mouse quoted The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
Winner of the 2013 James Beard Foundation Book Award for Reference and Scholarship, and a …
Content warning bad autism and mental illness take
Can Fermented Foods Help Cure Autism? ... According to McBride, restoring the health of the intestinal microbiota is key to recovery from not only autism but also a range of common psychological conditions including depression, attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia, and even dyslexia.
— The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz (Page 31)
That was quite a yikes moment in what I thought was otherwise a pretty measured chapter on the health benefits of fermented food.
To his credit, in Fermentation as Metaphor, Katz writes:
I never really questioned the assumptions behind any of this until recently, when I received a letter from an adult on the autism spectrum who had enjoyed my books but had been taken aback by my discussion of autism in The Art of Fermentation, in which I describe the role of live fermented foods in some people's "recovery" from autism. This person write, "Autism is not a disease to be cured, but instead autistic people are just neurodivergent. Different, but not wrong." ... I wholeheartedly concur.
