Herbs fermentation

Usage Plucked leaves are allowed to wilt slightly, are crushed in water (or liquefied in blender), permitted to ferment for 1 day in the sun, and drunk. If fresh material is not available dried herb may be steeped in hot water and allowed to sit in sun for 1 day before drinking. Ten grams dried herb or equivalent of fresh leaves suggested as starting dose. 

Base notes contribute to the intrinsic taste of culinary products. This can be achieved by using basic savoury ingredients such as meat extract, bone-stock, yeast extract, fermented soy sauce, wheat gluten sauce, vegetable powders, herbs and spices. They provide a complex mixture of taste-active and taste-modifying compounds, some of them still unknown, in a typical and balanced composition. The basic taste can be... 

The term artificial flavor or artificial flavoring means any substance, the function of which is to impart flavor, which is not derived from a spice, fruit or fmit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof. Artificial flavor includes the substances listed in 172.515(b) and 182.60 of this chapter except where these are derived from natural sources [37],... 

From medieval times, herbs have been used to flavour and preserve fermented malt liquors but only the hop Humulus lupulus L.) is used on a commercial scale today. It is grown throughout the temperate regions of the world solely to meet the demands of the brewing industry (Table 12.1). Hops of commerce are the dried cones of the female plant but much of the crop is processed into powder, pellets or extract. In Western Europe the yield of hops is now expressed in zentners (1 zentner = 50 kg = 110 lb). Earlier, centals (100 lb) and hundredweight (112 lb) were used in Britain. 

The levels and bioavailability of phytochemicals in plant foods such as legumes, cereals, vegetables, herbs and fraits can be greatly affected by processing such as fermentation. This subsequently leads to increased antioxidant properties, which may be benehcial for treatment and/or prevention of diseases such as atherosclerosis and cancer. Thus fermentation, especially with probiotics (functional microbes), can serve as an important process not only for preservation but also for production of functional foods with enhanced bioactive and antioxidant properties. 

In the case of pasteurized products, fermentation may be interrupted as soon as the pH value reaches <4.1. For that reason the goods are blanched, canned, topped with fermentation liquid or salt and sometimes herbs, spices and/or vine containing brine, and pasteurized. In order to achieve less heat treated and therefore better-quality products, as well as to save energy, the traditional pasteurization methods of trial and error should be replaced by evaluated and defined pasteurization processes using P-value calculation. However, the application is stiU difficult, due to the lack of information especially about the heat inactivation kinetics of quality-relevant enzymes like pecti-nolytic enzymes or lipoxygenases (Buckenhueskes, Gierschner Hammes, 1988). 

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