Ferment Radio

Last year, an article titled "Lost in the Brine!” was published on the Eater. The author, Miin Chan, aka Dr Chan, says what most people don’t want to admit: while the fermented foods industry evangelizes products rooted in global, often East Asian, traditions, its most visible faces are predominantly white.

As a white host of a fermentation-related podcast myself, whose guests, so far, are predominantly white, I had felt the urge to comment on that issue already for a while. Reading this article assured me about the urgency of this topic, and that Miin is a perfect guest to share her views with us. 

Miin Chan is a medical doctor, researcher, ferment activist, and food literacy advocate. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne researching the effects of fermented foods on chronic disease via the gut microbiota. Miin Chan’s research is scientific and evidence-based, and it aims to demystify some of the most overstated narratives about fermentation. She is also critical, from a scientific and diverse perspective, about how the food industry capitalizes on fermentation. In this episode of Ferment Radio, we will focus on this problem, and how the fermentation industry exists within a system that is inherently racist. 

Vaginal flora consists largely of Lactobacillus. This particular type of bacteria can affect everything, from developing certain diseases to fighting infections, and from getting pregnant to having a miscarriage. If the vaginal microbiome is imbalanced, there’s a risk for developing vaginosis, a type of vaginal inflammation. Some sources say that 75% of people with a vagina will experience vaginosis at least once in their lifetime. Moreover, people from more disadvantaged groups are more likely to experience it. Why is then vaginal health still a taboo topic?
In this episode of Ferment Radio, we ask this and many other questions to Giulia Tomasello, a designer committed to innovating vaginal healthcare with biotechnology and interactive wearables.

Food is something quite peculiar. On the one hand, it is very intimate: we put it in our mouths, it nourishes our bodies, and  we share it with the people we love. On the other hand, big corporations capitalize from it, turning it into a global political product. 
Njathi Kabui (Chef Kabui), a Kenyan-born, US-based organic chef is committed to raising awareness around food, and therefore restoring broken relationships with the land, with one another, and with ourselves. He is also an anthropologist, urban farmer, food activist, and strategist. He calls his approach “Afro Futuristic Conscious Cuisine”, and it’s anchored to the belief that colonialism not only took people’s beliefs, land, and culture, but it also stripped them of their culinary practices. How can we ferment our way out of this?

Missionaries and explorers who arrived in the Americas in the 17th century interpreted what they encountered through their own viewpoint and interests. In this way, local shamanism was mostly understood in reference to spirits and souls; concepts that were present at that time in medieval Europe. But what would happen if we attempted to comprehend shamanism differently?

The work of César Enrique Giraldo Herrera, a biologist, anthropologist and a PhD in Social Anthropology, questions our views on Amerindian shamanism and its colonial interpretation. He proposes that there is a much closer relationship between shamanic practices and microbiology than we could think. César wrote a book about this fascinating topic. It’s called “Microbes and Other Shamanic Beings”, and he’s our guest on the 22nd episode of Ferment Radio.

Did blue-green algae bloom ever make you hesitate to take a dip in the sea during a hot summer day? 

It is common to hear that these algae produce toxins that can be harmful for humans and animals. But, do we know why they actually bloom? What kind of ecological impact do they imply? 

In our conversation with Mari Granström, co-founder of Origin by Ocean, we talk about the mysteries of blue-green algae and the possibilities of turning a global problem into a sustainable solution.

In this episode, we celebrate one year of Ferment Radio by listening to mushrooms. We all know what their fruiting bodies look like and how some of them taste. But we might have no idea how they sound, especially when it comes to the part of the mushroom that is invisible to our eyes. 

How can we listen to things we cannot see? This is one of the questions we ask Tosca Terán in this episode of Ferment Radio. Tosca is an interdisciplinary, ecofeminist, human holobiont whose work is located somewhere between art, ecology, and craft. As part of the duo Nanotopia, she takes biodata from non-human organisms as mushroom’s mycelium and translates it into music. 

We need new words and concepts to explain the complexity of the world. Metaphors have the potential to be a productive tool to motivate social and political change. Could metaphors contribute to creating reality rather than just explain it? What about using the human body and its microbial life as a metaphor for interconnectivity and global relations? 

In this episode of Ferment Radio, we talk about these issues with Stefanie Fishel. She’s a lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, and the author of “The Microbial State: Global Thriving and the Body Politic”, a book about human bodies and their metaphorical relationship to global politics.

Food production is one of the major drivers of global environmental change. Spirulina, a kind of cyanobacteria, has a big chance to benefit the environment by requiring less land and water to produce the same amount of protein and energy as livestock. You might know it as a popular superfood supplement that comes in green, blueish pills, or powder.  But, aside from that, what is actually spirulina?

In this episode, together with Anya Muangkote, a multidisciplinary designer and design researcher from Bangkok, we discuss her work on domestic spirulina cultivation. Anya´s open-source tools and knowledge propose a sustainable way of self-sufficiency that challenges the current modes of production and consumption.

Many fermented foods and beverages seem gross. What exactly is this feeling of disgust? Where does it come from? Is it the fear of something unfamiliar? Something that goes beyond our globally standardized ways of being, behaving, and feeling?

Join us in a conversation with Adrien Rigobello, a Ph.D. researcher working with Fungal Architectures at the Royal Danish Academy and founder of thr34d5, a medialab for social resilience. In this episode, we not only talk about what’s gross, but also about xenodesign, engaging with the other, designing with living systems, and using kombucha and mushrooms as raw materials.

There’s a group of microorganisms that have been on the planet for about 600 million years. They’re unicellular, but have many nuclei; they are brainless, but can find their way through mazes that have inspired urban planners. They’re small, very hard to categorize, and they feed on bacteria. Who are they?

Our guest on Ferment Radio’s 16th episode is Sarah Lloyd, a scientist who studies these fascinating organisms called slime molds. For the last 10 years, Sarah has done breakthrough research on slime molds, which she actually collects within two kilometers from her house, in the eucalypt forest, in northern Tasmania.