A tablespoon a day of raw sauerkraut is vital for our health.

Raw kraut will colonize your colon (no pun intended) with friendly flora who’ll produce Vitamin B12 to meet all your body’s needs. If you suffer from any digestive problem – cramps, diarrhea, constipation, Crohn’s – eat fresh home-made raw sauerkraut daily, and juice greens a few days a week –  see veggie juices for my favorite quick Green Juice Recipe.

Sauerkraut at supermarkets is pasteurized. Avoid it. It’s so quick to make your own with the Samson Juicer.

Rhio writes in her incredible rawfood recipe book, Hooked On Raw:

Raw sauerkraut “is wonderful and strengthening for the digestion, full of lactic acid (which regenerates the bowel flora), all kinds of enzymes, live lacto-bacillus bacteria, choline, acetylcholine, Vitamin C [wow, those last three build strong brains and memory], B-complex vitamins (including B12) and other good things.”

This is the quick recipe I use every week when I'm juicing. It makes one pint (1/2 liter) of cabbage kraut.

6 cups chopped cabbage, 1/4 cup pineapple juice (or apple juice). Run cabbage through Samson Juicer (with mincing screen) into bowl, add 1/4t salt and enough juice so that when you press down on cabbage, juice seeps up through your fingers.

Press mixture down into Mason jar, making sure you get all air pockets out. Fill to just under rim of jar, then add water to brim and screw lid on. Place jar in a bowl as the whey seeps out. Leave for 6 days (less in hot summer).

I love this recipe because I never get mold or scum. There's nothing to scrape off the top. You simply unscrew the lid to delicious kraut. Flavor is awesome!

More labor-intensive is to add any other veggies you like such as beets, carrots. And for crunchier kraut, use some shredded, don't mince it all in your Juicer.

To receive the benefits of the live lactobacillus bacteria, consume the sauerkraut as soon as possible. After a short period of time the bacteria will die out. That's why I make mine fresh weekly.

Hungarian Sauerkraut
(customized by me for Samson Juicer)

Thank you, Rhio, for permission to reprint this Hungarian recipe from Hooked On Raw (© Beso Entertainment, 2000), email rhotline@aol.com to receive Rhio’s healing e-news, and to buy her book.

1 medium green cabbage
1/2 medium red cabbage
2 small muslin bags with 2 tsp. caraway seeds in each
a few bay leaves
1/2 quince or 1 apple
small bunch of grapes or 1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp. Celtic sea salt

(1) Peel the outer leaves from the cabbage and set them aside. You’ll need about 5 or 6 large leaves.

(2) Cut the green cabbage and put it through the Samson Juicer with the Mincing Cone in place. Cut the red cabbage and juice it,  using the Juicing Screen. Mix the red cabbage juice and the red cabbage pulp (left over from making the juice) together. Then with your hands, blend the two cabbage mixtures together and add in the Celtic sea salt (salt is optional).

This method saves a whole lot of trouble. In the olden days, you would have had to grate and pound the cabbage to get it to mush up and release the juices. The Samson juicer now does the same job easily.

If you want more texture or crunch in your sauerkraut, grate or shred part of the cabbage (about two cups) and add it into the above mixture.

(3) In a large glass bowl or ceramic crock, put in one layer of the cabbage mixture about 2 inches high. Slice the quince (or apple) into thin slices and lay a few pieces on top of the cabbage, add a few raisins (or mashed grapes), then place one of the bags with the caraway seeds on top, along with 3 bay leaves.

Put another layer of cabbage on top and repeat the same thing (quince, grapes, caraway bag and bay leaves). Add a final layer of cabbage on top.

(4) Then cover the mixture with the large cabbage leaves you saved in the beginning. Push the mixture down firmly to get rid of any air pockets. Put a cotton cloth over the cabbage leaves in the bowl.

(5) Set this bowl into a larger bowl and then take a one gallon plastic water jug and fill with water, cap the top and set the jug on top of the cotton cloth. You need to have weight on top of the cabbage so that it will ferment properly.

(6) Put a cotton towel over the whole thing and set this out at room temperature for about 6 days (half as long in warmer weather), after which time vou will have some wonderful sauerkraut.

(7) When it's ready, take the cabbage leaves off and discard. Also spoon off any dark or off-color spots or white scum that may be on top of the sauerkraut. This is a harmless yeast called kahm.

(8) Put the sauerkraut (minus the quince, bay leaves and caraway bags) into a large glass jar and store in the refrigerator. This recipe makes over a quart.

Thank you to Nomi Shannon for permission to print this easy recipe from her book The Raw Gourmet (© Alive Books, 1999) email rawgourmet@aol.com for Nomi’s book and to join her mail-list.

Use one head of fresh organic red or green cabbage, and several pieces of seaweed, e.g. wakame or dulse. Can also add sliced apple layers for sweetness.

• Alternate each cabbage layer (1-2 inches deep) with layer of seaweed or apple (cabbage-seaweed-cabbage-apple). Press down with your hands as you make the layers.

 
• Finish with steps (4) to (8) above and discard the apple along with the top cabbage leaves. Keep seaweed for salads.

Cabbage and all the cruciferous vegetables are rich in sulfur. Try to eat sulfur greens often – that’s any plant of the Mustard family. These Mustardians all work well for sauerkraut: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Chinese celery, rutabaga, and turnip. Also garlic and onion (Lily family) are high in sulfur. Throw them into your kraut!

Sulfur is in only three amino acids (all the rest have nitrogen) so we don’t get enough sulfur – needed especially for healthy hair, skin, nails (because it’s the element in their keratin protein) and for joints.

The Mustard family veggies also stimulate the production of enzymes that neutralize cancer-causing chemicals. We've all heard about broccoli!

It’s so easy to grow rich green broccoli sprouts with an Automatic Sprouter in your kitchen or basement.

Tasty Sauerkrauts

Use combinations of hard fibrous vegetables – beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, daikon, parsnip, rutabaga, turnip.

Then flavor your kraut with any spice combo, such as basil, caraway, curry, dill, garlic, ginger, onion. One or two will create a full-flavored kraut.

Here’s three tasty delights, adapted from Vibrant Living by James Levin and Natalie Cederquist (recently back in print) – as usual, end with steps (4) to (8) above:

• Classic Dilly Kraut – 1 green cabbage, 1/2 red onion, 2 garlic cloves and 1.5 Tbl dill weed. Run all through Samson with Mincing Screen. Pack down into bowl with hands, getting all the air out.

• Curried Carrot Kraut – 1 green cabbage, 6 med-large carrots, 1 small red onion, 1-2 Tbl curry powder, 1 garlic clove. Same as Classic Dilly but juice 2 of the carrots for extra juiciness.

 
• Ruby Ginger Kraut – a gentle sweet taste from the apple and ginger – 1 red cabbage, 3 beets, 9 ribs celery, 1 cup apple juice, 2.5 Tbl ginger, optional 1/3 cup filtered water. Mince all ingredients in Samson and stir in apple juice, and water if needed.

• Mixed Kraut – 1 cabbage, 3 carrots, 2 beets, 1 onion, 1-3 garlic cloves. Run through Samson with Mincing Screen. Stir in 1-2 tsp caraway seeds, before packing down and layering with apple and seaweed.

 
• Vegetable Kraut – 6 large carrots, 4 beets, turnip (or parsnip or rutabaga) to equal half the amount of carrots, 1 small onion and garlic to taste. Same as mixed kraut, layering with apple and seaweed.

Organic, Freshly-picked and Variety are the Three Keys to Healthy Raw Eating. The more varied your diet, the more nutrients you get.

Sauerkraut is a great way to eat the starchy root vegetables raw, where friendly bacteria and live enzymes break down the starches into simple sugars. It’s now a predigested food, quick ‘n easy for you to digest.

Raw sauerkraut gives you enzymes. Cooked starches rob you of enzymes. Enzymes are one key to longevity and youth. They are only in raw foods.

Live Younger Longer

People known for their longevity, health and good digestion – the Hunzas (Himalayas), Georgians (Caucasus Mts) and Equadorians (Andes) – all consume sauerkraut and other fermented foods, writes Sproutman Steve Meyerowitz in his book Sproutman’s Kitchen Garden Cookbook.

All-in-all, to help you digest all foods and keep your colon healthy, eat a tablespoon a day of home-made sauerkraut. Unless you *really* don’t like the strong smell of fermented foods. Then they’re probably not for you.

Non-protein foods like cabbage and root veggies are the safest of all to ferment. Quit the toxic high-protein dairy yogurts – you only harm yourself and the animals. Excess protein robs your bones of calcium.