Nutrition Information Resource for Fermented Foods?

[captain.tinker]

This might be a bit of a strange question, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway. I have been trying to eat less carbohydrates lately in a bid to lose some weight, and have been using an online app to keep track of the foods I eat and it helps me know how many calories, how many carbs, protein, fat, etc I'm taking in. It's database is pretty good, but it does not contain much information for much of the fermented foods I make. It is my understanding that when a food is fermented that the bacteria feed on the sugars and the carbohydrates in the vegetables, so I would think that this process would lower carbs in that food? I'm really curious if there is any sort of a resource that could give me an estimate on the nutritional value of certain foods when they have been fermented or if this is variable and depends on a lot of other factors so might not be able to be defined well? For example, if I have a quarter cup of fermented onions, how many grams of carbs would that be? Just curious, thanks!

[Christopher Weeks]

First, I don't know.

But, check this out. See the 'TSC' column on the table of page 138 and read the first paragraph on 139. It looks to me like even a poor ferment removes half the sugar and more thorough processes convert away more than 90%.

But that sugar is mostly converted to lactic acid which has 3.6 Cal/g -- but I don't know how we metabolize it or if we should count it when considering Calorie intake. My guess is that a kg of cabbage has about the same Calories as a kg of kraut (but at least that's not much)!

[captain.tinker]

Oh wow! That's some neat stuff! Thanks! I suppose calorically speaking, before and after will likely be about the same. It does look like sugars and carbohydrates in general do get transformed and do indeed go down. I suppose what I'll end up doing then is record it as though it were raw. This way I at least won't overdo it. The good news is that even raw most of these foods are really quite low in carbs as is, and fermented foods are absolutely recommended for low carb diets. That's good because I really enjoy these treats! My giardiniera I made the other day goes really good in the green salads I bring for lunch! And on top of it, I've lost over 50 lbs just since mid February!