented foods are well all fermented foods are safe of course as long as they have to be produced in a problem Anna but generally speaking that if it is safe and it will in almost all cases be safer than none from in the starting material and what about the variables involved using too little sold for example Yeah I think for instance the cases you mention here will Postal is probably due to people at home trying to make some sort of traditionally fermented meat product or fish products and then for whatever reason they perhaps add a little bit too little salt or perhaps the. Do it at a different temperature than they used to do again this recipe so often daughter mentions passed down from generation to generation and then if conditions change it's a little bit warmer than they used to be for instance well then their product also changes and then perhaps what used to be a safe product is not a safe product anymore but often the problems will for instance Coast region put a line on or just wouldn't prefer Indians and other produce of your organism is often that people say Ok I don't have to have that much salt because then it tastes better but then you actually go from a from a safe product to an unsafe product and these other things that sometimes happens there's something among microbiologist that we call grandfather's fruit Basically it means that if it was safe for Grandfather it's probably also safe for you but of course you should also use the recipe the grandfather used to not that one would listen. Ok only it was your basic rule of thumb when it comes to safety and fermented cream so this is not scientific advice but if it smells good but there's a little bit of mold that's Ok just take the mold off if it becomes slimy that's game over and if it smells bad don't eat it you know if it smells Ok pleasantly sour then it's good but subtle Is there any type of food in your experience that can't or shouldn't be fermented ever. Absolutely not there's there's nothing that we could possibly eat that cannot be ferment it people from it if poor you know that's your salami people from it fish that's fish sauce and all the traditional sushi before there was refrigeration everywhere I mean there's just no food that we could possibly eat that cannot be from it well with the advent of modern techniques of food storage and preservation that could have been the nail in the coffin for fermentation in recent years though it's been enjoying a revival and eating or drinking fermented products has in certain quarters become fashionable What example is Kombucha a drink made from fermented tea here is Melissa Marc a computer producer from Singapore to tell us how it's made in Italy some water in some tea leaves about one liter of water 10 grams of tea leaves Troy in about 35 grams of sugar is have to stir it. Melt it down to. Wait for the tea to get cooled down and. 100 mills of just started. So after you're done with the whole process of putting in your can we just start and your glass tank you have to seal it using a class and a rubber band under top. For it to do it's fermenting magic. Tree to forty's in Southeast Asia to see any action where if it's colder it takes a bit longer it could take up to a month maximum to make a point that you can which as well and the more you are able to control the temperature and humidity it means you get much smoother product as well. People have been really positive about drinking so far I mean that with moved from about 1600 people in 2016 and move today right. Now we've got about 6900 interested fermenters here in Singapore and I think we more still so I think there's a lot more room that young people in discovering this shared common Kerry teaching . Right now everyone and getting back to that healthy living life a bit more naturally having food stamps and it's a bit more tasty because after the ferment flavors do change to transform the trend has always been it's just that people are not aware that the process is caught fermentation and right now we are putting a bit more thought through it and reviving it it's just what is natural to us we're just eating a more cultured life so to speak fermenting is culture. Melissa Mark producer from Singapore got one clearly wrong. And. Ethel Merman singing the praises of visit means in Cole Porter's I've still got my health from the musical Panama. Now fermented foods have been hailed as one depart ox which supposedly can boost our immune system help us lose weight and so on they've even been linked to lowering the risk of cancer now we're all aware how fatty certain foods can become We're always hearing about that just an antioxidant for example but is there any substance to these claims about fermented food certainly there are all kinds of unsubstantiated claims being made on behalf of particular fermented foods and I like to remind people that the outcomes in our health are not about. Adding one single thing removing one single thing from our diet Now that said that there are unsubstantiated claims that some people are making I want to be very clear that there are very powerful ways that fermented foods can enhance our health you know generally it's the bacteria themselves that are only intact in one cooks and not heat processed versions of these foods that really can have the most profound benefit and the importance of those bacteria is that they provide us all kinds of essential services they enable us to effectively digest food and assimilate nutrients they constitute our immune system they are producing a lot of the chemicals that enable our neurological system to function and when we're eating these live from into foods really what we're doing is enhanced seeing biodiversity and this increased biodiversity can have the effect of improving digestion improving immune function so it's not a direct connection that you if you eat this particular fermented food you will get this particular enhancement you know it's more that the you know eating a variety of Live From and did Foods is a strategy for restoring and enhancing biodiversity So I think we have to be very careful about the claims that people are making about fermented foods we have to take them with a little bit of a grain of salt but I think that you know with all the new information we're learning about the importance of bacteria we have to recognize that these foods can have very profound impact upon people's health and Dennis some of your more recent work has been looking at the effects of aging fermented foods on patients with irritable bowel syndrome known as i.b.s. Tell us what you found some of them assigned to so for men to white cabbage. And this was unpasteurized version and the other half got exactly the same but this all called We have passed a riced and a working hypothesis was actually that the sauerkraut that had not been passed riced would be better in terms of alleviating the effect of i.b.s. And would also increase the diversity of the court micro biome etc etc Can you explain what the gut microbiome is but the got my good bio is the term describing all the microbes that we carry we as humans or as mammals carry in a court but what we found was that there were no difference between Will the products have been passed to rise to not at least not in this particular case so in both cases we found a significant improvement of the symptoms from from these i.b.s. Patients but will be consumed the 1st riot on a non-person Rice product did not really make a difference here probably because the sauerkraut in itself contains a lot of things that are important for the god micro biome So will it be within consuming life like to get the bacteria to kill the product or not don't really have an influence because we were eating a lot of my stuff while doing so it could have been about the fibers as much as anything else Ok only a tell me where do you stand on the health debate you're not a scientist but tell me how you feel about it I make it any good for flavor really and because quite nostalgic and it's part of my culture so if it is true then for the better but in the New Scientist Recently I read an article that it's actually prebiotics and you are better off eating that with Syria that you already have and maybe they don't the Sara Lee transfer from the ferments that you eat but I'll keep believing that it's good for me well I suppose the bottom line with fermented food is that you eat it because it tastes good so the moment has come I'm going out to some of the fermented foods you brought along now just to be clear you were preparing earlier but obviously. It's times of a mental you've got some here which you've made earlier as it were and it's been fermenting How long has it been for do for this one is about 2 months 2 months or so and it's covered in. Sunflower oil from Ukraine and some raw onions this is the traditional way to eat them smells and looks amazing if you go. Up. And I haven't eaten for 4 hours but nonetheless it's still really really life delicious thank you well and you've got something else here which is which is interesting to me so there's a little bit of tomatoes in the tomato has been fermenting for a year since last January the tomato has been fermenting for a year oh yeah yeah you can see any evidence of mold or whatever you get from that no no in there not much either so there are winter tomatoes Miranda tomatoes from Sicily I think so and have you fermented that is Bryan basically so you score them and then you put them into brine 3 or 5 percent and then put flavorings inside the brine and just leave them go with a little bit funky. Let's try something a little bit funny. That is not what I expected and it's really quite spicy untangle and well its texture is different to normal tomato who just tried it as well while it's definitely been there for yeah I like that. That's really good where you see these kind of pickles so to me been a good because I like them I enjoy them but this is the stuff that really brings back home to me and I know it sounds a bit weird but it's something almost spiritual but I mean do you feel that you were engaging with food and of the deeper level yeah no I like that who have very much like that yeah I think so. But I'm really enjoying it on every level so thank you so much for bringing this and I'll thank you so what before we finish I do want to ask 3 of you we've been talking a lot about the science of fermentation and also the traditional more intuitive aspects in the future and the to co-exist does knowing more about how fermentation works in sure it will survive send let me go to you 1st. I think that the science of microbiology is aluminum eating fermentation in very interesting and useful ways but I always try to remind people you don't need to be a microbiologist to do this all of the practitioners for the 1st 10000 years of the human practice of fermentation did not know the science of it and it wasn't an impediment so you don't need to know the science but if you're interested in the dynamics of what's going on that we can't see the science right now is fascinating until you Dennis I think what we will also see in the future and past for the audit is seeing now is that different environments are different cultures being inspired by each other also in terms of fermentation So you see sort of a. Reinvention of some for mentation processes for processes that perhaps have been done since age intern times in. Being sort of reinvented in a European concept and perhaps also the other way around and earlier is fermentation alive and well it's equivalent survive into the future for a while I was worried that it will be just the passing trend but it seems to be kind of establishing itself with the home cooks and we're having this conversation today and I'm sure so many people be interested to listen to all this I think it's here to stay I really hope so well that sadly is all we've got time for now thank you all so much for exploring the world of fermentation with me what I realized talking to you 3 is that it's not just food science it's an art form and a passion so earlier Hercules there is Neilson and sandal cats thank you very much I'm Roger data and thanks for listening. The delicious and the odd but it is. He sees c.b.c. . You. B.b.c. World Service and now sporting witness with me Simon Watts today I'm bringing you the inspiring story of Lopez Limone he was scape from the war in South Sudan as a child and ended up running in the end lympics for the United States. It's Juno a 2008 u.s. Olympic trials in Eugene Oregon Lopez Lomong is going for one of the 3 places on the 1500 meters team for the Beijing Olympics it's a long way from his childhood in Africa I was running for joy that was something I put in my head this is fun this is awesome I'm not running away from the bullets and guns and people want to kill me or my life the race was slow intense with a lot of just link between the run as the 3rd going to the backstretch that was a guy came up with and tried to push all of us the top 3 guys well all tumbling each other is not good is not right Lopez just about managed to stay on his feet then he made his move towards the front but immediately seemed to slow up my hamstring tight up and I kind of fall back a little bit and I just kind of dig in and a lot of noise came to my head and telling you exactly why I'm doing this for and I just gain a good strength and my hamstring hold up and I pull out a 3rd and I couldn't believe it. Because that 1st place got you the final spot in the Olympics can you remember how you felt when you crossed the line I was alive Wow I'm going to China Oh no it was so excited and the dream come true Lopez Lomong was born in a small village in South Sudan he had a happy childhood but at the age of 6 he was seized by soldiers from the s.p.l. a Rebel army while at church with his mother they saw just storm this. Church everybody was crying I was crying every thing just went on chaos they came out with the big guns in there or ever want to lay down my mom she was kind of like holding me tight you because they should you know don't don't talk don't talk don't talk so I basically went through the people in the congregation I picked in the kids up and they came to where my mom and I was laying down big me up and ripped me from her you know she was running toward me to rescue me and so your lower they were the weapon toward her and said one more step and I will shoot and started pulling me toward this truck and I saw a lot of kids there and kids were crying and so put us in this prison Lopez would not see his mother again for more than 10 years he was imprisoned by the s.p.l. a In a training camp for child soldiers the children were kept in a dark cart with very little food and Lopez can remember watching a boy of his own age just give up and die he might have suffered the same fate had it not been for 3 older boys who Lopez calls his angels they looked after Lopez because they recognized him from the village and when they found a way to escape they worked the little boy in the middle of the night and took him with them while they were training they saw the hole in a fan somewhere and they came back they said hey you know like we are going to take you to your your mom and all of us left kind of like crawling and that my the moon was like a full and it was just so light out it was very serene in the uniform and we went through this Hall of Fames then started running for my life when I was holding my hand and we just dragging me along and 3 days 3 nights we just ran away there was a time like I kind of fellow I want to give up and I saw some hills and they said you know those hills you know that is where you are. Yes You know the faster you go the quicker you will go see your parents and you will be happy again and I can't go in but instead of running home the 4 boys are gone in the wrong direction and reached the border with Kenya they many other charge refugees from Sudan were put into a huge refugee camp conditions there was still tough and many of the children turned to sport as a way of keeping their spirits up Lopez and his friends but spend hours running long laps around the perimeter we run in the morning 30 kilometers around the camp and then we play soccer there as of the day so you just try to distract yourself as might as you can not see in a tent otherwise you will be hungry or otherwise you will be a lot of we're thinking kind of like a lonely and missing your parents and then eventually something bad is going to happen so you just need to be out there doing activities and stuff it was in the camp the Lopez 1st heard about something called the Olympics here and some other boys ran 5 miles to watch part of the 2000 games on t.v. At the home of a local farmer I didn't know exactly where the Olympics says and one of the boys well I or you know we're going to watch Olympics Ok and the 1st rays was 400 meters and Michael Johnson was running Michael Johnson such a dominant figure now it was very hard to see but you know black and white but I can see USA on his chest he ran so fast he wondered ways and then he was presented. One of the greatest apnic Susan I have a man Michael Johnson of the United States house in life. I want to run for the USA One day I was 15 years old and a year later I got up at unity to come to this country Lopez was one of the so-called lost boys adopted by families in America. All that running he had done in Kakuma Refugee Camp paid off when his talent was immediately spotted by his new parents they supported his dream of following Michael Johnson to the Olympics half when the American team reached Beijing there was a surprise for Lopez inspired by his story his teammates voted overwhelmingly for the new u.s. Citizen to carry the American flag in the opening ceremony I was just saw honored just 8 years ago I was in the refugee camp I didn't know anybody cares for me out there this is incredible watching the opening ceremony now you look a little bit nervous I got to me the president of the United States and President Bush told me he was very happy I got to come to this country and then he pulled me close and said Don't let the black tie the ground and that was the moment I thought I'm going to be my pants like this is not good I didn't know how big the flag was very thought was it's a small flag and the flag was huge so there hallway I'm walking I'm looking the flag I'm trying to wave to be nor this thing but the only thing I worry about was their flag should not touch the ground I believe in me as my own opening ceremony because I was just a worry about the flag until a take away from me at the Olympics you know you didn't get the result you wanted you got to the semifinal right and you know just didn't work were you disappointed with that result was a disappointed but my family were there to really tell me what that means to be able to even to go to Olympics I fail that I I fail everybody that supported me but they told me you did everything you can and you said that you think your biggest achievement actually isn't going to be lympics is getting you. College degree why is that better than the Olympics it is something that nobody will ever take away from me and it is something that we all die for because every kid want to go to school when I arrived here the furs there of school my parents bought me a backpack books and pans in a camp I never had a band before and when I walked into the stage and received my Ba degree it was a bad thing ever because remember my my childhood I can tell myself I'm a lesbian and also a college graduate and after the running is all over I want to be able to like to use this platform to change lives Lopez Lomong has already set up a foundation to help South Sudan and he's still running with plans to compete in the 2020 Olympics Lopez spoke to me Simon wants for sporting witness in 2017 from the police chief studios in California literally university it's b.b.c. World Service overnight on k.c.a.l. You live on line a k c l u dot org And on the k.c.a.l. You app. And I get Opera Barty coming up on the next on point when Korean board Nicole Chang looked in the mirror she saw girl who didn't look anything like her adoptive white parents she tells the complicated story of trans racial adoption in her new memoir plus Ethan Hawke joins us to talk about his new film about singer songwriter blaze fully That's coming up on the next on point from n.p.r. Between $9.11 every weekday after Morning Edition on k.c.a.l. You. This is Ventura Counties 88.3 k.c.a.l. Us famine h.d. 1000 Oaks 1340 am and one of the 2.3 f.m. K.c.a.l. Usat of Barbara and on the central coast 89.7 k.c.l. Am Santa Maria heard in San Luis Obispo on 102.4. X. 12 midnight. 2 on the b.b.c. World Service with company shopping and thank you. All the way one of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been passed.