Can You Eat Fermented Fruit? [SAFETY & TASTE]

I’ve been learning about preserving food in various forms, and wondered about whether it would safe to ferment fruit and then eat it.

I decided to do some research into this subject of fermented fruit and here we have it.

You might be wondering how much alcohol fermented fruit contains, how it’s made, and how much of it you can eat.

Read on where I explain all of this and more.

How Often Should You Eat Fermented Fruit?

A recent study in 2017, showed that fermented fruit contains many beneficial probiotics and prebiotics that are good for digestive health.

Nutritionists recommend eating a balanced diet, with a wide array of food.

And you should eat a small amount of fermented fruit everyday, if you decide to consume it.

Depending on how long the fruit has been fermenting, and the type of fruit it is means that a particular batch of fermented fruit can contain more or less alcohol.

Anywhere from 1% to 2% and up. A general rule of thumb is that if the fermented fruit is fizzy, then it contains alcohol.

Here’s an in depth video from the Traditional Cooking School, which explains how the alcohol content works in fermented fruit:

Many cultures eat fermented vegetables regularly.

For example sauerkraut in European countries, and kimchi in South Korea.

In South Korea they eat small amounts of different fermented vegetables with almost every meal.

You might have seen the platters that they serve with your meal at Korean restaurants.

However, because fermented fruit is mostly sweet, you’d want to only consume it for breakfast, as a snack, or for dessert.

Rather than for lunch, and dinner.

Also, eating normal fruit is faster to prepare, because you don’t have to go through the extra effort of fermenting it.

So, naturally you would eat it less often.

Fermenting fruit is a good way to preserve fruit, where it won’t go rotten. It’s also healthy to eat some fermented food in your diet.

Fruit goes rotten within a few weeks, and most fruit trees will only bear fruit for a few weeks or months out of the year.

During the fruiting season, trees can produce more fruit than you can eat.

Therefore preserving them in vacuum sealed jars using a fermentation process means you can make your harvest last, even after your fruit trees have stopped producing.

Where normally the fruit would have gone rotten on the ground, or in your cupboards and fridge before you could eat them.

Today though, going to the local market or supermarket is incredibly easy and convenient, and many fruits are imported from other countries when they aren’t in season.

So, you can get any fruit year round.

As explained by SpoonUniversity.com, although a fermentation process is used to make apple cider, the process is slightly different.

Fermented fruit is usually made in such a way that it doesn’t turn into alcohol.

Whereas, when making apple cider and other fruit based alcoholic drinks, the goal is to turn the sugar in the fruit juice into alcohol.

To do this special yeasts, and other additives are put into the apple juice to turn it into hard apple cider.

There have been many anecdotal stories of animals that have eaten fermented fruit on the ground and gotten drunk.

However, the University of Washington suggests that it isn’t because the fruit has fermented and turned into alcohol.

It’s due to some chemical in the fruit.

But, generally this won’t happen naturally, and a separate process is needed to convert part of the fruit or fruit juice into alcohol.

There are a range of different additives that you can use to ferment fruit.

You can use a exotic cultures such as coconut kefir which is a culture made from coconut.

Other common ways include using water and sugar, mixed with a different culture such as yeast.

You can also use non-iodized salt instead of sugar. Each will have a slightly different taste.

Fermented fruit made from salt has a slightly salty taste to it, whereas, fermented fruit made from sugar will taste sweet. 

So, depending on how it’s made it will have a different taste. But, the fruit will always retain it’s flavor.

For example, if you eat fermented banana it will always taste like banana but with a slightly sweet, or salty taste depending on what you used to ferment it.

You can eat too much fermented food.

Fermented fruit can contain alcohol.

People who consume alcohol regularly – for example a glass of wine or a few beers in the evening, have a higher alcohol tolerance.

So, they won’t notice the alcohol effects of eating fermented fruit with desert, or with yoghurt in the morning.

However, people who don’t regularly consume alcohol will notice the effects especially when the fermented fruit has developed a high alcohol content.

So, the same rules that apply to drinking too much alcohol apply to eating fermented fruit.

But, fermented fruit has a lot of beneficial bacteria much like yoghurt, and kefir.

So, it’s good to eat some. 

Eating too much of one food for a long period of time will also have negative effects on your health, because you won’t be getting all the nutrients you need.

I recently wrote an article where I looked into studies that showed how eating one type of food can be bad for your health.

I looked specifically at bananas, you can read that article by clicking Can You Live on Just Bananas?

You can eat fermented fruit. It contains many beneficial bacteria that grow during the fermentation process.

Fermenting fruit is a good way to preserve fruit so that it lasts longer than the fruit that you keep in the fridge or cupboard.

However, unlike fermented vegetables, fermented fruit usually contains at least some alcohol, which makes it unsuitable for certain people.

Fermented fruit will keep the same taste as the fruit that it’s made from, but will have a different taste depending on what additives are used in the fermenting process.