A History of Ideas about Fermentation and Digestion

Authors

Ken Albala, University of the PacificFollow

Document Type

Lecture

Department

History

Conference Title

Boston Fermentation Festival

Organization

Boston Ferments

Location

Egleston Farmers Market, Boston, MA

Conference Dates

September 27, 2014

Date of Presentation

9-27-2014

Abstract

While recent scientific study has begun to unravel the role of fermented foods in digestion and basic metabolic function, medical thought about the role of fermentation in physiology goes back about 450 years. Long before Pasteur and the identification of bacteria, and the more recent decoding of the DNA in the human gut biome, physicians long ago speculated on the processing and refinement of food as a kind of ferment and tentatively promoted what we would today call probiotics. This talk explores the ways we can appreciate not only bygone methods of food preservation but how people in the past believed fermented foods could preserve the human body in health.

Comments

Festival website

Recommended Citation

Albala, K. (2014). A History of Ideas about Fermentation and Digestion. Paper presented at Boston Fermentation Festival in Egleston Farmers Market, Boston, MA.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cop-facpres/42