MOST come back from holidays with photos, souvenirs and maybe some sand in their suitcase.
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But Lydia Irving, who lives in Black Head, returned from her trip to Central America with a re-invigorated passion for an item of food she’d long left behind.
The 23-year-old nutritionist found a new appreciation for bread and fermentation, after she spent three months working for a fermented food company called Love Probiotics in San Marcos La Laguna in Guatemala.
Fueling this trip was not only Lydia’s passion for food, but a yearning to learn more about how food is made.
After completing three years of theory on food as part of her bachelors degree in health science with a major in nutritional medicine – Lydia craved hands-on knowledge.
“I’m really passionate about the gut and the digestive system,” she said.
“The food industry contains a lot of smoke and mirrors and I wanted a real experience with food and how it is made.”
As part of her trip, she lived on the Isla de Ometepe, where she presented a talk on gut health and also stayed with family on a permaculture farm in Nicaragua, where she slept in a hammock. Her Guatemala fermentation food experience was organised just weeks before.
On Christmas day in 2016, Lydia contacted the owners of Love Probiotics and two weeks later she was working for the company for $2 an hour, with her meals provided.
Lydia made sourdough bread, honey wine, fermented drinks kombucha and jun, ginger beer, sauerkraut, bliss balls and more.
From cutting the cabbage for sauerkraut to kneading the bread – Lydia took part in every process right down to delivering the foods to local corner stores, called ‘tiendas’.
"It was very physical and hands on work. It was mass production on a primitive level,” she said.
“I developed a strong upper body!”
Lydia said by working intensely and repetitively her skills quickly improved and she found herself cultivating an interest in the process as well as health benefits of fermented foods.
“I wanted to savour every moment, it was a different reality there,” she said.
Growing up particular food groups became difficult for Lydia to digest due to health reasons and an intolerance to lactose and gluten.
She has since learnt certain food groups don’t need to be eliminated, rather they need preparation to be digested.
“I never had a good relationship with bread. When I was younger I assumed it made you put on weight. But that’s not the case at all. It needs to be eaten correctly, and prepared for digestion,” Lydia said.
“I fell in love with how it feels to make bread and how the process simple is. All you need is flour, water and wild yeast, from a starter you make yourself.”
Lydia wants to share her knowledge with the community and will run talks in the Manning and Great Lakes.
Like Internal Instinct on Facebook, Instagram or read Lydia’s blogs on her website.