Fermented Fruit

[PaleoPhil]

I'm creating this thread for collecting info and discussion of all things relating to fermented fruits.

Gold Diggers
A game warden in this video said that black bears are attracted to fermented fruit.

[Adora]

I don't know what you're speaking of. I have eaten fruit that gets bubbly like pineaple. It was good. I like really ripe fruits b/c they are so sweet, but I wasn't doing it for health just the sweetness. Other people told me it was bad for me, with no good reason. At the time it seemed wise to avoid old fruit, but I've changed so much. I even like apples that go to cider mush. My daughter won't even eat mealy, but I love them soft and sweet and zingy. Jack Krause say's diabetes is a positive thing for hibernation and bears go for that maybe there's something to it, because fruit would be fermented by fall when they are getting ready to hibernate. hummmm, tangential
    When I saw the post I thought it was going to be about AV's high fruit being used to treat low amino acid levels. I haven't tried it yet, but my raspberries are still in my fridge, just like he said in the book. I'm not eating this until somebody else tries it and gets really healthy after. Maybe a couple of people!!!

[Adora]

  file://localhost/Users/adorabuecher/Desktop/mail-3.jpeg

[Adora]

sorry, I'm trying to post the picture. I made it small and it still didn't work. I'll put it on facebook if anybody wants to see moldy fruit

[PaleoPhil]

Moldy fruit is not fermented fruit, AFAIK. Fermented fruit involves natural fungi and bacteria rather than molds.
My novice understanding is that since berries don't ripen once picked, they are generally either eaten fresh or dried or frozen. I think fermented fruits are fruits that continue to ripen and eventually ferment after being picked, such as apples, grapes, durian, bananas, marula, etc.

Drunk Bear
http://paleohacks.com/questions/65778/thoughts-about-kevita-coconut-probiotic-drink-to-replace-soda#axzz1ptoORLWy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nata_de_coco

African Animals Getting Drunk From Ripe Marula Fruit
http://headsteadi.com/2009/07/11/making-tempoyak/
making tempoyak
http://www.danielvitalis.com/2010/12/wild-fermented-hard-cider/
Fermenting Hard Cider with Daniel Vitalis, part 1

Fermented grapes served at a restaurant:


Based on the following source, it looks like champagne is raw fermented grape juice, with yeast added for quicker and more extensive fermentation:
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Champagne.html#b
Can anyone here confirm that champagne is raw, or usually raw? Strange how I haven't seen much written about it on the raw forums.

[jessica]

many animals have been caught stumbling around in over ripened fruits and berries, i have a friend who seriously ate so many frothy apricots as we were harvesting them that he went into a delicious coma and had to take a nap in the street!  they bears in my hometown also prefer the dumpsters behind the chocolate and icecream stores because within them there is the most delicious soggy chocolate covered waffle cone detritus.  i think most animals will gorge themselves on the most sweet and fattening food if given the chance, especially before winter, to insure plenty of cushion for the winter months.  just look at zenos experiment lol!  he was starving now he is eating icecream and jelly.......we are all just animals.   

i find that some fruits are really delicious over rippened, especially pears and plums, which have a high amount of natural yeast and ferment and get really alcoholic.  i dont ever gorge on these though as they create a nasty fever in my body which i think is most closely related to something like a systemic yeast infection.  i really like over wintered fruit, like apples that have been naturally freeze dried under trees.  they have a little mold on them but are super tasty, same thing with eating too many though

i know i have been drunk off of mangoes as i was once in charge of composting 10 tons(no joke) and we took the liberty to gather trashcans of the good ones and distribute them throughout a town, as well as eat as many as we could while shoveling them into a pit in the hot arizona sun....super drunk with a monk in a pile of mangoes....covered in sweet delicious juice and bees....the juice eventually started eating my skin...i think its either the latex or enzymes in the fruit.

[PaleoPhil]

And maybe the natural acids, which reportedly increase with ripening:

Even though the acidity of fruit increases as it ripens, the higher acidity level does not make the fruit seem tarter, which can lead to the misunderstanding that the riper the fruit the sweeter. This curious fact is attributed to the Brix-Acid Ratio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripening

I know a couple people who ate a lot of citrus fruit or apples and had the enamel of their teeth eaten away. One guy's teeth were eaten away down to small spikes by eating lots of oranges while working as an orange picker.

[Spirit Bear]

I wasn't able to watch the videos because of my region, but fermenting fruit produces alcohol which is a poison . In my opinion only animal products should be fermented and fruit especially seems problematic. I'd love to hear about any specific uses it has though, I hadn't heard of any.

[PaleoPhil]

I tolerate fermented raw honey much better than unfermented, and the fermented honey improves my skin and hair. With fruits that ripen after picking, I find I digest them better the riper they are, and raw vegans and other raw Paleos also report this. Even most (though not all) wild animals prefer naturally fermented fruits.

Did you know that fermented beverages, specifically ethanol containing beverages were a crucial componant of most indigenous and traditional health strategies?  Or that those who drink a moderate amount of ethanol live longer than those who drink heavily or don’t drink at all?

Of course the beverages fermented by native peoples and by our traditional cultural forebearers were much healthier and nutritionally viable than those of today, created with local ingredients and wild yeasts, and were not filtered and pasturized like the ones that most of us were raised around. Turning simple sugars into ethanol, amino acids, and B complex vitamins, not to mention a culturally and ritually significant inebriant is a nearly ubiquitous human behavior, and part of what holds the fabric of traditional societies together. ....

P.S. (You're) probably wondering what “a moderate amount of alcohol” is. Studies indicate that 1 – 3 drinks ethanol drinks per day seems to extend lifespans! Here is a review from the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology showing the effects of alcohol on life span! (Alcohol and mortality: A review,
http://www.jclinepi.com/article/0895-4356(94)00174-O/abstract)

Wild Fermented Hard Cider
http://www.danielvitalis.com/tag/health/

Alcohol-Related Morbidity and Mortality
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-1/39-51.pdf
"a certain pattern of regular light-to-moderate drinking may have beneficial effects on coronary heart disease"

Alcohol and Health: The J-Shaped Curve
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/562474_2

The health effects of ethanol are dependent on the amount of alcohol consumed and the pattern of drinking. Most studies report J-shaped curves, whereby light to moderate drinkers have less risk than abstainers, and heavy drinkers are at the highest risk. A recent meta-analysis of over 1 million individuals showed that consumption of 1 drink daily by women and 1 or 2 drinks daily by men was associated with a reduction in total mortality of 18%.[2] On the other hand, intakes of >2 drinks daily in women and 3 drinks daily in men were associated with increased mortality in a dose-dependent fashion (Fig. 1).

Even the most negative studies about alcohol find no increased mortality risk for moderate drinkers:

Alcohol consumption and mortality from all causes, coronary heart disease, and stroke: results from a prospective cohort study of Scottish men with 21 years of follow up
http://www.bmj.com/content/318/7200/1725.full
Risk for all cause mortality was similar for non-drinkers and men drinking up to 14 units a week. Mortality risk then showed a graded association with alcohol consumption

And most studies find health benefits in overall populations from moderate alcohol consumption:

One of the most contentious issues in the vast literature about alcohol consumption has been the consistent finding that those who don't drink tend to die sooner than those who do. The standard Alcoholics Anonymous explanation for this finding is that many of those who show up as abstainers in such research are actually former hard-core drunks who had already incurred health problems associated with drinking.
But a new paper  in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research suggests that — for reasons that aren't entirely clear — abstaining from alcohol does tend to increase one's risk of dying, even when you exclude former problem drinkers. The most shocking part? Abstainers' mortality rates are higher than those of heavy drinkers.

Why Do Heavy Drinkers Outlive Nondrinkers?
By John Cloud Monday, Aug. 30, 2010
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00.html#ixzz1rM9r02zt

One possible factor in the health benefits of moderate alcohol consumption is the controversial hormetic effect, which can produce the j-shaped curve characteristic of the effects on lifespan from alcohol consumption:

In toxicology, hormesis is a dose response phenomenon characterized by a low dose stimulation, high dose inhibition, resulting in either a J-shaped or an inverted U-shaped dose response. Such environmental factors that would seem to produce positive responses have also been termed “eustress”.

The hormesis model of dose response is vigorously debated.[1] The notion that hormesis is a widespread or important phenomenon in biological systems is not widely accepted.[2]

The biochemical mechanisms by which hormesis works are not well understood. It is conjectured that low doses of toxins or other stressors might activate the repair mechanisms of the body. The repair process fixes not only the damage caused by the toxin, but also other low-level damage that might have accumulated before without triggering the repair mechanism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis

Blogger Todd Becker has studied and tested the hormetic effect, finding it to provide benefits in many unusual ways:

Since Southam and Erlich’s paper, thousands of other examples of compounds exhibiting hormetic effects have been documented. Some of these are well-recognized components of our diet–including trace metals, alcohol and caffeine–recognized to be essential or healthful at low doses, but detrimental or toxic at high doses. - Todd Becker, Hormesis, http://gettingstronger.org/hormesis/

Few people are aware that Johnny Appleseed planted apple trees from seed to produce hard  (naturally fermented) cider, not sweet apples to eat:

The popular image is of Johnny Appleseed spreading apple seeds randomly, everywhere he went. In fact, he planted nurseries rather than orchards, built fences around them to protect them from livestock, left the nurseries in the care of a neighbor who sold trees on shares, and returned every year or two to tend the nursery. Though apples grown from seed are rarely sweet or tasty, Apple orchards with sour apples were popular among the settlers because apples were mainly used for producing hard cider and apple jack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Appleseed

[PaleoPhil]

Here's some more info on the benefits of fermented fruits:

(M)oderate consumption of fermented fruit, as in wine or hard cider, may actually provide more health benefits than eating fruit in its unadulterated forms, according to research from Harvard Medical School. The Harvard researchers suspect it may have something to do with the fact that, when apples are turned into hard cider or grapes into wine, we get extra benefits from the skins, stems, seeds, and husks, and perhaps even the oak in which the alcohol is aged. Plus, hard ciders have less alcohol than wine and other spirits; the levels range from 2.5 percent alcohol by volume to as much as 8.5 percent (about the same as beer), compared with wine, which averages about 11 percent, and spirits, which start at 15 percent.

HARD APPLE CIDER
The Better Holiday Cocktail
If an apple a day keeps the doctor away, an apple cider cocktail could keep him away for life.
BY AMY AHLBERG
http://www.rodale.com/hard-apple-cider

Drink to this
Evidence grows about benefits of moderate drinking
By Maggie Rosen, Globe Correspondent  |  April 6, 2004
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2004/04/06/drink_to_this/?page=full

A story on the Sunday night TV show, "60 Minutes," was the turning point.

Before that, for at least 2,000 years, people claimed alcohol had medicinal benefits, but no one knew for sure. In the dozen years since the show aired, scientists around the world have been looking at alcohol's upside, and their findings have been consistent: Drinking in moderation appears healthier than not drinking at all.

The show, which said this link might explain why French people have less heart disease than Americans, made it politically acceptable to talk about the pluses of alcohol and encouraged researchers to explore the health consequences of drinking, a number of scientists said.

Dr. Harvey Finkel, then a Boston University School of Medicine professor, said he didn't believe it at first: How could something that so clearly destroyed people's lives and their health possibly be good for them? But after years of examining the data, Finkel said he changed his mind. Now, in his retirement, he lectures about the health benefits of drinking a glass or two of wine or beer with dinner.

The key distinction that Finkel and other doctors and scientists make about drinking is the definition of "moderation." They are strongly against drinking to get drunk, or drinking and driving. They suggest people eat while they drink to mitigate against drunkenness. But they believe that most people who can handle their liquor would do themselves a favor by sipping wine or beer every day.

"Responsible drinking may actually prevent the common diseases of old age," said Dr. R. Curtis Ellison, professor of medicine and public Health at the Boston University School of Medicine. "The mortality rate [among moderate drinkers] is 20 percent lower and the rate of heart disease 40 percent lower than in abstainers with similar behavior and [physical] characteristics."

Over the last dozen years, in dozens of epidemiological studies examining tens of thousands of patient records, researchers have noted a link between moderate drinking and better health. Repeated studies from all over the world have shown that people who consume moderate amounts of alcohol have lower risk of heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diabetes, dementia, and maybe even obesity.

Not everyone is convinced. There has never been and may never be the gold-standard study -- a randomized, double-blind test, giving some people a placebo and others an alcoholic punch. Researchers say it would be nearly impossible to get someone to fund a study that made people drink.

....

Scientists now believe that alcohol encourages production of "good" HDL-cholesterol, helps wash the gunk out of the lining of blood vessels and reins in "free radicals," which can damage cells, causing heart disease, cancer, and other problems. Researchers are beginning to examine the psychological benefits of having a relaxing glass of wine or mug of beer with dinner.

Until recently, most alcohol research focused on the health benefits of red wine. One British physician, Dr. William McCrea of the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, found that a specific Chilean wine -- Montes Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2001 -- helped prevent blood clotting and cholesterol buildup in the blood vessels of cardiac patients.

But the focus has now expanded to include white wine, dark beer, cider and spirits, which all seem to confer roughly the same benefit. It's not yet clear whether the health boost comes from the skins, stems, seeds, husks or even the oak in which alcohol is aged, though researchers are searching for those answers. The fermentation appears to be crucial; grape juice does not extend lifespans as one recent Harvard Medical School study suggests alcohol might.

Dark beer contains antioxidants, as well as high levels of important dietary minerals such as chromium, which may help control blood glucose levels, and silicon, which may help with bone health.

Research also implies that hard cider, "colored" spirits like whisky, and to a lesser extent white wine, have the same polyphenols and flavonoids found in red wine, and so provide the same antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits. Flavonoids are what give many fruits and vegetables their dark color.

Not all alcohol conveys equal benefit: Light beers and "white spirits" like gin and vodka don't appear to contain any health-giving ingredients.

And drinking is obviously not for everyone. Doctors and researchers agree that anyone with a previous history of abuse, a dislike for alcohol, contrary religious beliefs, or who is on medication that is incompatible with alcohol should not drink.

Different people respond to alcohol differently. A recent study out of Tufts University suggests that for people with certain genetic mutations, alcohol consumption may actually boost their bad cholesterol instead of the good, potentially making them sicker instead of healthier.

"There are no external symptoms, and we have no way of knowing who has this without doing genetic testing," said Jose M. Ordovas, a senior scientist at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. "The message is that no single recommendation can fit everyone, and until we have more efficient ways of doing personalized therapy, its dangerous to generalize."

Responsible, moderate drinking means not driving, drinking with meals when the food dilutes the "tipsying" effect of alcohol, and not drinking a weekly quota all at once, Ellison and other scientists said.

"You cannot save your `drink a day' all week and then have seven drinks on Saturday night," Ellison said.
Finkel said it's still harder than it should be to convince Puritanical Americans that drinking might be healthy.
There are people, Finkel said, "who can't accept the idea that even one drop of alcohol could possibly be good for you."

Good for what ails you
(The article goes on to say that drinking alcohol in moderation has been correlated in studies with reduced risk of Heart disease, Lung disease, Type 2 (adult onset) diabetes, Osteoporosis, Dementia, and Obesity.)

(Articles excerpted for fair use purposes of discussion and learning, not copied in full to avoid copyright issues. You can go to the sources to get the full articles.)

[PaleoPhil]

One interesting factoid about fruits is that wild fruits are less prone to mold than domesticated ones, especially the cheapest supermarket (conventional, not organic) varieties. You can test this by obtaining wild and conventional versions of the same fruit and putting them in the fridge and seeing which gets moldy first. It works well with certain domesticated fruits that mold easily, like raspberries or blueberries.

Daniel Vitalis reported that the apples sold in supermarkets and by apple orchards are one of the more hybridized plants, which may help explain why they mold more readily than wild or feral apples:

did you know that all of the apples in our modern diet are genetic clones?  It’s true, the apple tree as we think of it is a grafted plant, and its fruit is exceptionally hybridized. This is so strange because we tend to, as a culture, consider the apple the very symbol of “natural food”. Not so!

http://www.danielvitalis.com/tag/apples/

One possible reason why wild fruits are less prone to mold than domesticated fruits is that wild fruits contain higher levels of the defense chemicals, variously described as polyphenols, phytonutrients, and antioxidants, that the plants use to kill molds in the wild and that have also been found to provide health benefits when consumed in whole form in moderate quantities in studies. So a when fruit molds readily, it may be a sign that the fruit is less beneficial than varieties that are closer to wild forms.

[DopeDivinity]

There are some interesting bits in here. VVV

http://www.finewinemag.com/docs/22%20WaltersAstonishment.pdf

And if you're interested in reading more in-depth...

http://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Herbal-Healing-Beers-Fermentation/dp/0937381667

If you're poor like me you can do what I did and get the book from a torrent website.

This subject really fascinates me, and I love brewing Indigenous-like beers. (to distinguish from conventional pasteurized Malt'n'Hop AlcoholicSodaPop) Unfortunately, my love for alcohol and the MysticalStates it offers brung me to a point where I can't tolerate it. Right now, local Apricot and Plum Trees are fruiting... me'n'bro put some of them in jars and let them ferment in their own juices... delicious, and a bit of a good buzz came from it... but it comes with bad reactions as well. I think my problem could be something like what jessica said, from the yeast. Like I need to balance my flora before my body accepts anymore yeast onslaughts.

Ya know, not too long ago I put some bananas in a jar, with some water, whey, SeaSalt, and a bit of wheatbeer yeast. I let it ferment for a couple of days. It was delicious, fizzyrefreshing, slightly alcoholic. Me'n'bro drunk the liquid and ate the mushyyummyfizzy bananas... I felt a good warm feeling without any negative effects noted.

[jessica]

yeh if you are really sensitive to yeasts be careful.  i was an alcoholic from ages 12-21 and binge drank after that, i think that is what debiltated my liver and pancreas  enough to become toxic from fruits as well as fucking up my internal environment. even after i had stopped drinking i gave myself an awful fever from apricots one summer, i swear i felt my blood was so hot and dirty, it was pretty debilitating and made me really irrational and unable to stop crying, i wanted everything out of my body, including my blood.  i would still crave the fruits after that tho, and if i started eating them it was like i was possessed and couldnt stop then id get rashes on my face(candida?) and feel generally like poo.  i think fruits addiction is much like alcohol addiction to those who cannot digest it properly, gotta break the cycle

[Dorothy]

Here's one little excerpt from Phil's excerpts above Jessica:

Different people respond to alcohol differently. A recent study out of Tufts University suggests that for people with certain genetic mutations, alcohol consumption may actually boost their bad cholesterol instead of the good, potentially making them sicker instead of healthier.

"There are no external symptoms, and we have no way of knowing who has this without doing genetic testing," said Jose M. Ordovas, a senior scientist at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. "The message is that no single recommendation can fit everyone, and until we have more efficient ways of doing personalized therapy, its dangerous to generalize."

Thanks Phil for the videos. I was laughing out loud at seeing animals having a "keg party".

This subject is on my "to do" list. There are some good raw beers that are naturally fermented in the bottle though and some wines so - for now - this has all helped me to feel better about having a little bit of a drink every once in a while. I can't drink a whole glass though and still have it be good for me - affects me too strongly.
I bet it's pretty individual how much anyone can drink and still have it be a good thing and for people that are alcoholics or who have been alcoholics - I bet that abstaining completely would be best.

[PaleoPhil]

Wow, thanks for the excellent link, DopeDivinity. That's just the sort of gold mine of info I've been keeping my eyes out for. Here are some interesting excerpts:

from The Wine of Astonishment Why Drinking Wine Gets You Drunk
by Robert Walters
http://www.finewinemag.com/docs/22%20WaltersAstonishment.pdf

the research we have thus far suggests that our ancestors regularly consumed alcohol as a part of their fruit-rich diet. ... hungry frugivores are unlikely to turn up their noses at fruit on the forest floor when nothing else is on offer. in short, it’s clear that great apes, and we can include early humans here, would regularly consume reasonable quantities of ethanol through their consumption of overripe fruits. ...

Dudley believes that the ability to smell the fumes of ethanol given off by very ripe fruit, and to be attracted to this smell, would have been (and probably still is) an advantage in the wild. It would enable the fruit-eater not only to find edible food, but to find the most nutritious fruits—those highest in calories and easiest to digest. In fact, ethanol is itself very high in calories (almost twice that of carbohydrates), so the attraction to alcohol would have had very real nutritional benefits to our ancestors and may therefore have led to a natural selection favoring those primates who liked a bit of a tipple. Alcohol consumption may also have had advantages as an appetite stimulant, and because being tipsy can lead to more social interaction, closer bonding and greater procreation may have resulted. Then there are the recent studies linking moderate alcohol consumption to reduced mortality and disease in humans. Do primates also live longer and suffer less disease if they consume alcohol? ...

... The pentailed treeshrew (in fact a small primate) was shown “frequently [to] consume alcohol doses […] that would intoxicate humans.” The fact that treeshrews go back in the fossil record some 14 million years, and are considered the least-changed living descendants of our primate ancestors, led Wiens to conclude “that exposure to potentially harmful alcohol levels was probably significant early on in the evolution of several mammalian lineages, including […] primates.” ...

It may well be that those wild ancestors of ours who were most attracted to alcohol (and its effects) did best nutritionally, reduced their stress levels, and were therefore more likely to survive and prosper. They were more likely to procreate, to have healthy babies, and to pass down their alcohol-loving genes to them. ...
 
We shouldn’t forget that the ancients were getting smashed long before wine arrived on the scene. It’s highly likely, based on the archeological evidence we have today, that fermented milk products, cider, mead (fermented honey-based liquor), and other alcohols were invented and widely used before the discovery of grape wine. This makes it even less likely that wine made from grapes was an accidental discovery. Our ancient ancestors had many practical uses for alcoholic beverages, including healing, nutrition,4 ritual, and worship, as a clean safe beverage when water was often not, false courage before battle, a source of inspiration, and even a useful tool in decisionmaking (or did Laurence sterne make this up?). Of course, it was also a commodity and a social lubricant. The significance of alcoholic beverages and their effects in our history can hardly be overstated. For example, it has been argued that humans first began farming not to produce food, which was, relatively speaking, widely available, but to grow crops that produced alcoholic beverages.

Thanks Phil for the videos. I was laughing out loud at seeing animals having a "keg party".

You're welcome, Dorothy. I also love the story about the orangutans fermenting durian fruit into a mildly alcoholic food too. It's fascinating that intentional "wine"-making predates the human race.

I bet it's pretty individual how much anyone can drink and still have it be a good thing and for people that are alcoholics or who have been alcoholics - I bet that abstaining completely would be best.

There's also a vast difference between natural, wild raw fermented foods vs. industrially manufactured alcoholic beverages.

As I've discussed before, the accumulating evidence suggests that alcoholic beverages have effects that lie on a J curve, with moderate drinkers faring better than teetotalers as well as heavy drinkers.

[Dorothy]

There's a movie on netflix called "beer" that credits beer with extraordinary things including the advent of agriculture.

I told Brian all about your movie and he said he can't wait to see the animal frat party. One of the things Brian also said was that he had read that a lot of the research saying that a couple of drinks a day was funded by the alcohol industry so you have to be really careful to make sure that no one doing the research has something to gain by particular results.

As far as alcoholics go - I bet the research didn't include a separate segment on alcoholics reducing the amount they drank and then seeing who lives longest. An alcoholic might have a different biological reaction and for many they can't have even one drink without falling into a spiral of addiction again. But for someone like me that isn't an issue.

The research was not done on raw paleos obviously - so this information on many different species matched with our long  history with alcohol as a species means more to me actually than the modern research.

Oh - and of course - natural vs chemicalized versions - 2 totally separate things to me.

Thanks for this! I had a little "fermented fruit punch" with lunch today as a result and it felt healing as I was stressed.

I also bought a bottle of Kevita today to try. Haven't opened it yet, but the bad news is that it has "coconut flavors" and stevia in it and the different bottles with flavors like pomegranate were less natural. I was thinking though that it might be a good starter for some fresh coconut milk/water. I drained a young coconut last night and had some just before bed - BIG mistake. Almost nothing can keep me from sleeping these days but that kept me up the entire night. I can't wait to try it one day when I don't feel like I have enough energy during the day. It's been a long time since I've had coconut. I was thinking though that fermented coconut milk compared to regular coconut milk might similar to honey compared to fermented honey or grapes compared to wine - might become a very different kind of experience and might help one to relax rather than pace.

Are there traditional fermented alcoholic drinks using coconuts?

[PaleoPhil]

There's a movie on netflix called "beer" that credits beer with extraordinary things including the advent of agriculture.

Yes, I mentioned that above, but I see the advent of monoculture agriculture as more of a negative thing, healthwise, than something meriting credit. I don't drink or advocate beer. I've found artisinal mead and unpasteurized sake to be much less problematic for me than beer. I suspect that I wouldn't handle even unpasteurized ale (real ale, aka cask ale) very well, due to gluten content and my low tolerance for grains in general. I might give it a try some day, though.

One of the things Brian also said was that he had read that a lot of the research saying that a couple of drinks a day was funded by the alcohol industry so you have to be really careful to make sure that no one doing the research has something to gain by particular results.

Yup, the study reported in Time Magazine that I linked to above (Late-Life Alcohol Consumption and 20-Year Mortality  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00.html#ixzz203Ku7eMb) was "funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Department of Veterans Affairs." (http://www.disabled-world.com/fitness/moderate-drinking.php#ixzz203aakahm). I doubt that they were happy with the results, which makes them all the more credible. The study "controlled for confounding factors such as previous problem drinking" (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100824161432.htm). However, the studies on alcohol consumption have all been observational studies, from which we can't draw conclusions. The best they can do is suggest inferences to investigate with further study.

I'd actually put more stock in the fact that the anti-alcohol people haven't been able to produce solid studies showing shortened lifespan and increased mortality from moderate intakes of alcoholic beverages and perhaps even more significantly, the evidence suggests that humans have been consuming (raw) fermented and even mildly alcoholic fruits and honey throughout our entire history and beyond (as a recent linked article showed, even orangutans intentionally ferment durian fruits, producing alcohol), and that hormesis in general has lots of supporting research (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/omnivorous-raw-paleo/fermented-fruit/msg88859/#msg88859).

The most counter-intuitive thing reported so far is that even heavy drinkers tend to outlive teetotalers (but not moderate drinkers), according to the studies:

Even though heavy drinking is associated with higher risk for cirrhosis and several types of cancer (particularly cancers in the mouth and esophagus), heavy drinkers are less likely to die than people who don't drink, even if they never had a problem with alcohol.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2017200,00.html#ixzz203Ku7eMb

Of course, the key correlating factor for optimal lifespan was moderating intake, which some people find unmanageable with alcoholic beverages. And as with everything, buyer beware and YMMV, so I'm not advocating anything for other people, just pondering this stuff and checking for what other folks have found. The orangutan article was particularly interesting.

The research was not done on raw paleos obviously - so this information on many different species matched with our long history with alcohol as a species means more to me actually than the modern research.

Yes, same here.

Oh - and of course - natural vs chemicalized versions - 2 totally separate things to me.

Quite right. All alcoholic beverages are not the same.

the bad news is that it has "coconut flavors" and stevia in it

Yeah, it's not perfect. They do claim that it's "raw," though.

the different bottles with flavors like pomegranate were less natural.

Yes, I don't drink those.

I was thinking though that it might be a good starter for some fresh coconut milk/water.

I  might try that, though according to a source that Chris Kresser linked to, coconut water doesn't ferment as readily, nor the culture live as long, as in other media, like sugar-water or maple-syrup-water. Apparently, people who ferment coconut water tend to add kefir culture from sugar-water to it.

I was thinking though that fermented coconut milk compared to regular coconut milk might similar to honey compared to fermented honey or grapes compared to wine - might become a very different kind of experience and might help one to relax rather than pace.

This is how the coconut beverages I tried rank in digestibility and after-effects for me, with best at the top:

Kevita raw fermented coconut water
100% raw coconut water
Flash-pasteurized coconut water
Flash-pasteurized coconut milk

I haven't noticed any direct benefits from any of these, yet, but the Kevita is enjoyable enough that it encourages me to consume more liquids and to avoid other probably less-healthy beverage temptations, which was a goal of mine--thus, an indirect benefit. I was hoping the probiotic aspect might provide some additional benefits, but I can't say I've noticed any benefits from any probiotic food, aside from improved digestibility, other than raw fermented honey and eating mostly raw in general.

Are there traditional fermented alcoholic drinks using coconuts?

There's tuak in the Philippines, which is made from coconut tree sap and is further distilled into arrack: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrack#Coconut_arrack

The sugar content of coconut water is reportedly too low to be very useful for making alcoholic beverages, but there's enough to make it into vinegar (which I have).

[Dorothy]

Your knowledge never ceases to amaze me Phil.   

I've been debating the risks vs rewards and possible health benefit of perhaps adding small amounts of alcohol to my diet for a long time. This discussion has been extremely helpful.

Raw ales do me well I've found but I don't seem to have a problem with gluten or grains.

I will experiment more and add what I discover over time to your most interesting thread here.

[DopeDivinity]

Pardon if this has been posted here. Cool article.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34435526/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/cheers-eight-ancient-drinks-uncorked-science/#.T_osFfWWw_e

Really fascinates me, and entices my tastebuds. I look forward to drinking again. Yes, I believe that one day I'll be healed enough to do so! (responsibly even)

[PaleoPhil]

Thanks Dorothy and DopeDivinity.

[PaleoPhil]

I found more info relating to the video showing animals allegedly getting drunk off of fermented marula fruit.

Scientist Debunks The Myth Of Elephants Drunk On Marulas
http://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-3-8-elephant-myth-22760.html

The website of the park where the animals were filmed says that the elephants do like alcohol, but it's highly unlikely they ever get drunk from it. The reports of strange behavior by them might be due to other reasons, such as if they eat poisonous beetle pupae in the trunk of a marula tree. There was no comment about the other park animals that were portrayed in the video clip, which came from a 1974 film, Animals Are Beautiful People (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animals_Are_Beautiful_People). Skeptics believe that at least the elephant scenes were staged.

In one way this actually argues even more in favor of animals liking and consuming alcohol-containing fruits in the wild, as at least the largest ones don't appear to suffer negative effects, though it removes the perceived motivation of intoxication for them. This is further supported by this article in which even a small animal is not intoxicated by consuming massive amounts of alcohol relative to its body weight:

Tree Shrew Sober Despite Drinking All Day
Clara Moskowitz
Date: 28 July 2008
http://www.livescience.com/7540-tree-shrew-sober-drinking-day.html

Interestingly, animals that shared common ancestry and characteristics with tree shrews were the ancestors of all primates, including the naked apes we call humans (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070201-primates.html). 

In addition to fruit and honey, tree saps are also used by traditional cultures to make alcoholic beverages like palm wine:

Korowai & Kombai – Papua Tree people
http://mannaismayaadventure.wordpress.com/category/indonesian-tribes/
"Such exchanges not only built political and cultural ties between families but defined each person’s place in a social hierarchy: who poured palm wine...."

Beyond the Green Myth: Borneo's Hunter-Gatherers in the Twenty-First Century
By Peter Sercombe, Bernard Sellato
"[T]wo Penan maintain that their parents and grandparents made wine from wild fruit as hunter-gatherers when they lived in ulu Belait" [before Christian missionaries came and convinced them to give up alcoholic beverages.]

The Penan Tribe In The Borneo Forests
http://www.mutantspace.com/the-penan-borneo-forests-tai-chi-and-cobras/
May 12, 2011 – "A few years previous, there would have been ample rice wine and whiskey. The Penans had loved to drink, before the instilling of religion."

I experimented with a few bottle conditioned (and presumably unpasteurized) hard ciders recently. None of them came close to my best mead, so I'm still sticking with the mead at this point, even though heat is probably used in its processing. It seems like this is yet another instance where it's not all about the rawness. As always, YMMV--no dogma here. On the other hand, my guess is that the mead is produced with less heat than avg, which reminds me that I should ask the producers about that.

These are two of the ciders I tried (I forget what the third one was, and it was forgettable; both of these had the wire/cork top that Tyler talks about on real ales):

Roxbury Russet Cider (West County Cider) - pretty good; maybe 2nd to Artesana mead among alcoholic beverages I've tried regarding effects and maybe third to fifth regarding taste; slight euphoria, tiny amount of sore throat, a bit too dry for me

Farnum Hill Farmhouse Cider: don't care for the taste; no euphoria or any good feeling at all, sore throat--probably very acidic and likely made from very tart, acidic apples

A couple of tendencies I've been noticing among the "brews" I fare best on and enjoy most--they tend to be less dry, though not sickeningly sweet, and not overly acidic.