Recently I caught up with Charlotte Carr for a chat. Charlotte is a holistic health coach, author, presenter, voice artist and actress. She is the face behind the awesome Bubba Yum Yum blog where she shares nourishing, real food recipes and tips for Mums, babies and toddlers. Her book (The Paleo Way for New Mums, Babies and Toddlers) is my go to for recipe inspiration for Anjali.

Charlotte is the first of many to feature in our Families That Ferment blog series.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, your family and what you do.

Hi there my names Charlotte Carr. I'm a mother, wife and I love to cook and spend time with friends and family. When I'm not doing voice overs, acting or writing, I'm working on creating yummy nutrient dense foods for my family and friends and tribe to enjoy. I'm a lover of life, good food and wine.

How and why did you get into fermenting?

It was brought to my attention through a test called a bio screen that my little boy Willow had a terrible gut. He had no lactobacillus and he had a strep overgrowth and other pathogens that weren't doing his health any favours. I learnt quickly that to increase the good bacteria in his gut we had to include lots of variety of fermented foods. We included fermented cucumbers and carrots first, then kraut, then kombucha in smoothies and then fermented coconut yogurts, kefir and fermented salsa dips and mustards.

What kind of ferments do you feed your family and what’s your favourite?

My favourite cultures are from Kultured Wellness. We've seen best results using these starters and they are fail safe.

I make Willow smoothies with these everyday, his smoothie has both the yogurt and the kefir and I use the same for his icecreams. I use the kefir to ferment lots of fruits now and use the yogurts in curries and cakes.

What other foods are staples in your home?

Always fresh organic produce. Lots of things we can grab in a hurry like olives and fresh fruit. And I always make things in bulk so I'm not cooking all the time.

Do you have any tips for introducing new food/ferments to your family?

Start slowly and play around with different seasonal vegetables. Pineapples are great right now and a wonderful salsa ingredient.

Do you have a recipe you’d like to share?

Lacto Fermented Super Mash

Fermented foods have been through a process of lacto-fermentation in the which natural bacteria feed on the sugar and starch in the food, creating lactic acid. This process preserves the food and creates beneficial enzymes, B-vitatmins, omega-3 fatty acids, and various strains of beneficial probiotics.

As soon as I incorporated fermented foods into our diet I noticed an improvement with Willow's digestion.