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It’s no secret, I found a part of my passion for nutrition in pickling foods. More specifically, I found my passion for nutrition in fermented pickled foods. But for those of you who just want to get their toes wet in pickling and don’t want to commit to wild fermenting carrot sticks, these Quick Pickled Carrots are for you.
Seriously guys, I introduced my roommate to these, and these questioned whether or not she would ever go back to the “unpickled” version.
Pickling is the process of preserving or extending the shelf life of food by either anaerobic fermentation in brine or immersion in vinegar.
– Wikipedia
Basically, pickling refers to a wide variety of techniques, from quick pickling, canning, to fermenting.
Quick pickling, as I use it in my recipes, involves soaking vegetables in a vinegar mixture for a few hours to infuse flavor into the vegetables quickly. Instead of having to have whatever your pickling sit for a few days to a week, you only have to let your food sit in the pickling mixture for a few hours.
Pickled foods are good for you for a variety of reasons. All of which depend on the kind of pickling as well.
If you’re eating pickled food made with raw vinegar or you’re eating fermented pickled food, you get the added benefit of probiotics, as these foods are full of them. Probiotics in fermented foods have been known to improve intestinal health, support the immune system, improve the bioavailability of nutrients, and more. Luckily this recipe uses raw apple cider vinegar (but if you don’t have any, don’t sweat it, regular apple cider vinegar will suffice too).
Regardless of if the pickles are fermented or made with raw vinegar or not, pickled vegetables are vegetables, and thus, are a benefit to anyone’s diet (hello micronutrients and antioxidants).