I’ve also been experimenting with more wild fermented sodas again, and the fig + thyme combination might be one of my favorites yet. My friend has blessed me once again with a basket of the juiciest organic figs from her garden and they create such a beautiful depth of flavor as they ferment, while the thyme keeps it from becoming overly sweet or one-dimensional.

There’s also a mango, lime and chili sauerkraut bubbling away on the counter, plus two very easy staples that have been making their way into breakfasts lately: blueberry chia jam and a tart passionfruit-mango chia pudding.

Four simple recipes, very little hands-on time, and plenty of things to spoon, spread, sip and pile onto meals throughout the week.

Let’s get into it.

This Week's Menu

🌿 Wild Fermented Fig + Thyme Soda

💛 Passionfruit Mango Chia Pudding

🫐 Blueberry Chia Jam

🥭 Mango-Lime-Chili Sauerkraut

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What’s in Season?

Late August is one of my favorite moments at the farmers market. Summer produce is still everywhere, but we’re slowly moving toward the deeper flavors of early fall.

Right now, look out for:

Fruit: figs, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, peaches, nectarines, plums, grapes, melons, passionfruit, early apples and pears.

Vegetables: tomatoes, peppers and chilies, eggplant, zucchini and summer squash, cucumbers, green beans, corn, okra, cabbage and plenty of fresh herbs.

This is also prime preserving season.

When something is abundant, perfectly ripe and relatively inexpensive, I like to think beyond “What can I cook with this today?” and ask “How can I carry a little of this season forward?”

Ferment the cabbage. Turn the figs into soda. Cook the berries into jam. Freeze the peaches. Fill the pantry and fridge while everything tastes like summer.

That, to me, is one of the simplest ways to eat with the seasons: enjoying abundance when it arrives, and learning how to make it last.

Wild Fermented Fig-Thyme Soda

Ripe figs, fresh thyme and a little sugar left to do what they do best: bubble, fizz and transform. It’s fruity and subtly herbal, with the gentle complexity you only really get from wild fermentation: turning a handful of fruit and patience into a delicious probiotic soda for a refreshing summer beverage.

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After years of trying all the different wellness and health hacks, always looking for the next thing that would make me healthier, feel better, sleep better, live better, I eventually had to take a good look at myself and admit that I had it all backwards.

More isn’t necessarily better.

Obsessing over ever-new health routines, which foods to eat and which to avoid, the best way to work out, how many steps to walk every day, whether to cold plunge or not to cold plunge, which supposedly toxic things to cut out, checking the data on my wearable to tell me how well I slept — at some point, you stop seeing the forest for the trees.

For years, I had been the perfect target audience for wellness gadgets, elaborate morning routines and whatever new health hack my algorithm decided I needed next. I’m actually a little surprised I never ended up with one of those red-light face masks it had me begging to buy for the last two years.

From the outside, I’ve always been “the healthy girl”. But doing all the things your favorite wellness influencers are doing doesn’t actually make you healthy. Big surprise, I know.

There is such a thing as over-optimization, and I’ve come to believe that at a certain point, our constant pursuit of better health can start doing the opposite of what we intended in the first place.

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The Endless Search for Better

The thing with trying to optimize your health is that it doesn’t just start out of nowhere, but often begins with a legitimate desire to feel better or an actual illness you’re trying to overcome.

Similarly, I didn’t just wake up one morning and decided to make health my whole personality. Like most things, it happened gradually.

For a long time, I simply didn’t feel particularly good in my body.

In my teens and twenties, a lot of my relationship with food revolved around trying to lose weight. I spent years restricting, overeating, starting over, trying to eat less sugar, trying to have more discipline. Food occupied far more space in my head than it should have, and looking back, there were years when my relationship with it was undoubtedly disordered.

Sugar was a particularly big struggle for me. I thought I lacked willpower. I would try to cut it out, eventually crave it intensely, eat it again and feel like I had failed. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I had been struggling with low iron since childhood and would later develop pretty significant iron deficiency. I was constantly tired, and sugar was one of the quickest ways for my body to get the little bursts of energy I was desperately looking for.

And so began a search that would follow me for years: there had to be a right way to eat that would finally make me feel good in my body, give me consistent energy and make food feel easy.

For almost a decade, veganism became a big part of that answer for me. And for a long time, there were things about it that genuinely worked. It changed the way I cooked, introduced me to an enormous variety of whole plant foods and ultimately led me into the work I do today. But eventually, when I still didn’t feel as good as I thought I should and other health issues started creeping in, the search continued.

Maybe I needed to eat more protein. Maybe less sugar. Maybe more whole foods. Maybe certain foods were inflammatory. Maybe I was missing certain nutrients. Maybe I needed a better supplement routine. Maybe the problem wasn’t food at all and I needed to exercise differently, sleep differently, manage stress better.

There was always another lever to pull.

And this is where something that had started as a completely reasonable desire to take care of myself slowly became something else.

The more I learned about health, the more things there seemed to be to worry about.

It was no longer enough to eat vegetables. Were they organic? Was my food sufficiently nutrient-dense? Was I getting enough protein? Iron? Omega-3s? Was my blood sugar stable? Was I eating at the right times? Should I be fasting? Was I walking enough? Strength training enough? Sleeping enough? Getting enough morning sunlight? Were there toxins in my cookware, my skincare, my cleaning products?

Then came supplements, wellness routines, podcasts, wearables and an algorithm that could always find one more thing I hadn’t optimized yet.

The strange thing is that every individual step felt perfectly reasonable.

That’s what makes over-optimization so difficult to recognize while you’re in it. There isn’t necessarily one moment where things become obviously absurd. Nobody wakes up and decides to spend an unreasonable amount of their life thinking about their health.

You just keep adding: One new habit, one new piece of information, one new thing to avoid, one new metric to watch.

And somewhere along the way, I had to ask myself a slightly uncomfortable question: Had I actually developed a healthier relationship with my body, or had some of my old need for control simply learned to speak the language of wellness?

Because the goal had certainly changed. I was no longer trying to make myself as thin as possible. I wanted to be strong, nourished, energetic, healthy.

But I was still searching for the point where I would finally get everything right. And I’m not sure that point exists.

The Illusion of Control

So what does ‘getting health right’ actually mean? It’s such an abstract concept if you don’t actually take a second to define what kind of health you’re trying to achieve.

Bryan Johnson is perhaps the most extreme example of this philosophy. The tech entrepreneur has spent millions trying to slow his biological aging, meticulously controlling his food, sleep, exercise, sun exposure and seemingly every measurable aspect of his body.

I find the whole experiment fascinating, but also strangely ironic.

I do want to live a long life (don’t we all?), but at the same time I want my life to be well-lived.

Avoiding the sun might make perfect sense if the metric you’re optimizing is skin aging. Never staying up late might make perfect sense if you’re optimizing sleep. Never deviating from your diet might make perfect sense if you’re optimizing certain biomarkers. But stack enough individually “optimal” behaviors on top of each other and you eventually have to ask whether they add up to an optimal life.

Especially because even then, there are no guarantees. Johnson was recently diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, a chronic autoimmune disease that had apparently been developing quietly for years despite having access to a degree of testing, monitoring and medical care most of us could never dream of.

His story serves as a reminder which I think our optimization-obsessed culture has a hard time accepting: we can influence our health, but we can never fully control it.

The Optimization Tax

You might recognize yourself in a lot of these habits and ask, but what’s wrong with cold plunges or organic vegetables?

Individually, all of these are, in fact, very reasonable and one could argue things most of us probably should care about. The problem is when you stack them all together it looks a little bit more like this:

Morning routine. Supplements. Protein target. Fiber target. Strength workout. 10,000 steps. Sunlight. Meditation. Journaling. Sauna. Non-toxic skincare. Meal prep. Sleep routine. No screens after X. Don’t eat after X.

Suddenly being healthy has become a part-time job.

From the outside it might seem relatively harmless at first, but every intervention costs more than money. It costs attention. A finite and very valuable resource in our oh so busy lives.

When every new habit or thing to worry about starts taking a little more of your peace of mind, your supposedly healthy lifestyle becomes a giant collection of obligations with a huge mental load attached to it and usually at the expense of something else.

When The Data Knows You Better Than You Do

There are many criticisms I have of social media, but one that is particularly relevant (and that I have been guilty of as much as the next one) in this regard is the outsourcing of our intuition.

We continue to look outwards instead of inwards. We follow other people’s lives to learn how to fix our own health. Or we rely on wearable devices that tell us exactly how we should feel.

You wake up and even before checking in with yourself you check your device to tell you all about your sleep score, recovery, HRV, resting heart rate and how you’re supposed to feel that day.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that taking inspiration from other people that experience similar health struggles or wearables are inherently wrong. In the right context, it can be incredibly useful information. I simply advocate for a more discerning approach:

At what point does information stop helping us understand our bodies and start replacing our relationship with them?

Do any of these sound familiar to you? Because I have found myself in each and every one of them at one point or another:

You wake up feeling rested and energetic, only to check your wearable and discover that your sleep score is less than optimal, so you question how good you really feel.

You had an active day feeling pleasantly tired, look at your step count and realize you only walked 7,842 steps instead of the needed 10k, and suddenly feel like you haven’t moved enough.

You can eat a nourishing meal that leaves you full and satisfied, but still wonder whether you hit your protein target.

The fascinating thing is that we have never had more information about our bodies and yet many of us seem less confident interpreting them without external validation.

All the data and measurements that were supposed to help us understand the experience started replacing the experience itself. Instead of getting more connected, for many it has done the complete opposite and actually left us increasingly disconnected from our bodies, health and intuition.

The Boring Basics

The slightly annoying, boring and not very sellable truth is that most of the things that actually matter and work in improving our health outcomes aren’t particularly exciting.

Wellness culture disproportionately focuses our attention on the marginal gains — the fun 5% — and it works remarkably well with human psychology. There’s something deeply appealing about the idea that there is always one more lever we can pull. One more supplement to take, food to cut out, protocol to follow or morning routine to perfect that might finally make us feel the way we think we’re supposed to feel.

It gives us a sense of agency. If I just do this one more thing, maybe I’ll finally fix X.

And complexity is much easier to sell than simplicity.

How many podcasts have you listened to about different longevity diets, protocols, supplements and routines? I’ll go first: too many. The honest truth is that “cook most of your food, walk a lot, lift something heavy occasionally, sleep enough and maintain meaningful relationships” isn’t going to sustain a 300-episode podcast.

There is an enormous economic and algorithmic machinery constantly presenting the marginal 5% as though it’s the missing piece. And when the boring basics are stacked against novelty, novelty almost always wins.

What Are We Actually Optimizing For?

The health issues that initially started me on this track are healed. So now what? Why am I still in this ever-continuous cycle of searching for the next thing? What am I actually doing all this for?

The truth is the following:

To travel. To cook. To create. To love. To play and goof around with my dogs. To experience things. To build a family. To support the people I love. To contribute. To grow old.

I think the piece I’ve been missing all these years is that I don't want health to be the purpose of my life. I want my health to support the life I want to live.

This note perfectly encapsulates what I’ve been feeling:

I think too many times we’re focusing on isolated health outcomes rather than whole-life health.

Avoiding sunlight might be optimal for minimizing photoaging. Going to bed at 9pm every single day might be optimal for sleep consistency. Never deviating from your set diet or the things you ‘shouldn’t’ eat might be optimal for whatever nutritional metric you’re following.

But humans don’t actually experience health as isolated metrics. So the question begs, what are you actually optimizing for?

Sometimes the healthiest choice for your life isn't the theoretically healthiest choice for your body in isolation.

So now we remain with the natural question: What does taking care of myself look like when I stop trying to optimize every individual variable?

Peeling It All Back

At the beginning of 2026 I stopped adding and started subtracting. I stopped with my wearable and following new health trends. I unfollowed 99% of health podcasts I’d been listening to.

Instead I focused on what actually matters enough that I want to consistently make space for it. The rest became glitter. Nice add-ons for whenever I have some extra time or simply enjoy doing them.

The last thing I want is for my simplified approach to become another five-step wellness routine for someone else to copy. That would entirely miss the point.

So instead, let’s talk about what I personally deem important enough to take up a big chunk of my valuable time and life energy. This may be taken as inspiration, but I highly encourage you to take a close look at yourself and your own life first.

Home-cooked food

I genuinely enjoy cooking, for myself and above all for others. I find so much pleasure in browsing my local farmers market on a weekly basis, connect with food and learn what’s in season.

I focus on real foods over processed, mostly whole foods, variety and traditional cooking techniques including fermentation.

A big part of food is pleasure, so I try to obsess less over individual nutrients and instead trust more in actual food and the balance of it all.

Sleep

I’m a great sleeper. Always have been. I can sleep wherever, whenever. 8-9 hours are my sweet spot to feel my best so this is what I aim for. Not every single night, but most nights.

The biggest obstacle to good sleep lately has been the addition of a second puppy to our household. With two people and another two large dogs all trying to get comfortable on one mattress, you can imagine the challenge. But at the moment I’m not willing yet to give up on those sweet evening and morning sleepy cuddles.

My self-care hour

For years I have been struggling with keeping a consistent workout routine. I’ve tried a million and one different things, from running to pilates, yoga, HIIT, spinning, strength training, mobility, only to realize that none of it sticks.

I’d be really consistent for certain weeks and as soon as my period hits I’d be thrown out of my routine for half the month.

So now, I’ve completely stopped optimizing the perfect weekly exercise routine and created space for movement instead. I’ve reframed it as my ‘self-care’ hour, but it doesn’t actually need a name. The concept is simple. During weekdays (where my routine is pretty predictable) from 5-6pm I make time for myself and connecting to my body. I roll out a mat with a bunch of equipment next to it and just see what comes up.

Some days I’ll start with gentle stretches and eventually end up picking up weights to do a full on strength session.

Some days I feel more flowy and alternate between some low-effort yoga poses and mobility.

Some days I’ll just stretch for 20-30 minutes and call it a day.

Ironically, less rigidity has made consistency easier. On top of that I do spontaneous fun movement. Going bouldering with friends. Hiking with my dogs. Swimming laps at the local pool with my husband.

Creation before consumption

Protect your attention. When was the last time you had a truly original thought? When we constantly surround ourselves with the thoughts and opinions of others — whether through scrolling, podcasts or YouTube videos — it becomes increasingly difficult to tell where their ideas end and our own begin. We consume so much, so constantly, that we barely leave ourselves any quiet space to form our own opinions, follow our own curiosity or even figure out what we actually think.

This is why I’ve started prioritizing creation before consumption. I want to give my own thoughts a chance to exist before I fill my head with everyone else’s.

Whether that’s through writing, painting, creating content, or simply sitting still and thinking out a thought.

Actively building community

Invite people over. Cook for them. Maintain friendships. Create rituals. Show up, even when it would be easier to stay home.

I make an effort to host a larger Friday dinner twice a month in addition to the occasional smaller mid-week dinner. I always bake an additional loaf of sourdough, as well as jars and bottles of ferments, to support my friends. I try to see my small circle of loved ones every single week and actively plan fun activities for us to do.

Community requires something optimization culture doesn’t particularly like: inconvenience.

Hosting means planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. Friendships require you to make space for other people when it doesn’t perfectly fit into your schedule. Being part of a community means showing up not only when you feel like it, but because your presence matters.

None of this can be neatly optimized away without losing some of the very thing you’re trying to create. And yet I believe that these supposedly inefficient hours where you’re lingering around a dinner table, cooking for friends, or showing up for someone, might be some of the healthiest ways we can spend our time.

The Case for an Unoptimized Life

Turns out, the best parts of life are pretty inefficient:

Cooking a meal at home when takeout is faster.
Making fermented bread that takes two days from start to finish.
Growing something in your garden you could buy at the store for $3.
Having people over and spending half the day preparing food for them.
Sitting and laughing around a table for hours.
Maintaining close and long-distance friendships.
Caring for animals.
Having children.
Learning a new skill you’re terrible at.
Doing something simply because you enjoy it.

Optimization asks us to maximize output and minimize waste. But a good life contains an awful lot of “wasted” time.

I still care deeply about my health. If anything, I believe I take better care of myself now. I feel like I’ve finally achieved something I have been struggling with for most of my life: real balance.

I still want to eat nourishing food, move my body, sleep well, get stronger and hopefully live a very long life. But I’ve stopped letting those 5% distract me from what actually matters. There will always be another thing I could be doing. Maybe some of them would even make a measurable difference. But these days I’m much more interested in asking whether that difference is meaningful enough to deserve a piece of my finite time and attention.

I recently started integrating it into my weekly routine and making porridge might be my favorite way to eat it. Unlike rolled oats that keep quite a bit of texture, amaranth cooks into this wonderfully thick, almost creamy consistency while the tiny seeds soak up the milk into translucent grains. It’s earthy and slightly nutty, which makes it especially good with something sweet.

For this version, I mash a soft Medjool date with a pinch of flaky salt directly into the porridge as it cooks. The date almost melts into it, giving the whole bowl a subtle caramel-like sweetness without needing much else. Then I spoon warm cinnamon-stewed apples over the top and finish it with a squeeze of fresh lemon.

It’s simple, cozy and genuinely delicious, but there’s also a lot happening nutritionally in this little bowl.

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Meet Amaranth

Amaranth might feel like a new ingredient, but it’s anything but new.

It has been cultivated for thousands of years and was an important food crop for civilizations in Central and South America, including the Aztecs. Like quinoa and buckwheat, amaranth is technically a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal grain: we cook and eat it much like a grain, but botanically it’s a seed. When you cook them into a porridge you’ll notice that they almost remind a bit of chia seeds, rather than a traditional grain.

Amaranth is naturally gluten-free and provides a combination of complex carbohydrates, fiber and plant protein. It’s particularly interesting among plant foods because its protein contains all nine essential amino acids and is relatively rich in lysine (an amino acid that tends to be lower in many cereal grains).

One cup of cooked amaranth provides roughly 9 grams of protein, 5 grams of fiber and around 5 mg of iron, making it a particularly interesting grain to rotate into a plant-forward diet.

I love ingredients like this because eating a varied diet doesn’t necessarily mean constantly inventing new meals. Sometimes it can be as simple as swapping your usual oats for amaranth, millet or buckwheat and suddenly you’re bringing an entirely different nutritional profile to the same breakfast ritual.

Why I Pair It with Apples + Lemon

The cinnamon apples aren’t just here because warm apples on porridge are objectively one of the best toppings. While I did just get an abundance of delicious home-grown apples from my friend’s garden and one could say I’m looking for any excuse to use them, there is in fact another reason:

Apples are particularly rich in pectin, a type of soluble fiber that can be fermented by our gut microbes. That’s why you’ll sometimes hear apples described as a prebiotic food. Certain components of the apple can help nourish beneficial bacteria already living in the gut.

Cooking the apples doesn’t magically create prebiotics, but stewing softens their fiber and makes the apples beautifully tender while still giving us that pectin-rich fruit.

There’s another little nutritional pairing I like here, too.

Amaranth contains a meaningful amount of non-heme iron, the form of iron found in plant foods. Vitamin C can significantly improve our absorption of non-heme iron when the two are eaten together.

Apples do naturally contain some vitamin C, but vitamin C is sensitive to heat, so I wouldn’t rely on stewed apples as the vitamin C source in this meal.

Instead, I finish the apples with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice after cooking, which adds a fresh source of vitamin C and brightens the sweetness of the apples.

Consider this your little nudge to pick up a bag of amaranth the next time you spot one. So much of eating a varied diet can simply be rotating through different grains, legumes, vegetables and seeds, without requiring complicated recipes.

And if you’re looking for more ideas, you can always browse my Recipe Index for nourishing breakfasts, everyday meals, ferments and more.

Happy cooking,

K

I’d spend four hours meal prepping on a Sunday, only to find myself craving something completely different by Wednesday. Other weeks I’d get caught up in rigid frameworks that looked great on paper but simply weren’t sustainable long-term.

When that didn’t work, I’d swing to the opposite extreme and tried to cook a warm meal from scratch almost every day. Between recipe testing for work, creating content, and preparing my own meals, I spent so much time in the kitchen that I eventually burned out. That’s usually when takeout, convenience foods, or random meals started creeping back in, out of sheer food fatigue and exhaustion.

And somehow, despite a fridge full of food, I still found myself standing in front of it wondering what to cook. Groceries went bad, the kitchen was constantly messy, and by the middle of the week I already felt like resorting to convenience foods.

The real problem wasn’t motivation or discipline or lack of recipes. I just didn’t have a system that actually fit my life.

While I have the privilege of working from home, my days are still stretched between running a business, recipe testing/creating content, caring for two high-energy hunting dogs, trying to be a present wife and supportive friend, keeping the house in order, and making time to move my body. Like for so many of us, time is always in short supply. Without a system, eating nourishing, home-cooked meals every single day simply isn’t doable (at least for me it isn’t — others might have alls sorts of different powers).

It honestly took years of trial and error to create a rhythm that finally clicked. One that gives me structure without feeling restrictive. Because I’m a foodie at heart. I love trying new recipes, cooking with the seasons and bringing home whatever catches my eye and smells good at the farmers market. I didn’t want a system that told me exactly what to eat every day. I wanted enough flexibility to keep on being inspired but enough of a system to actually make it work.

Today, I usually do only one focused prep session each week (about 1–2 hours), cook warm dinners around three times a week, and still eat nourishing, homemade food every single day.

Let me show you exactly how I do that so you can steal whatever works for you!

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What Is The Nourished Week?

The Nourished Week is a food system I’ve developed after many years of trial and error to make sustained home-cooking feel realistic (not just on the days when life is calm, but especially during busy weeks).

It’s not a meal plan or meal prep in the traditional sense, and it’s certainly not about eating the same containers of chicken, rice, and broccoli for five days straight.

Instead, it’s a flexible weekly rhythm built around preparing versatile building blocks, assembling quick meals, and cooking fresh only a few times each week.

The goal isn’t to tell you what to eat. It’s to create a framework that is flexible enough to fit your specific lifestyle and taste preferences to make nourishing yourself and enjoying homemade food the convenient option.

One of the things I love most about this system is that it grows with you. Whether you’re cooking just for yourself, feeding a family, working from home, or balancing a full-time job, the principles stay the same. You simply adapt the building blocks to fit your lifestyle, dietary preferences, and the season you’re in.

Some weeks you’ll prep more, some weeks you’ll cook less. Some weeks you’ll rely heavily on leftovers while others you might want to prep ahead full meals.

It is designed to support real life, not an idealized version of it.

In the next section, I’ll walk you through the three parts of the system and show you exactly how I use it in my own kitchen every week.

The Three Pillars

My entire food system basically revolves around three simple steps. Once you understand how they work together, you'll spend less time wondering what to eat and more time simply enjoying nourishing food.

1. Prep the Building Blocks (1–2 hours/week)

Instead of spending hours to cook full meals, I like to spend 1–2 hours preparing the building blocks that make eating well throughout the week almost super easy. This gives me structure while still leaving plenty of room to enjoy whatever I'm craving that day.

Here’s what you’ll almost always find in my kitchen after my weekly prep session:

🍳 Grab-and-Go Breakfasts (2-3 mornings)

I usually prepare enough breakfasts to cover the first few mornings of the week.

Some favorites include:

• Probiotic Chia Pudding → Raspberry, Strawberry Vanilla or Apple Pie

• Granola → Amaranth Pistachio, Apple Cinnamon or Snickers Chocolate

• Overnight Oats → Fermented Oat Porridge or Bircher Muesli

• Egg Muffins → Shakshuka Egg Muffins

🍞 Fresh Sourdough (1 loaf)

One fresh loaf lasts us a full week and becomes the base for quick sandwiches. After 2 days, I slice and freeze any leftovers to enjoy fresh throughout the whole week.

• My Rustic Sourdough → Einkorn Sourdough

🫙 Ferments (always stocked)

These aren’t something I make every week, instead they are simply part of my fridge at all times. Depending on what’s still in my fridge I may choose to add additional ferments. Since lacto-fermented veggies usually take 1-2 weeks from start to finish it takes a bit of planning ahead.

The idea is to implement ferments organically into your daily meals: A spoonful of sauerkraut with eggs or on top of a lentil bowl, pickles in my egg salad or next to my hummus, kimchi alongside dinner, fermented tomatoes tossed into a salad. They instantly elevate a meal with flavor and beneficial microbes, keeping your gut microbiome healthy and balanced.

Some staples you’ll always find in my fridge:

• Sauerkraut → Citrus Sauerkraut, Immunity Kraut, Red Sauerkraut

• Seasonal Fermented Veggies → Lemon Dill Radishes, Garlic Cherry Tomatoes

• Dilly Beans → Fermented Dilly Beans

• Traditional Staples → Pickles, Fermented Onions

Besides that, most weeks I prepare 1-2 bottles of naturally carbonated probiotic sodas. There’s nothing I enjoy more than a delicious, low sugar fizzy drink in the afternoon and I have way too much fun playing around with flavor combinations. Here are some of my absolute favorites:

• Wild-Fermentation → Apricot Soda, Cinnamon Apple Soda

• Water Kefir → Blackberry Sage, Orange Thyme, Watermelon, Mango-Ginger-Lime

• Kombucha → Cardamom Apple Ginger

🌾 Cooked Grains & Legumes (3–5 meals)

Cooking these in advance means lunch is never more than a few minutes away.

Depending on the week, I might prepare:

• Black or Green Lentils (if I have the time I sprout them)

• Chickpeas

• White or Black Beans

• Buckwheat

• Quinoa

These become quick salads, grain bowls, breakfasts, soups or simple side dishes throughout the week. Whenever I cook larger amounts, I keep a few servings fresh in the fridge and freeze the rest for later in the week.

Here are some favorites:

• Brothy French Lentils

• Hummus

• Roasted Zucchini Lentil Salad

• Smashed Chickpea Salad

• Lentil Pomegranate Salad

🥜 Homemade Snacks (all week)

Having nourishing snacks already made means I’m much less likely to reach for convenience foods when hunger hits. I generally keep this relatively simple in effort, yet really nourishing and delicious.

Weekends are usually when I may indulge in a proper baking session for fancier desserts (usually for hosting, special events or the holiday season).

Some favorites include:

• Brownie Cherry Bites

• Cardamom Pistachio Balls

• Apricot Hemp Bites

🥣 Dressings, Sauces & Spreads (3-4 days)

This is probably the most underrated part of my system.

A good dressing or sauce can completely transform the same ingredients into an entirely different meal. It can make or break a salad/bowl and is one of the easiest things to make at home and keep handy in your fridge.

Some staples I rotate:

• Pumpkin Seed Pesto

• Cilantro Cashew Crema

• Probiotic Kefir Dressing

2. Assemble, Don't Cook

This is where the magic of the system really happens.

Because I’ve already prepared the building blocks, breakfast and lunch rarely require any actual cooking. Instead of starting from scratch every time I’m hungry, I simply assemble a meal based on what I’m craving that day, which keeps this system incredibly flexible, despite relying on reoccurring ingredients.

Most meals come together in less than 5–10 minutes, yet they still feel fresh, varied and nourishing. Component-based prepping creates flexibility: you prepare versatile ingredients once, then combine them into different meals throughout the week instead of committing to identical lunches every day.

Here are three of my favorite ways to do that.

🥗 Nourishing Bowls & Salads

This is probably my go-to lunch several times a week.

I simply combine whatever cooked grains or legumes I have on hand with fresh vegetables, herbs, a generous amount of homemade dressing, and one or two fermented foods.

If I want a little more protein, I’ll add a jammy boiled egg, leftover chicken or salmon, a can of sardines, or cooked legumes.

A typical bowl might look like this:

• Black lentils or quinoa

• Cucumber, tomatoes and seasonal vegetables

• Fresh parsley or dill

• Fermented cherry tomatoes or sauerkraut

• Dressing

• Jammy egg or canned seafood

Every bowl is a little different, depending on what’s in season and what I’m craving that day.

🍓 The Ultimate Nourishing Snack Plate

I honestly think snack plates are one of the most underrated meals.

They’re incredibly quick, require almost no preparation, and are surprisingly satisfying when you combine protein, healthy fats, fresh produce and something fermented. Personally I also like to include something like berries, so you get a fun balance of sweet and salty.

A typical snack plate for me might include:

• A jammy boiled egg

• A few spoonfuls of sauerkraut or kimchi

• Fresh cucumber, carrots or tomatoes

• A handful of berries or seasonal fruit

• A can of sardines or smoked oysters

• A few slices of Parmesan or goat cheese

That’s it. As simple as it is genius and tasty. It’s nourishing, balanced, and on the table in five minutes.

🥪 A Loaded Sourdough Sandwich

Another staple in our house.

I start with thick slices of fresh sourdough, spread on whatever sauce or dip I have prepared, pile on plenty of fresh vegetables, and finish it with a protein.

Some favorite combinations are:

• Pumpkin Seed Pesto + tomatoes + cucumber + boiled eggs

• Hummus + roasted vegetables + sprouts

• Goat cheese + fermented tomatoes + herbs

• Leftover chicken + greens + homemade dressing

• Smoked salmon + cream cheese + cucumber + dill

Served alongside a handful of ferments, it’s one of the easiest meals you’ll make all week.

The beauty of assembling instead of cooking is that every meal can be completely different, even though you’re using many of the same ingredients.

3. Cook Fresh (Only Three Times a Week)

One of the biggest misconceptions about my system is that I only eat prepped food. The truth is quite the opposite.

I’m a big foodie, I genuinely love cooking, experimenting with new recipes, and making the most of seasonal ingredients from the farmers market. I just don’t want to feel like I have to cook every single day.

Instead, I usually cook a fresh, warm dinner around three times a week. Friday evening is reserved for Shabbat dinner where we’re either hosting or invited.

Because breakfast and lunch are already largely taken care of, dinner becomes something I can actually enjoy rather than another task to check off my list.

The key is simple: I always cook enough for two meals. Instead of cooking seven nights a week, I’m really only cooking three.

As my recipe collection grows, this section will become my personal library of favorite weeknight meals. Recipes that are nourishing, simple enough for busy weekdays, and make delicious leftovers.

Some current favorites include:

• Mediterranean Seafood Pasta

• Chili-Glazed Salmon Bites

This week, choose to prep:

• one breakfast you love

• one grain or legume

• one dressing

• one easy ferment

• and one fresh dinner recipe

That’s more than enough to experience how much easier your week can feel.

Looking for weekly inspiration?

If you'd like to take a peek into my kitchen and see how I actually put The Nourished Week into practice, I highly recommend my signature series, Ferments & Foods.

Every edition includes a collection of seasonal recipes, meal prep ideas, and fermentation projects that fit seamlessly into this framework. It's where I share exactly what I'm cooking, prepping, and eating each week:

I hope this framework serves you as well as it has served me.

More than anything, I hope it takes some of the pressure out of nourishing yourself. You don’t need to cook elaborate meals every day or follow a perfect meal plan to eat well. A little structure, a few thoughtfully prepared building blocks, and the freedom to adapt as life changes can go a long way.

I’m so glad you’re here, and I can’t wait to continue building The Nourished Week together, one recipe at a time.

-Kirsty

Once you get into the habit of buying what’s in season in your specific region, you’ll notice that it’s often not only cheaper, but produce is fresher, and more flavorful. Because it’s harvested closer to peak ripeness and doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles before reaching your plate, it also keeps more of its nutrients, so in case you couldn’t tell already, I’m completely sold on seasonal eating.

This week continues the abundance of late summer freshness, celebrating all the colors and delicious flavors of the hottest months of the year. With markets overflowing with colorful tomatoes, herbs, cherries, and beans, there really isn’t much you need to do to create delicious meals. With continuous day-time temperatures between 90-100°F in Southern California, I can’t be bothered to turn on the oven/stove until the evening. Instead, lunches have mostly been simple salads, fresh dips, homemade drinks, and meals that can be prepared ahead of time and enjoyed straight from the fridge.

This week’s recipes are built around exactly that. We’ll be making a refreshing Marinated White Bean Tomato Salad featuring last week’s lacto-fermented cherry tomatoes, a vibrant Pumpkin Seed Pesto that’s perfect for everything from pasta to sandwiches, and crunchy Fermented Dilly Beans to preserve the season’s green beans. To round things out, we’re making a creamy Pumpkin Seed Chocolate Milk for a refreshing afternoon drink, then transforming the leftover pumpkin seed pulp into rich Brownie Cherry Bites as a simple way to waste less while creating two delicious recipes from one ingredient.

This Week's Menu

🍅 Marinated White Bean Tomato Salad

🌿 Pumpkin Seed Pesto

💚 Fermented ‘Dilly’ Beans

🍫 Pumpkin Seed Chocolate Milk

🍒 Brownie Cherry Bites

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What’s in Season?

August is one of the most abundant months of the year. Produce is so fresh, juicy and luscious, it almost invites you to keep things simple, letting the ingredients speak for themselves. Farmers markets are overflowing with vine-ripened tomatoes, sweet melons, juicy peaches and nectarines, tender zucchini, peppers, eggplant, herbs, and crisp green beans.

Every region has its own growing season, and even within California you’ll notice small differences for what’s available when depending on where you live. In general, my approach to seasonal/local eating is less one of perfection and more about becoming familiar with the natural rhythm of the foods that grow around you.

Whenever possible, I encourage using seasonal guides as inspiration rather than a strict checklist. That being said, I do hope my seasonal menus encourage you to wander through your local market, pick up something that’s looking especially beautiful, and let the season inspire what you cook this week.

Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Pumpkin seeds are one of most underrated ingredients, especially for pesto. They make the pesto a little more rustic and earthy than pine nuts, but nutritionally they have several advantages. They’re not only higher in protein but actually are one of the richest whole-food sources of magnesium. They’re also stacked with zinc, iron and a ton of healthy fats to keep you satiated.

With my garden basil exploding right now, I knew I needed a large jar of fresh pesto to keep handy in the fridge and I ended up using it throughout the whole week for pasta, sandwiches and salad dressings.

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This particular recipe was passed down to me by my husband, who ran a full-time hummus business for several years when we were still living in Berlin. In other words, this is not a recipe we arrived at after making hummus once or twice. It has been made, adjusted, tasted, and perfected more times than either of us could count. In fact, years after our move to California he is still receiving messages from hungry customers that dearly miss their regular weekly hummus delivery, so I’ll let that speak for itself.

Before traveling through and later living in the Middle East, I thought of hummus mostly as a dip you ate with carrot sticks. Pleasant enough, but hardly something I found exciting.

That changed the first time I ate a full plate of creamy, freshly made hummus while it was still slightly warm from the grinding. Topped with silky smooth chickpeas, spices, and a generous drizzle of olive oil, a side of fluffy pita, or, for the real ones, wedges of sweet onion used to scoop up every last bite.

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Key Steps for Making Great Hummus

Like most simple recipes, great hummus isn't about a long list of ingredients. It's about getting a few key things right. Over the years, I've learned that there are four main elements that make or break a bowl of hummus. They're all equally important, and each one has a huge impact on the final result.

Chickpeas

Everything starts with the chickpeas. Not only the quality of the chickpeas themselves but also with the method of preparation.

I know the temptation is to reach for a can. It’s quick, convenient, and for many recipes it’s perfectly fine. But as someone living with a self-proclaimed hummus snob, I can confidently say that if I ever suggested canned chickpeas, I’d probably be arrested by the hummus police.

For years and years, the art of making hummus in our household has started with dried chickpeas that are soaked overnight and cooked from scratch. It’s more work, yes, but it’s also the single biggest difference between good hummus and the kind you’ll keep thinking about days later. Consequently, this is the method I will teach you.

Could you use canned chickpeas? Absolutely.

Will I take responsibility for the outcome? Absolutely not.

Tahini

If chickpeas are the foundation of hummus, tahini is its soul.

The amount of tahini varies enormously from one country, family, or restaurant to another, which is one of the reasons hummus can taste so different depending on where you eat it.

After years of testing, I’ve found that being generous with tahini, generally equals a tastier and creamier hummus. It doesn’t just add richness, it creates the silky texture and deep nutty flavor that makes homemade hummus truly memorable.

Toppings

Many people stop once they’ve made a delicious bowl of hummus, but in my opinion, that’s only half the story.

A beautifully smooth hummus is the foundation. The toppings are what bring it to life.

The simplest version—warm chickpeas, a sprinkle of spices, and a generous drizzle of good olive oil—is hard to beat. But that’s only the beginning. Fresh herbs, roasted vegetables, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, slow-cooked meat, or whatever happens to be in season can all transform the same hummus into something entirely new.

One of the things I love most about hummus is that it never has to be the same twice. Think of it as a blank canvas: once you’ve mastered the base recipe, the toppings are where you can make it your own.

Equipment

The last piece of the puzzle is one that many recipes barely mention: your equipment.

Nobody likes grainy, chunky hummus.

Even with excellent chickpeas and great tahini, you’ll struggle to achieve that incredibly smooth, almost whipped texture if your food processor or blender isn’t powerful enough. In my experience, the machine you use is just as important as the ingredients themselves.

In the next section, I’ll dive deeper into each of these four elements, explain why they matter, and share the exact brands and products we use at home.

The Humble Chickpea

Few foods have nourished people for as long as the humble chickpea. Believed to have originated in the Middle East thousands of years ago, chickpeas have been a staple across the Mediterranean, North Africa, and South Asia ever since. Long before they became trendy in modern kitchens, they were valued for something much simpler: they're affordable, incredibly nutritious, and can feed a lot of people with very little.

If there's one place where I encourage you not to take shortcuts, it's the chickpeas.

Once you get into the habit of cooking chickpeas from scratch you’ll notice how simple it actually is. It might be more intimidating at first but it’s not only a great way to save a ton of money but also results in way tastier chickpeas.

Every other week I cook a big batch of chickpeas and freeze whatever I don’t use within a few days. So while my amounts are usually bigger, for a 1-2 person household I’ll recommend the following ratios.

Preparing the chickpeas

Start by rinsing 250g (9 oz) dried chickpeas under cold water, removing any small stones or damaged chickpeas.

Transfer them to a large bowl, add ¼ teaspoon baking soda and cover generously with water and a lid. Chickpeas roughly double in size as they soak and continue to expand slightly during cooking, so make sure you add enough water.

The baking soda raises the pH of the soaking water, helping soften the chickpea skins. Softer chickpeas blend into noticeably smoother hummus.

Leave them to soak for at least 6 hours, although overnight (8–12 hours) is ideal.

After soaking, the chickpeas should be plump and well hydrated. Once cooked, you’ll end up with roughly 500 g cooked chickpeas for the hummus, plus a handful left over to use as one of my favorite toppings.

Cooking the chickpeas

Once the chickpeas have finished soaking, drain the soaking liquid into a large pot and top it up with a little fresh water. Bring the water to a rolling boil before carefully adding the soaked chickpeas.

Let the chickpeas boil vigorously for 3 minutes. During this time, a layer of foam will rise to the surface. Skim it off with a large spoon until most of the foam has disappeared.

Next, cover the pot with a lid, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, and let the chickpeas cook until they’re completely tender.

The exact cooking time will vary depending on your pot and stovetop. I usually find that a cast iron pot cooks them a little faster (generally around 1.5hrs), but rather than watching the clock, let the chickpeas tell you when they’re ready.

You’re looking for chickpeas that are very soft while still holding their shape. When you press one between your fingers, it should mash effortlessly into a smooth paste with no firm or chalky center. If there’s any resistance, keep cooking.

Once they’re done, remove the pot from the heat and let the chickpeas cool in their cooking liquid.

Don’t discard the liquid. You’ll use some of it in the hummus itself. It’s packed with flavor and starch, which helps create a beautifully smooth, creamy consistency.

Liquid Gold: The Soul of Great Hummus

Tahini has been made for centuries by grinding toasted or raw sesame seeds into a smooth paste. While the ingredient itself is wonderfully simple, not all tahini is created equal.

In fact, I'd argue that the quality of your tahini has a bigger impact on your hummus than almost any other ingredient.

When my husband opened his hummus business in Berlin, finding good tahini quickly became an obsession. He wasn’t happy with any of the brands available in Germany, so he flew abroad to visit a well-known tahini factory, and eventually began importing his own.

For years our basement looked less like a home and more like a wholesale warehouse, stacked floor to ceiling with 30 kg buckets of tahini.

What to look for

When buying tahini, always start by checking the ingredient list. The only ingredient should be 100% sesame seeds.

Avoid products that contain whitening agents, vegetable oils, preservatives, emulsifiers, or other unnecessary additives. A good tahini doesn’t need anything beyond quality sesame seeds.

The type of sesame seed also matters. Different varieties produce different flavors, while traditional stone grinding helps create a smoother texture and preserves more of the natural oils.

My favorite brands

Har Bracha Tahini

This is my personal favorite and the tahini we used throughout my husband’s hummus business.

It’s made in Israel from 100% Humera (Ethiopian) sesame seeds, which are prized for their naturally sweet, rich, and creamy flavor. The sesame seeds are traditionally stone ground, resulting in an exceptionally smooth tahini with very little bitterness.

If you can find it, this is the one I’d recommend above all others.

Available: Kosher supermarkets and online.

Al Wadi Al Akhdar Tahini

If Har Bracha isn’t available, this is another excellent choice.

Made in Lebanon from 100% hulled sesame seeds and traditionally stone ground, it has a beautifully balanced flavor that works wonderfully in hummus.

This is also the brand I most commonly find in the United States.

Available: Jon’s Marketplace, many Middle Eastern and international grocery stores, and online.

The Art of the Topping

If you've never ordered hummus in Israel, Lebanon, or Palestine, you might be surprised that it rarely arrives as a plain bowl of blended chickpeas. Instead, it's finished with toppings that add texture, color, and another layer of flavor.

The classic combination—a pinch of cumin/paprika, warm cooked chickpeas, a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and chopped parsley with a side of fermented vegetables—is hard to beat and remains my favorite up until this day, but every once in a while I like to switch things up.

Once you've mastered the basics, the possibilities are almost endless. Here are a few of my favorite toppings to serve you as inspiration for your next bowl:

• toasted pine nuts

• sautéed mushrooms

• slow-cooked beef

• roasted cauliflower

• caramelized onions

• roasted eggplant

• fresh herbs like za’atar or sumac

• toasted seeds

• jammy eggs

Chasing the Perfect Texture

You can buy the best chickpeas, source incredible tahini, and spend hours perfecting your toppings, but if your food processor can't properly grind everything into a silky smooth paste, your hummus will never quite reach its full potential.

When my husband was considering expanding his hummus business, I somehow found myself spending hours researching commercial hummus grinding machines. Turns out there is an entire world dedicated to making perfectly smooth hummus at scale, with machines specifically designed to grind chickpeas into an almost impossibly silky paste.

Thankfully, you don’t need industrial equipment in your own kitchen.

For home cooks, I’ve consistently had the best results with:

• Vitamix (I bought a refurbished one for a fraction of the price of a new one 3 years ago and it’s been serving me exceptionally well)

• Cuisinart food processor

Both are powerful enough to create the ultra-smooth texture that great hummus is known for. Of course, they're not the only options. Any high-powered food processor or blender with enough strength to continuously grind the chickpeas and tahini into a completely smooth paste will work well.

The Final Piece: Something Crunchy

If there’s one thing that can take a bowl of hummus from great to unforgettable, it’s something crisp, tangy, and full of life alongside it.

In the Middle East, hummus is almost never served on its own. There’s usually something fresh or pickled on the table to balance its richness and add contrast to every bite.

My favorite pairing is homemade lacto-fermented vegetables.

Whether it’s a crunchy garlic dill pickle or a jar of fermented cabbage and carrots, that combination of creamy hummus and bright, tangy vegetables is one I never get tired of. The acidity cuts through the richness of the tahini, while the crunch adds another layer of texture that makes every bite more satisfying.

It’s also one of my favorite examples of how fermentation fits naturally into everyday meals. It doesn’t need to be complicated or reserved for special occasions. Sometimes it’s simply a few sliced pickles next to a bowl of hummus that makes lunch feel complete.

If you’d like to start making your own fermented vegetables at home, you’ll find my favorite beginner-friendly recipes—including my Garlic Dill Fermented Pickles and Lacto-Fermented Cabbage & Carrots—in The Probiotic Pantry, along with more than 50 other recipes to help you bring fermentation into your everyday kitchen.

→ Probiotic Pantry Ebook

Whether this becomes your go-to hummus recipe or simply inspires you to cook a little more from scratch, I hope it reminds you that some of the most satisfying foods are also the simplest.

A bag of dried chickpeas, good tahini, a lemon, and a little patience are all it takes to create something that has brought people together around the table for generations.

Happy cooking,

Kirsten

Markets are overflowing with sweet berries, fragrant herbs, juicy tomatoes, and zucchini that actually tastes like something. Instead of spending hours in the kitchen making complicated meals, this is the season for simple recipes that highlight beautiful ingredients at their peak.

I just got back from my 2 week summer trip to the middle east visiting family and friends, with a full belly, tons of food inspiration and a suitcase overflowing with spices, dried fruits and all my favorite delicacies. So prepare yourself for lots of fun new recipes inspired by my recent travels in the upcoming weeks!

This week’s prep is grounding myself back in my regular routine and is all about turning those colorful summer staples into foods that nourish your gut while keeping cooking relaxed and enjoyable. We’re making a naturally probiotic blackberry soda, lacto-fermented cherry tomatoes with garlic and basil, transforming strawberries into a quick chia jam, and bringing everything together in a hearty roasted zucchini and lentil salad with a creamy goat kefir dressing.

It’s the kind of food I find myself craving during warm weather—fresh, colorful, satisfying, and packed with fiber, fermented foods, healthy fats, and plenty of seasonal vegetables.

I hope these recipes inspire you to slow down, visit your local farmers market, and make the most of everything summer has to offer.

This Week's Menu

🍓 Strawberry Basil Chia Jam

💜 Probiotic Blackberry-Sage Soda

🍅 Lacto-Fermented Cherry Tomatoes

🥗 Roasted Zucchini Lentil Salad

🥛 Probiotic Goat Kefir Dressing

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What’s in Season?

July is one of the most abundant months of the year, and possibly my favorite.

Across much of North America you’ll find tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, berries, basil, peaches, stone fruit, fresh herbs, peppers and leafy greens at their absolute best. Not only are these foods often sweeter and more flavorful when grown in season, but shopping seasonally also tends to be more affordable and supports local farmers.

The absolute star of the summer months, however, are undoubtedly the colorful, juicy tomatoes you can find popping up everywhere right now. Their flavor is unmatched and if I had to choose/invest in only one thing to buy from my local farmers market (beside farm fresh eggs), it would always be heirloom tomatoes.

Buying produce when it’s naturally abundant means you often need to do very little to make it taste incredible. A little roasting, a quick fermentation, or simply blending a few ingredients together is often all it takes.

Strawberry Basil Chia Jam

Sweet strawberries, fragrant basil, and chia seeds come together in just minutes to create a naturally thickened jam without any commercial pectin. It’s lightly sweetened, packed with fiber, and perfect on sourdough, yogurt, oatmeal, pancakes, or stirred into kefir. Make one batch and enjoy it throughout the week.

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And while safety should always come first when fermenting at home, there’s a good chance you may have been throwing away a perfectly good ferment, and your hard-earned produce along with it.

At some point, every home fermenter encounters one (or both) of these common surface growths: kahm yeast and mold.

Learning to tell them apart and understanding what each means for your ferment is one of the most valuable skills you can develop in your fermentation journey.

Unfortunately, the internet often makes this far more confusing than it needs to be. One website tells you to scrape it off. Another tells you to throw everything away. Social media comments are filled with conflicting advice, and before long someone inevitably throws around the big, scary “B-word”: botulism.

The truth is that while kahm yeast and mold can sometimes look similar at first glance, they are fundamentally different organisms with very different implications for your ferment. Knowing how to recognize each one can save you from unnecessary food waste while also helping you identify when a batch genuinely needs to be discarded.

In this guide, we’ll cover:

• What kahm yeast is and why it develops

• What mold is and why it develops

• How to confidently tell them apart using visual and smell cues

• What to do if you find either one

• The best ways to prevent both in future batches

• Frequently Asked Questions about your ferment

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Part I — Understanding Kahm Yeast

What is Kahm Yeast?

Despite its intimidating appearance, kahm yeast isn’t actually one specific type of yeast. Instead, it’s a general term used to describe a group of naturally occurring wild yeasts that can grow on the surface of fermented foods.

One of the defining characteristics of kahm yeast is that it is an aerobic organism, meaning it requires oxygen to grow. That’s why it almost always appears on the surface of your ferment, where it has access to air, rather than beneath the brine where oxygen is absent.

While it may look alarming, kahm yeast is one of the most common and generally harmless surface growths encountered during home fermentation.

Why Does Kahm Yeast Develop?

Kahm yeast doesn’t appear randomly. Like every microorganism, it simply responds to its environment.

The biggest factor is oxygen.

During a healthy lacto-fermentation, the beneficial lactic acid bacteria quickly begin producing lactic acid, creating an increasingly acidic and oxygen-poor environment. These are ideal conditions for the bacteria but much less favorable for aerobic organisms like kahm yeast.

However, the very top of the ferment often remains exposed to small amounts of oxygen. If the conditions are right, kahm yeast can settle on this surface and begin multiplying.

Several factors increase the likelihood of kahm yeast developing:

• Vegetables floating above the brine

• A large air gap (headspace) between the brine and the lid

• Opening the jar frequently, introducing fresh oxygen

• Warm fermentation temperatures

• Lower salt concentrations

• Slow acidification during the first few days

• Weaker populations of lactic acid bacteria

It’s important to understand that kahm yeast is not necessarily a sign that you’ve done something wrong. Even experienced fermenters occasionally encounter it. In fact, some vegetables and ferments seem naturally more prone to developing kahm than others (e.g. root vegetables, fruit ferments, ginger bugs).

Rather than viewing it as a failure, think of it as a sign that oxygen has found an opportunity at the surface of your ferment.

Smell & Visual Clues: How to Identify Kahm Yeast

One of the reasons kahm yeast causes so much confusion is that it can take on many different appearances as it matures. When trying to identify a surface growth, never rely on a single characteristic. Instead, combine appearance, texture, smell, and context.

Early Stage

In its earliest stage, kahm yeast often looks like a thin, translucent film floating on the surface of the brine. It may be so delicate that you only notice it when light reflects off the surface.

Developing Stage

As it grows, the film becomes more visible and begins developing characteristic wrinkles and folds.

Many fermenters describe it as looking like tissue paper (wrinkled rather than fuzzy), thin or membrane-like reminding wet parchment or spider webs.

As carbon dioxide produced during fermentation becomes trapped beneath the surface, the membrane may stretch, buckle and form raised wrinkles or small bubbles.

Mature Stage

A mature kahm layer can eventually cover the entire surface of a jar as one continuous membrane.

When disturbed with a spoon, the texture is often described as slippery, soft, jelly-like, papery and flexible because the yeasts trap moisture and bacterial polysaccharides.

Typical Colors

Kahm yeast is usually: white, cream, off-white, very pale beige.

The pigments from colorful vegetables (such as purple cabbage, beets, or purple carrots) can sometimes stain the membrane pink, purple, or light red. This coloration comes from the vegetables themselves rather than the yeast.

Smell

Healthy kahm yeast usually has a smell that is still unmistakably fermented.

Common descriptions include: sour, yeasty, bread dough, beer, mild cheese, fermented vegetables.

What Kahm Yeast Does Not Look/Smell Like

Although every ferment is unique, kahm yeast generally does not produce:

• fuzzy hairs

• cotton-like tufts

• green, blue, black, or dark gray patches

These features are much more suggestive of mold.

What you shouldn’t smell is:

• rotten food

• decay

• musty basement

• strong mildew

Remember, smell alone should never be used to determine whether a ferment is safe. Always evaluate the entire picture.

Is Kahm Yeast Harmful?

This is probably the question I receive most often.

The reassuring news is that kahm yeast itself is generally considered harmless. Unlike many molds, kahm yeasts are not known to produce mycotoxins, and they are commonly found in the environment and on foods.

The downside is mostly one of quality rather than safety.

As kahm yeast continues growing, it consumes nutrients on the surface of the ferment and can begin affecting the flavor and texture.

A heavy kahm layer may lead to:

• duller flavor

• bitterness

• cheesy or yeasty notes

• softer vegetables

• reduced crispness

Another reason to deal with kahm early is that it occupies the oxygen-rich surface of your ferment. While kahm itself is generally harmless, allowing any surface growth to become extensive may create conditions that make other unwanted microorganisms more likely to establish themselves.

For that reason, I recommend checking your ferments regularly and addressing kahm before it becomes a thick layer.

What Should You Do If You Find Kahm Yeast?

Finding kahm yeast doesn’t automatically mean your batch belongs in the compost.

If the growth is confidently identified as kahm yeast and there are no signs of mold, many home fermenters simply remove the surface layer and continue enjoying the ferment.

For lacto-fermented vegetables, my approach is:

1. Carefully skim or lift off the kahm layer.

2. Discard any vegetables that were floating above the brine.

3. Wipe the rim of the jar clean.

4. Ensure all remaining vegetables are fully submerged beneath the brine.

5. Transfer the ferment to the refrigerator if it has already reached your preferred level of sourness.

Because refrigeration dramatically slows microbial activity, it also greatly reduces further kahm growth.

For active countertop ferments that still need more time, simply restoring proper submersion and minimizing oxygen exposure is often enough to prevent the kahm from returning.

Finally, remember that when in doubt, throw it out. No article, photograph, or internet opinion can replace your own judgment when something about a ferment seems genuinely unusual. If you cannot confidently distinguish kahm yeast from mold, the safest decision is always to discard the batch and start fresh. After all, a few vegetables are far less valuable than your peace of mind.

Part II — Understanding Mold

What Is Mold?

Unlike kahm yeast, mold isn’t a yeast at all. Mold is a group of multicellular fungi that grow by forming microscopic thread-like structures called hyphae. As these threads branch and intertwine, they create a network known as mycelium.

While you may only see a small patch on the surface of your ferment, the visible growth is often just the “tip of the iceberg.” The hyphae can extend beneath the surface into the food itself, even when they aren’t visible to the naked eye.

Mold reproduces by producing spores that disperse through the air. These spores are everywhere around us (on fresh produce, in soil, on kitchen surfaces, and even in the air we breathe). Most of the time they don’t cause any problems because healthy fermentations create an acidic environment that strongly inhibits their growth.

However, when mold finds the right combination of oxygen, moisture, and a weakened or exposed surface, it can begin to colonize a ferment.

Why Does Mold Develop?

Just like kahm yeast, mold requires oxygen. This is why mold almost always appears on the surface of a ferment rather than beneath the brine.

Several conditions make mold more likely to develop:

• Vegetables floating above the brine

• Insufficient brine covering the produce

• Too much headspace in the jar

• Damaged or bruised produce

• Low salt concentrations

• Weak or slow fermentation

• Frequent opening of the jar

• Warm temperatures

• Dirty utensils or contaminated equipment

The good news is that mold is actually quite uncommon in properly prepared lacto-ferments.

When vegetables remain fully submerged beneath an adequately salty brine, lactic acid bacteria quickly acidify the environment while oxygen is depleted. These conditions are highly unfavorable for mold growth.

For this reason, mold is often less a sign of “bad luck” and more a sign that oxygen was able to reach the surface of the ferment.

For the purpose of this post and visual guidance, I’ve sacrificed a jar and intentionally created a moldy sauerkraut by using a less than optimal salt ratio and insufficient brine covering the cabbage. The result was as expected and beautifully shows the result of oxygen and a low salt ratio on your ferment:

Smell & Visual Clues: How to Identify Mold

Mold is usually much easier to recognize once you know what to look for. Unlike kahm yeast, which forms a thin surface film, mold grows upward.

It develops fuzzy, hairy or cotton-like colonies that sit above the surface rather than remaining flat.

Common textures

Mold may appear: fuzzy, hairy, velvety, cotton-like, powdery.

As it matures, many molds begin producing spores, giving the surface a dusty or chalky appearance.

Common growth patterns

Unlike kahm yeast, which often spreads as one continuous sheet, mold usually begins as individual circular colonies. Over time these colonies expand and merge into larger patches.

Common colors

Early mold growth is often white. As spores mature, colors may change to: green, blue, gray, yellow, orange, black.

Some molds remain white throughout their life cycle, which is one reason they’re occasionally confused with kahm yeast. The key difference is not simply the color, it’s the texture and structure of the growth.

Smell

Many mold-contaminated ferments develop unpleasant aromas such as:

• musty

• damp basement

• stale

• earthy

• rotten

However, smell should never be your only guide.

Some molds produce very little odor, while heavily fermented vegetables naturally have strong aromas that can make interpretation difficult. Always consider smell alongside the visual appearance of the growth.

Is Mold Harmful?

This is where mold differs most significantly from kahm yeast.

While some molds used in food production are intentionally cultivated (such as those used to make blue cheese or certain cured meats), you cannot safely assume that an unknown mold growing in your ferment is harmless.

Some molds produce compounds known as mycotoxins, which can pose health risks.

Another important difference is that mold doesn’t remain only on the surface. The microscopic hyphae can penetrate into soft, high-moisture foods long before they’re visible.

This is why food safety authorities generally advise against scraping mold off fermented vegetables, pickles, jams, or other moist foods.

If mold is present on a fermented vegetable or beverage, the safest recommendation is to discard the entire batch.

What Should You Do If You Find Mold?

If you’ve confidently identified mold, my advice is simple:

Discard the batch.

Don’t taste it to “see if it’s okay.” Don’t scrape the mold off and eat the rest. Don’t try to rescue the ferment.

Although it can feel disappointing, especially after waiting days or weeks, starting over is far preferable to taking unnecessary risks.

After discarding the ferment:

1. Empty the contents into your compost or trash.

2. Wash the jar thoroughly with hot, soapy water. Glass is non-porous, so washing is usually enough to remove mold and spores. If it gives you extra peace of mind (or if the mold was extensive) you can sanitize everything before reusing it.

3. Inspect your fermentation equipment for anything that may have allowed oxygen exposure.

4. Review your process before starting another batch.

Part III — Preventing Kahm Yeast & Mold

The good news is that both kahm yeast and mold are largely preventable.

Although they are very different organisms, they thrive under similar conditions, primarily when oxygen is present at the surface of your ferment. By creating an environment that favors beneficial lactic acid bacteria while limiting oxygen exposure, you can dramatically reduce the likelihood of either one developing.

Here are the most effective ways to keep your ferments healthy.

1. Keep Everything Fully Submerged

If there’s one rule to remember, it’s this:

Keep your produce below the brine.

Lactic acid bacteria thrive in an oxygen-free (anaerobic) environment, while both kahm yeast and mold require oxygen to grow.

Any piece of vegetable floating above the brine becomes exposed to air and can quickly become a landing spot for unwanted microorganisms.

Using a fermentation weight is one of the easiest ways to ensure everything stays submerged throughout the fermentation.

2. Use the Right Salt Concentration

Salt does much more than simply season your ferment.

It helps draw water out of vegetables to create the brine, slows the growth of undesirable microorganisms, and gives lactic acid bacteria a competitive advantage during the first few days of fermentation.

For most lacto-fermented vegetables, a salt concentration between 2–3% by weight works well.

Using significantly less salt can slow acidification and make it easier for unwanted microbes to establish themselves, while excessive amounts may inhibit the beneficial bacteria you’re trying to encourage.

3. Leave as Little Headspace as Practical

The larger the air pocket above your ferment, the more oxygen is available for surface microorganisms.

Try to pack your vegetables tightly and choose a jar that fits the amount you’re fermenting. A jar that’s half empty contains far more oxygen than one that’s nearly full.

That said, don’t overfill your jar either. Fermentation produces carbon dioxide, and leaving a small amount of headspace helps prevent brine from bubbling out during the first few days.

As a general rule, aim for enough room to allow for expansion without creating an unnecessarily large air pocket.

4. Ferment at Moderate Temperatures

Temperature has a significant influence on microbial activity.

Most lacto-fermented vegetables do well between 18–22°C (65–72°F).

Warmer temperatures speed up fermentation but can also encourage kahm yeast and soften vegetables.

Extremely high temperatures may increase the risk of unwanted microbial growth and produce less consistent results.

On the other hand, very cool temperatures slow fermentation considerably, giving beneficial bacteria more time to establish themselves.

Consistency is generally more important than perfection.

5. Limit Oxygen Exposure

Every time you open a fermentation vessel, fresh oxygen enters.

For traditional jars, it’s perfectly fine to check on your ferment occasionally. However, repeatedly opening the jar multiple times a day introduces unnecessary oxygen and increases the opportunity for surface microorganisms to grow.

If you’re using an airlock fermentation system, try to leave it undisturbed until fermentation is complete.

Once your vegetables have reached your preferred level of sourness, transferring the jar to the refrigerator greatly slows microbial activity.

6. Start With Fresh, Healthy Produce

Fermentation can preserve vegetables remarkably well, but it can’t improve produce that’s already deteriorating.

Choose vegetables that are: fresh, firm, free from mold, free from significant bruising or decay.

Trim away damaged areas before fermenting.

Starting with healthy produce gives the beneficial microorganisms the best possible foundation.

7. Use Clean Equipment

One of the biggest misconceptions about fermentation is that everything needs to be sterile. It doesn’t.

Fermentation depends on naturally occurring microorganisms found on your vegetables and in your environment. Attempting to create a sterile environment isn’t necessary, and in most home kitchens, it’s impossible.

Instead, focus on using clean, food-safe equipment.

Wash jars, weights, lids and utensils thoroughly with hot, soapy water before every batch.

If you’ve recently discarded a moldy ferment, you may choose to sanitize your equipment before using it again, but routine sterilization isn’t required for successful home fermentation.

Part IV — Frequently Asked Questions

Can Kahm Yeast Turn Into Mold?

No. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in home fermentation.

Kahm yeast and mold are completely different groups of microorganisms. Kahm yeast cannot “transform” into mold any more than a mushroom can turn into a flower.

However, they do thrive under similar conditions, most importantly, the presence of oxygen. If a ferment develops kahm yeast and the conditions remain favorable (for example, vegetables continue floating above the brine or the jar is repeatedly exposed to air), mold spores may eventually colonize the same surface.

In other words, kahm yeast doesn’t become mold, but the conditions that allow kahm to grow can also allow mold to grow.

Can Mold Grow Under the Brine?

It’s extremely uncommon.

Most molds require oxygen to grow, which is why they almost always appear on the surface of a ferment where air is present.

If mold appears beneath the brine, it’s usually because the food wasn’t truly submerged or because air pockets were trapped between vegetables.

This is one of the reasons why keeping produce completely submerged is so important.

Can Kahm Yeast Make Me Sick?

Current evidence suggests that kahm yeast itself is generally harmless.

It isn’t known to produce mycotoxins like certain molds and is considered a common spoilage yeast found naturally in the environment.

That said, kahm can negatively affect the flavor, aroma, and texture of your ferment. If the growth is extensive or you’re uncertain whether it’s truly kahm, it’s perfectly reasonable to discard the batch.

When in doubt, err on the side of caution.

Why Is My Brine Cloudy?

Cloudy brine is usually a sign that fermentation is progressing normally.

As lactic acid bacteria multiply, the liquid often becomes cloudy due to suspended bacteria, tiny particles from the vegetables, and naturally occurring proteins.

Cloudiness alone is not a sign of spoilage.

In fact, many successful ferments become noticeably cloudy within the first few days.

What Is the White Sediment at the Bottom of My Jar?

White sediment at the bottom of a ferment is usually completely normal.

It often consists of dead lactic acid bacteria, inactive yeast cells, and other harmless particles that naturally settle during fermentation.

Unlike mold, this sediment forms below the brine rather than on the surface and doesn’t have a fuzzy or hairy appearance.

Are White Crystals on My Vegetables Mold?

Not necessarily.

Occasionally you’ll notice tiny white crystals forming on fermented vegetables.

These are often calcium lactate crystals, a harmless by-product of fermentation that can develop on vegetables naturally rich in calcium.

They’re completely safe to eat and are sometimes mistaken for mold because of their white color.

Unlike mold, these crystals are hard or gritty rather than fuzzy.

Continue Your Fermentation Journey

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📚 → Fermentation 101
A step-by-step series covering the science behind fermentation—from salt percentages and pH to mold, kahm yeast, troubleshooting, food safety, and much more.

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A searchable collection of all my fermentation recipes, organized by category, with new recipes added every week.

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Final Thoughts

Fermentation is one of the few areas of cooking where we’re working with living microorganisms rather than trying to eliminate them. That can feel intimidating at first, especially when something unexpected appears on the surface of a jar.

Remember: Every fermenter has thrown away a batch at some point. It’s a normal part of learning. Each jar teaches you a little more about the invisible microbial world at work, and with every batch you’ll become more confident at recognizing what’s normal, what’s harmless, and what truly deserves your caution. Fermentation is, at its heart, an exercise in learning to trust both science and your senses.

Most importantly, don’t let the fear of kahm yeast or mold discourage you from fermenting. With a few simple habits you’ll find that successful, delicious ferments become the norm rather than the exception.

Happy fermenting,

Kirsten

The markets are overflowing with juicy watermelon, fragrant herbs and crisp vegetables, and suddenly the simplest meals become the ones you crave most. Instead of long ingredient lists or complicated techniques, everything is about letting a handful of really good ingredients do the work.

This week’s menu is exactly that kind of cooking. The salmon comes together in minutes, the watermelon feta salsa adds sweetness and freshness to every bite, and a batch of quick pickled onions instantly brightens everything from tacos to salads throughout the week. The cilantro cashew crema is one of those sauces you’ll find yourself putting on absolutely everything, while the naturally probiotic watermelon soda quietly bubbles away on your counter, ready for the hottest afternoons.

It’s colorful, incredibly fresh, packed with fiber, healthy fats and protein, and full of the bright flavors that make summer cooking feel almost effortless. I hope these recipes bring a little sunshine to your table this week.

This Week's Menu

🍉 Probiotic Watermelon Soda

🧅 Pickled Red Onions

🌿 Cilantro Cashew Crema

🌮 Chili Salmon Taco Bites

🍋 Watermelon Feta Salsa

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What’s in Season?

Late June and early July are all about keeping things simple and letting seasonal produce shine. Sweet watermelon is at its absolute peak right now, making it one of the best times of year to enjoy it in everything from refreshing drinks to vibrant salads.

Fresh cilantro is thriving in many farmers markets, while jalapeños and other summer peppers bring just the right amount of heat to balance sweet fruit and rich salmon. Limes are abundant year-round but feel especially at home in summer cooking, adding the bright acidity that ties everything together.

This week’s recipes celebrate these fresh, vibrant ingredients with minimal cooking, proving that some of the most satisfying meals of the season come from combining a handful of beautiful ingredients and letting them speak for themselves.

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This is one of them.

A pot of brothy French lentils simmered in homemade broth, topped with a jammy egg, a spoonful of vibrant fermented vegetables, plenty of herbs and a drizzle of good olive oil.

It’s the kind of breakfast (or lunch, or dinner) that leaves you feeling deeply nourished rather than simply full.

For years we’ve been taught to chase protein, yet one of the biggest nutritional gaps in modern diets isn’t protein at all—it’s fiber. Most people consume barely half of what their gut microbes actually thrive on.

Legumes happen to solve both problems beautifully.

Lentils provide plant protein, minerals and an incredible amount of fiber, while fermented vegetables introduce living microbes and beneficial fermentation byproducts that complement the meal. Together they create a simple bowl that supports a diverse gut microbiome while also being comforting enough to become part of your regular rotation.

Sometimes the healthiest meals aren’t complicated.

They’re just humble ingredients prepared well.

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Why you’ll love this recipe

• Rich in both plant and animal protein to keep you satisfied for hours.

• Nearly 20 grams of fiber per serving to support a healthy microbiome.

• Ready in about 30 minutes with very little hands-on cooking.

• Budget-friendly pantry ingredients.

• Easily adaptable with whatever fermented vegetables you already have in your fridge.

• Comfort food that actually leaves you feeling energized.

Why legumes deserve more attention

If there’s one food group I wish more people embraced, it’s legumes.

Lentils, beans and peas have consistently been associated with better metabolic health, improved blood sugar regulation and greater longevity in populations that regularly consume them. They’re naturally rich in resistant starch and soluble fiber—two types of carbohydrates that largely escape digestion and instead become food for your gut bacteria.

As your microbes ferment these fibers, they produce compounds called short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate, acetate and propionate. These molecules help nourish the cells lining your colon, support the gut barrier and are linked to reduced inflammation throughout the body.

In other words, you’re not just feeding yourself.

You’re feeding the trillions of microbes that help keep you healthy.

Building a gut health bowl

Each component contributes something different.

French green lentils

• Plant protein

• Soluble and insoluble fiber

• Iron, folate and magnesium

• Slow-digesting carbohydrates

Homemade broth

• Adds minerals and incredible depth of flavor.

• Makes the lentils feel cozy and nourishing rather than heavy.

Jammy eggs

• Complete protein.

• Choline for brain health.

• Healthy fats that increase satiety.

Fermented vegetables

• Living microbes (when unpasteurized).

• Organic acids produced during fermentation.

• Bright acidity that balances the earthy lentils beautifully.

Extra virgin olive oil

• Heart-healthy monounsaturated fats.

• Helps absorb fat-soluble nutrients.

• Adds richness without making the bowl feel heavy.

Fresh herbs and a squeeze of lemon bring everything together while adding another layer of polyphenols that your gut microbes also love.

A note on Puy lentils

This recipe uses French green lentils (also called Puy lentils), and they’re my favorite choice for brothy bowls.

Unlike brown or red lentils, Puy lentils hold their shape beautifully after cooking. They have a slightly peppery, earthy flavor and remain pleasantly firm rather than turning mushy, which gives this dish its wonderful texture. They also naturally release less starch into the broth, keeping it light while still creating a rich, comforting consistency.

If you can’t find Puy lentils, here are a few good substitutes:

• French green lentils (not labeled “Puy”): Nearly identical and my first recommendation. Cook for about 25–30 minutes.

• Black (Beluga) lentils: Slightly smaller with a rich, earthy flavor and excellent texture. Cook for 20–25 minutes.

• Brown lentils: Softer with a milder flavor. They work well but become creamier and less distinct. Cook for 20–30 minutes depending on the variety.

• Green lentils: Larger than French green lentils and slightly softer. Cook for 30–35 minutes.

I don’t recommend using red or yellow lentils for this recipe. They quickly break down during cooking and are better suited for soups, curries or dhals rather than a brothy bowl where you want the lentils to stay intact.

This bowl is delicious on its own, but I highly recommend finishing it with a generous spoonful of fermented vegetables. The bright acidity cuts through the earthy lentils while adding another layer of flavor and gut-friendly goodness. My favorites are my Fermented Radishes for their crisp bite and vibrant pink color, or my Citrus Sauerkraut if you’re after something fresh, bright and aromatic. Both recipes are linked and part of my weekly ferments & foods series.

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I would hit a wall in the afternoon, reach for something sweet, feel better for a little while, and then crash again. Looking back, I can see that a big piece of the puzzle was my iron deficiency. My ferritin levels were low, my energy wasn’t where it should have been, and I found myself relying on sugar to push through the day.

At the time, I thought I simply had a sweet tooth. Now I know it was more complicated than that.

As I started paying attention to my nutrition, working on my iron levels, and building meals around protein, fiber, and healthy fats, something interesting happened: the intense sugar cravings began to fade. I still love something sweet after a meal or with an afternoon cup of tea, but I no longer need it to get through the day.

That’s when I became obsessed with creating whole-food treats.

Not treats designed to mimic candy. Not “healthy” desserts made with a long list of specialty ingredients. Just simple recipes built from nourishing ingredients that leave you feeling satisfied instead of reaching for another snack 30 minutes later.

These Apricot Hemp Bites are a perfect example.

Naturally sweet dried apricots provide fiber, potassium, and iron. Almond flour, flax, and hemp seeds add healthy fats, plant protein, and minerals. A layer of dark chocolate makes them feel indulgent, while a swirl of almond butter takes them firmly into treat territory.

Each bite contains nearly 1 mg of iron, along with fiber, magnesium, and healthy fats, making them a delicious little snack to keep in the fridge or freezer whenever you want something sweet.

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Why You’ll Love Them

• Naturally sweetened with dried apricots

• Rich in fiber and healthy fats

• Nearly 1 mg of iron per bite

• No baking required

• Freezer-friendly

• Ready in under 15 minutes of hands-on time

Storage

Refrigerator: Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Freezer: Store in a freezer-safe container for up to 3 months.

For the best texture, enjoy straight from the fridge or allow frozen bites to sit at room temperature for a few minutes before eating.

Nutritional Info

Per bite: 99 calories • 2.8g protein • 2.1g fiber • 6.1g healthy fats • 0.9mg iron • 28mg magnesium • 180mg potassium

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This week’s menu combines a few of my favorite things: a bright citrus sauerkraut, a naturally fermented apricot soda, rustic einkorn sourdough, and several simple recipes that can be prepared ahead of time and enjoyed throughout the week.

One thing I love about keeping a few ferments in the kitchen is how easily they elevate everyday meals. A spoonful of sauerkraut alongside eggs, a slice of sourdough with an herby dip, or a naturally fermented soda enjoyed on a warm afternoon can transform simple ingredients into something special.

This Week's Menu

🍋 Citrus Sauerkraut

🍳 Shakshuka Egg Muffins

🍑 Wild Fermented Apricot Soda

🍞 Rustic Einkorn Sourdough

🌿 Herby Green Dip

🌺 Hibiscus Chia Iced Tea

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What’s in Season?

Apricots (and stone fruits in general) are one of my favorite signs that summer has arrived. There’s nothing like biting into a juicy, perfectly sweet apricot or peach on a hot day that screams like summer to me.

Their season is relatively short, which makes them feel even more special when they begin appearing at farmers markets. While most of us think of apricots as something to eat fresh, they’re also wonderful for fermentation. Their natural sugars help fuel wild yeasts, creating a lightly sparkling soda with a beautiful floral aroma.

Citrus is still lingering in many Southern California markets as well, making it the perfect time to add lemons and oranges to a simple batch of sauerkraut for a bright and refreshing twist on the classic.

Fresh herbs are thriving too, and this week’s herby green dip is a great way to use whatever parsley, dill, or cilantro you happen to have on hand.

Citrus Sauerkraut

This bright and refreshing sauerkraut combines white cabbage with fresh lemon and orange. The citrus adds subtle sweetness and fragrance while the fermentation develops its characteristic tangy flavor.

Read more

Whether you’re making your first jar of sauerkraut or curious about the role fermented foods play in traditional diets, this collection will help you build a strong foundation and gain confidence in the kitchen.

Module 1: Fermentation Fundamentals

Lesson 1: The Art of Fermentation

A beginner’s introduction to fermentation, how it works, and why cultures around the world have relied on it for thousands of years.

Lesson 2: Lacto-Fermentation Explained

What lacto-fermentation is, how beneficial bacteria transform food, and why this process has been used for centuries.

Lesson 3: Wild Fermentation vs Starter Cultures

Understanding the difference between relying on naturally occurring microbes and using a starter culture such as kombucha SCOBYs, water kefir grains, or yogurt cultures.

Lesson 4: Vinegar Pickling vs Fermenting

Two preservation methods that are often confused—and why they produce very different foods.

Module 2: Fermentation Safety & Troubleshooting

Build confidence and learn how to recognize a healthy ferment.

Lesson 5: Fermentation Safety

How to ferment safely, avoid common mistakes, understand botulism, and recognize the difference between normal fermentation and spoilage.

Lesson 6: Air vs No-Air Ferments

When oxygen helps, when it hurts, and how different fermentation methods manage airflow.

Lesson 7: How to Avoid Mold

The most common causes of mold and the simple habits that help prevent it.

Lesson 8: How to Avoid Explosions

Understanding pressure buildup in fermented drinks and how to safely carbonate beverages at home.

Lesson 9: How to Avoid Soggy Pickles

Simple techniques for keeping fermented vegetables crisp and crunchy.

Lesson 10: Kahm Yeast vs Mold

How to identify yeast vs. mold, why they develop, how to prevent them and what to do with a contaminated jar.

Module 3: Your First Ferments

The easiest place to begin.

Lesson 11: 3 Beginner-Friendly Ferments

A practical introduction to sauerkraut, fermented pickles, and kombucha.

Lesson 12: Essential Equipment

The tools I use at home and what you actually need to get started.

Lesson 13: Understanding Salt Ratios

A practical guide to salting vegetables and creating successful ferments.

Module 4: Fermented Drinks

Explore some of the most popular fermented beverages.

Lesson 14: Water Kefir vs Kombucha

A comparison of two popular fermented drinks, including flavor, brewing process, and microbial differences.

Lesson 15: How to Brew Kombucha at Home

A step-by-step guide to making kombucha from scratch.

Lesson 16: Wild Fermentation Explained

How naturally occurring yeasts transform fruits into sparkling sodas and other fermented beverages.

If you'd like even more fermentation-inspired recipes, check out my Probiotic Pantry ebook:

Probiotic Pantry

Ferments & Foods Series

• Ferments & Foods: November 13 (2025)

• Ferments & Foods: December 17 (2025)

• Ferments & Foods: January 7

• Ferments & Foods: April 26

• Ferments & Foods: May 18

• Ferments & Foods: June 7

• Ferments & Foods: June 14

• Ferments & Foods: June 29

• Ferments & Foods: July 18

• Ferments & Foods: August 2

Ferments

Probiotic Sodas

• Orange Thyme Soda

• Watermelon Lime Soda

• Apple-Cardamom Kombucha

• Pomegranate Soda

• Blackberry-Sage Soda

• Wild-Fermented Apple Cinnamon Soda

• Mango-Ginger-Lime Soda

• Cherry Lime Soda

• Wild-Fermented Apricot Soda

Fermented Vegetables

• Fermented Lemon Dill Radishes

• Immunity Sauerkraut

• Fermented Red Onions

• Citrus Sauerkraut

• Fermented Carrots

• Fermented Garlic Cherry Tomatoes

• Red Sauerkraut

• Fermented Dilly Beans

Breakfast

• Fermented Oat Porridge

• Salted Date Amaranth Porridge

• Brothy French Lentils

• Probiotic Raspberry Chia Pudding

• Hummus

• Strawberry Vanilla Chia Pudding

• Apple Pie Chia Pudding

• Probiotic Bircher Muesli

• Apple Cinnamon Granola

• Sprouted Lentil Granola

• Snickers Granola

• Amaranth Pistachio Granola

• Shakshuka Egg Muffins

Main Meals

• Mediterranean Seafood Pasta

• Chili-Glazed Salmon Bites

Baking & Treats

• Cardamom Pistachio Balls

• Apricot Hemp Bites

• Brownie Cherry Bites

Sourdough

• Rustic Einkorn Sourdough

Dips, Sauces & Spreads

• Raspberry Chia Jam

• Pumpkin Seed Pesto

• Strawberry Basil Chia Jam

• Herby Pumpkin Seed Dip

• Cilantro Cashew Crema

• Probiotic Goat Kefir Dressing

Quick Pickles

• Pickled Red Onion

Salads & Light Meals

• Roasted Zucchini Lentil Salad

• Smashed Chickpea Salad

• Lentil Pomegranate Salad

• Pickled Carrot Salad

• Marinated Bean Pesto Salad

• Watermelon Feta Salsa

Drinks

• Fermented Black Tea (Pu’er) Matcha

• Hibiscus Chia Iced Tea

• Pumpkin Seed Chocolate Milk

• Iced Mango Matcha Latte

• Cashew Oat Milk

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Probiotic Pantry

Not because it’s fancy, but because it manages to check so many boxes at once: it’s comforting, satisfying, packed with flavor, and can be made from ingredients I almost always have on hand.

This Mediterranean Seafood Pasta is one of those recipes that feels far more impressive than the effort it requires. Sweet burst cherry tomatoes are gently cooked down with plenty of garlic, olive oil, lemon, and chili flakes before being tossed with pasta, fresh herbs, peppery arugula, and a combination of sardines and mussels.

The seafood adds not only incredible flavor, but also a boost of protein, omega-3 fats, iron, calcium, and vitamin B12—nutrients many of us could use more of. One of my favorite things about canned seafood is how convenient it is. Keeping a few tins in the pantry makes it easy to create a nourishing meal without needing to plan ahead or make a special trip to the store.

You may notice that this recipe uses sprats rather than sardines. For months now, sardines seem to have been sold out everywhere I shop. My suspicion is that they’ve become the latest social media nutrition darling thanks to their impressive nutrient profile. The good news is that sprats are very similar in flavor and nutrition, making them an excellent substitute. They’re rich in omega-3s, naturally high in calcium when the bones are included, and bring the same savory depth that makes canned fish such a valuable pantry staple.

This pasta perfectly captures the same flavors that I still associate with childhood summers spent in France by the sea: sweet tomatoes, plenty of garlic, fresh herbs, bright lemon, and seafood.

What I love most about this recipe is that it comes together in about 30 minutes from start to finish. While the pasta cooks, the sauce practically makes itself, making it the perfect weeknight meal when you want something nourishing without spending hours in the kitchen. The result is bright, fresh, savory, and deeply satisfying.

Nutritional Notes

While it provides a substantial amount of carbohydrates from the pasta, the addition of sardines and mussels significantly boosts the protein, omega-3s, iron, calcium, and B12 compared to a typical tomato pasta. The large quantity of tomatoes, herbs, lemon, and arugula also contributes antioxidants and phytonutrients.

Per serving (approx.): 675 calories, 25g protein, 83g carbohydrates, 27g fat, and 6g fiber.

Enjoyed this recipe?

Each Sunday, paid subscribers receive a new edition of Ferments & Foods featuring seasonal recipes, probiotic drinks, fermented foods, meal prep ideas, and simple ways to bring more variety to your kitchen.

Last week’s issue included:

✓ Sprouted Lentil Granola
✓ Peach Cobbler Chia Pudding
✓ Probiotic Mango-Ginger-Lime Soda
✓ Fermented Lemon Dill Radishes
✓ Smashed Chickpea Salad

As a member, you’ll also get access to the growing archive of recipes, fermentation guides, and previous Ferments & Foods editions.

If you’re looking to eat more seasonal foods, incorporate more fermented foods into your routine, and build a nourishing kitchen without overcomplicating things, I’d love to have you join us.

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Long before we understood the microbiome, people were soaking grains, sprouting legumes, fermenting vegetables, and culturing foods as a regular part of everyday life. These techniques weren’t created to optimize health—they were practical ways to preserve food, improve flavor, and make ingredients more nourishing and digestible.

This week’s menu is inspired by those traditions.

You’ll find sprouted lentils transformed into a crunchy granola, a naturally fermented probiotic soda, bubbling lemon dill radishes, and a simple chickpea salad that comes together with pantry staples and fresh herbs.

Sometimes supporting your gut isn’t about adding more supplements or following complicated protocols. Sometimes it’s about bringing a few forgotten kitchen practices back into everyday life.

This Week's Menu

• Sprouted Lentil Granola

• Strawberry Vanilla Chia Pudding

• Probiotic Mango-Ginger-Lime Soda

• Fermented Lemon Dill Radishes

• Smashed Chickpea Salad

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What’s in Season?

June is one of my favorite times of year to cook because the farmers market starts overflowing with color.

This week I’ve been bringing home baskets filled with strawberries, radishes, fresh herbs, and the first stone fruits of the season. While it’s tempting to focus on a single “superfood,” I’ve found that variety often matters more than perfection.

Seasonal produce naturally encourages us to rotate ingredients throughout the year, introducing different fibers, polyphenols, and nutrients into our diets along the way.

If you’re heading to the market this week, keep an eye out for:

• Strawberries
• Radishes
• Apricots
• Cherries
• Fresh dill and parsley
• Cucumbers
• Early tomatoes

Read more

For me, nourishing drinks are about more than hydration alone. They’re small anchors throughout the day: moments that encourage me to slow down, check in with myself, and step away from the constant rush of work, notifications, and to-do lists.

A warm cup of tea in the morning signals the start of a new day. A creamy matcha latte creates a moment of focus before diving into work. A refreshing electrolyte drink reminds me to hydrate after a long walk with the dogs, a glass of fizzy probiotic soda almost feels like a little sweet treat, while an evening herbal tea helps me transition into rest mode.

Many of these drinks also support digestion, hydration, and overall well-being, but one of their greatest benefits is something much simpler: they help turn ordinary moments into intentional rituals.

Today, I’m sharing a typical day of gut-supporting drinks—what I drink, why I enjoy them, and the role each one plays in my daily routine.

This post includes a paid collaboration with Pique. As always, I only share products I genuinely use and enjoy.

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Morning Herbal Tea

I start my mornings with a warm herbal tea before anything else.

Whether it’s turmeric, chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, lemon balm, or another caffeine-free blend, this simple ritual helps me ease into the day while encouraging hydration after a night’s sleep.

Why I love it

• Provides gentle hydration first thing in the morning

• Creates a calm start before screens and work

• Many herbs traditionally support digestion and relaxation

• Encourages mindful moments before the day gets busy

The gut and nervous system are deeply connected. Starting the day slowly often feels just as supportive as the ingredients themselves.

Coconut Butter Matcha Latte

After my tea comes my favorite morning drink: a creamy coconut butter matcha latte.

I blend 1 tsp Pique’s Sun Goddess Matcha with 1/4 cup hot water, a drizzle of honey, and mix it together with 1/2 tsp raw coconut butter melted into a hot cup of unsweetened plant milk (usually soy milk) for extra creaminess and a good amount of protein.

Why I love it

• Matcha contains antioxidants called catechins

• Provides a steady, gentle source of caffeine

• Contains L-theanine, an amino acid associated with calm focus

• Coconut butter adds healthy fats that help make the drink satisfying

Unlike coffee, matcha gives me sustained energy without the jitters or afternoon crash I used to experience.

You can get up to → 20% off + free gifts via this link: https://piquelife.com/kirstensgm

Midday Hydration

By midday, especially during the warmer months, after workouts, or long walks/hikes with the dogs, I like to focus on replenishing fluids and minerals.

One option I often reach for is Pique’s Hydration Duo. Along with electrolytes like magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium, it contains coconut water powder and a few additional ingredients that support overall hydration which is one of the most overlooked aspects of digestive health.

Why I love it

• Helps replenish electrolytes lost through sweat and supports optimal hydration

• Contains trace minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium that help maintain fluid balance, muscle function and bone health

• Electrolytes can be especially helpful during hot weather, exercise, travel, or busy days when hydration needs are higher.

I usually reach for the yuzu-berry flavored BT Fountain Electrolyte during the day, but in the evenings I sometimes switch to the RE Fountain Calming Electrolyte, which contains a blend of magnesium forms alongside lemongrass for a more relaxing ritual.

As part of their seasonal spring offering, they’re currently also offering:
→ 20% off via this link: https://piquelife.com/kirstendhp

Probiotic Soda

One of my favorite afternoon rituals is enjoying a homemade probiotic soda made with seasonal fruits.

Naturally fermented drinks are a fun way to introduce live cultures into your routine while enjoying something that feels a little special.

Why I love it

• Contains beneficial live microbes from fermentation

• Adds variety and seasonal produce to the diet

• Can support microbial diversity when consumed regularly

• Offers a naturally fizzy low-sugar alternative to conventional soda

I love experimenting with different flavors depending on what’s in season. Currently, late-spring California cherries are one of my all-time favorites.

The recipes for all of my probiotic sodas live in my Probiotic Pantry Ebook, or if you’re looking specifically for the cherry flavored one you can find it here.

Fresh Ginger Mint Lemon Tea

In the evening, I often finish the day with a simple ginger, mint, and lemon infusion. I love going to my garden to pick up some fresh mint and sometimes add a small touch of raw honey for a just a little sweetness.

The combination is refreshing, soothing, and a wonderful way to wind down after dinner.

Why I love it

• Ginger has a long history of supporting digestive comfort

• Mint can feel soothing after meals

• Lemon adds brightness and flavor

• Encourages hydration later in the day

For me, this tea signals that the day is slowing down and helps create a calming transition into the evening.

No single drink or food will transform your gut health overnight.

What matters most is the bigger picture: staying hydrated, eating a variety of whole foods, managing stress, moving your body, and building consistent habits that feel sustainable.

These drinks are simply small daily rituals that support those foundations. I’m less interested in finding the perfect superfood, but rather in creating simple routines that nourish me day after day and create quiet moments of pleasure.

Sprouting was one of the first methods that truly changed my relationship with legumes. After years of struggling with bloating and digestive issues, legumes had kind of become the enemy in disguise.

My rational brain was deeply craving them for nourishment and protein on a plant-based diet but my body just couldn’t handle them anymore.

Today, sprouted lentils have become a staple in my kitchen. I toss them into salads, add them to grain bowls, blend them into patties, and recently, I discovered they make an incredible granola.

Crunchy, lightly sweetened, packed with texture, and surprisingly satisfying. This sprouted lentil granola has quickly become one of my favorite ways to start the day.

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The Magic of Sprouting

A lentil is a seed designed to remain dormant until conditions are right for growth.

When we soak and sprout lentils, we essentially wake that seed up.

During the sprouting process, enzymes become active and begin breaking down some of the compounds naturally present in legumes. Many people find sprouted legumes easier to digest than their unsprouted counterparts, which is one reason sprouting has been practiced for centuries across many food cultures.

Sprouted lentils are also a wonderful source of:

• Plant protein
• Fiber
• Iron
• Magnesium
• Folate
• Potassium

But what I love most isn’t any individual nutrient. It’s the combination of nourishment and diversity.

One thing I can’t stop thinking about is how much variety has disappeared from many modern diets. We have access to more food than ever before, yet many of us rotate through the same handful of ingredients every week.

Adding sprouted lentils to a breakfast staple like granola is a simple way to introduce another plant food into the mix.

How to Sprout Lentils

If you’ve never sprouted lentils before, don’t worry — it’s much easier than it sounds.

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I would read articles about gut health, listen to podcasts, and save endless tips from nutrition experts. One week I was convinced I needed more probiotics. The next week I was focused on eliminating certain foods. Like many people interested in health, I spent years looking for the thing that would finally make everything click.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that my digestion wasn’t going to improve because of one food or one supplement. It was going to improve because of the habits that shaped what I ate every day.

When I look back at the changes that have made the biggest difference for me, none of them were particularly glamorous. They didn’t require expensive products or complicated meal plans. Instead, they slowly changed the environment of my kitchen and made it easier to nourish my body consistently.

These are the three habits that have had the biggest impact on my digestion.

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1. I Started Eating Fermented Foods Consistently

When I first became interested in fermentation, I approached it the way I approached many other health habits: with a lot of enthusiasm and a little too much intensity.

I would make a batch of sauerkraut, eat it every day for a week, and then forget about it for a month.

Or I’d brew water kefir, get excited about it, and then move on to the next project.

What eventually made a difference wasn’t eating large amounts of fermented foods. It was making them part of my normal routine.

Today, fermentation isn’t something I “do” for a gut health challenge. It’s simply part of how I eat.

A spoonful of sauerkraut next to eggs.
A few fermented onions on a salad.
A glass of homemade probiotic soda in the afternoon.

Some weeks I eat fermented foods every day. Other weeks it’s only a few times. But over the years they’ve become a regular presence in my kitchen rather than an occasional experiment.

I think this distinction matters because so much of the wellness world encourages us to think in extremes. We either do something perfectly or not at all. But our bodies don’t necessarily benefit from that mindset.

The gut ecosystem responds to what we do repeatedly, not what we do occasionally.

If you’re interested in introducing more fermented foods into your routine, my advice is to start small. Choose one thing you genuinely enjoy eating and make it easy to access. Keep a jar of sauerkraut in the fridge. Brew a batch of water kefir. Make fermented onions once and use them throughout the week.

Consistency matters far more than quantity.

(If you’re looking for ideas, many of the fermented vegetables, probiotic sodas, and water kefir recipes I make regularly are collected in my Probiotic Pantry ebook.)

2. I Stopped Thinking About Probiotics in Isolation

For a while, I believed probiotics were the main character of the gut health story.

And to be fair, they’re important. Fermented foods can introduce beneficial microbes and increase the diversity of what we’re consuming.

But over time I realized that probiotics are only one piece of the puzzle. The microbes living in our digestive system also need to be fed. This is where fiber and plant diversity come in.

One of the simplest shifts I’ve made over the last few years is changing the way I build meals. Instead of asking whether something is healthy, I ask whether the meal contains three things:

A source of protein.
A meaningful source of fiber.
And a variety of plants.

That might look like sardines/salmon with rice, cucumber edamame salad, pickled carrots, kimchi, seaweed and avocado.
Or a bowl of chia pudding with nuts, seeds, dried fruits, and berries.
Or shakshuka with vegetables and a side salad.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s creating meals that provide nourishment not only for me but also for the microbes that live inside me.

One of the concepts that completely changed how I think about nutrition is plant diversity.

Research suggests that people who eat 30+ different plant foods per week tend to have a more diverse gut microbiome. Different plants provide different fibers and beneficial compounds, which help nourish different microbes in the gut. Instead of focusing on one “superfood,” I try to focus on variety.

Eating the same five vegetables every week isn’t necessarily bad, but expanding our range can expose our gut ecosystem to a wider variety of nutrients.

This is one reason I love farmers markets and seasonal cooking.

A bunch of radishes one week. Fresh herbs the next. Apricots in early summer. Fennel, cabbage, citrus, or persimmons when they’re in season.

Ironically, this approach has felt much less restrictive and much more sustainable.

3. I Started Preparing Food Before I Was Hungry

If I had to choose the habit that made the biggest practical difference, it would probably be this one.

Because the reality is that even the healthiest intentions tend to fall apart when we’re tired, stressed, busy, or hungry.

Spending an entire Sunday cooking identical containers of food for the week ahead never quite worked for me in the long run. So I like to keep my approach flexible.

During less busy weeks, I might prepare whole meals, but generally what I rely on the most is preparing components.

Most weeks you’ll find some version of the following in my fridge:

A batch of cooked beans, sprouted lentils and grains.
Chia pudding and a large batch of granola.
A dressing or sauce.
A jar of fermented vegetables and probiotic sodas made with seasonal fruit.
A wholesome snack or treat.

Those components make it incredibly easy to put together meals that support digestion, energy, and satiety and at the same time allow for enough flexibility that you don’t feel like you’re eating the same thing over and over again.

I’ve noticed that when nourishing food is easy to reach for, I naturally eat more fiber, more plants, and more fermented foods. When I have to start from scratch every time I’m hungry, it’s much harder to make those choices consistently.

This is one of the reasons why I share my Weekly Ferments & Foods here on Substack. I don’t believe most people need more nutritional information. I think most of us need systems that make nourishing ourselves easier.

Because healthy eating rarely succeeds through willpower alone. It succeeds when the healthy choice becomes the convenient choice.

The Bigger Lesson

When people ask what changed my digestion the most, they’re often expecting a specific food or supplement.

The truth is a little less exciting.

My digestion improved when I stopped searching for a single solution and started paying attention to my daily habits.

I began eating fermented foods regularly.
I built meals around protein, fiber, and plant diversity.
And I started preparing food before I needed it.

None of those habits are revolutionary. But together they’ve created a way of eating that feels enjoyable, sustainable, and supportive of long-term gut health.

If you're currently trying to improve your digestion, I wouldn't focus on changing everything at once. Choose one habit from this article and start there. Then let consistency do the rest.

Lately I’ve also been trying to make breakfast feel less like something I rush through and more like a small ritual. That’s why I like to have at least one whole food breakfast option prepped for the week. At the beginning of the week I always have a million things going on, so having breakfast ready in 5 minutes takes off some of the mental load and helps start the week in a calm way.

I always opt for something that includes protein, fiber, and fermented foods without requiring a lot of effort. Bircher Muesli is one of those nourishing meals that is super nostalgic to my childhood as I grew up eating it every week freshly prepared by my Waldorf Kindergarten teacher.

This week’s lineup also includes a fizzy probiotic soda inspired by California cherry season, a jar of tangy lacto-fermented onions that instantly upgrades sandwiches and bowls, and a raspberry chia compote that goes hand in hand with the muesli and tastes somewhere between a jam and fruit preserve.

This week’s menu:

Probiotic Cherry Lime Soda
Lacto-Fermented Red Onions
Probiotic Bircher Muesli
Raspberry Chia Compote

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I try and design my recipes in a way that nothing or very little gets wasted, so for example when I make fresh cherry juice, I reuse the leftover pulp in my muesli and so on. Of course, you can also always just buy bottled pre-made juice and skip that step, so just take what serves you and leave the rest!

If you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know that I rotate through various bottles of homemade fermented sodas a week, experimenting with seasonal flavors. This week we got a sweet cherry soda, balanced with a spritz of lime for the ultimate refreshing fizzy spring drink.

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