I love the idea of demystifying common grocery items that we typically buy in the store. I’ve made yogurt in India—it’s traditionally made in the home—and I was on the kombucha bandwagon, making and bottling it myself, two decades ago. So when I discovered Cultures for Health, I was beyond excited. They have culture starter kits from everything from kefir grains to tempeh and everything in between, even soaps, salves and lip balms.
But why such a foment about ferment? With the growing awareness of the importance of gut health, fermented foods are having a full-blown renaissance. Bacteria—the healthy kind—are considered a boon, not a curse. They live happily in our microbiome (the hordes of microbial species that live in our intestines), busily digesting our food for us and making sure what happens in the microbiome stays in the microbiome as opposed to leaking out, as in leaky gut syndrome.
According to the University of Utah, “The human microbiome (all of our microbes’ genes) can be considered a counterpart to the human genome (all of our genes). The genes in our microbiome outnumber the genes in our genome by about 100 to 1.”
Research suggests that fermented foods are a boon to the gut, boosting digestive health, reducing allergies and inflammation, and even as an aid to weight loss. As the studies mount, the research points to one major big-ticket item: Your microbiome may actually be one of the preeminent factors determining your overall longevity.
The upshot: Cultured foods, fermented foods, even beer, wine and cider translates into a stronger gut in so many ways. Since my kiddos have such a limited palate, why not get whatever food they do accept into their mouths as healthy as possible? So I set out to make something relatively easy and family crowd pleaser—DIY cream cheese.
We tend not to think of cheese as a fermented food but it is: Cheese may be the most popular fermented milk product, using more than one-third of all milk produced in the United States each year for its production. Both soft and hard cheeses—cream cheese is a soft cheese–are produced by culturing milk for an extended period of time.
![Cultures for Health Cream Cheese Making Kit | www.vitacost.com/blog]( "Cultures for Health Cream Cheese Kit")
Say cheese!
Rolling up my sleeves, I got to work. First you heat the milk slowly, then you add the starter culture and rennet packet which creates the curds, and then you strain the curds through a cheesecloth and slowly let the excess water strain out. Piece of cake, right?
All went well until it was time to strain the curds through the cheesecloth. Readers—it was an epic fail. Everything started pouring through the cheesecloth. I managed to salvage some by using a thicker cloth, but it was a definite spilled milk situation.
I looked up the troubleshooting guide on culturesforhealth.com, and they had zoned in on the problem:
“Soft, flimsy curds that drain through colander or cheesecloth — This may be a rennet issue, a calcium issue, or the temperature could be off.”
Their solution: “Try using butter muslin to drain the curds. It is usually the best option for draining soft cheeses.”
It was a case of better to have tried and failed than never to have tried it all. I’m not daunted. Rather, I’m eager to try again—differently. I’m ordering me some butter muslin (they sell it on their site) and will become a cream cheese queen in no time.
You see, I tasted some of what I salvaged and it had an amazing taste, almost as if it was alive, in a good way. It was the opposite of bland–fresh, zingy even, and yet it was mild enough for kids.
Nothing store bought compares.