Environmental enteropathy: Acidification as a potential remedy from veterinary science?

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Environmental enteropathy: Acidification as a potential remedy from veterinary science?

I guess the link between what is known as environmental enteropathy (and its stunting effects) in humans and the effects of antibiotics in the feed of industrially produced chicken, pigs etc. (known as "growth enhancers") is pretty obvious.

In fact it is probably the exact same thing, so looking at potential alternatives that have been developed by veterinary science (since large scale feeding of antibiotics is discouraged in many countries due to its impact on antibiotic resistance development and proliferation) is an interesting approach. See some examples here:
www.pigprogress.net/Growing-Finishing/Nu...rs-in-pigs-1410277W/
or this one: fri.wisc.edu/docs/pdf/antibiot.pdf

One of the options already tested on a large scale is acidification of feedstock, which seems to have a variety of positive effects especially on young pigs (the most similar to humans actually ;) ).

That got me thinking about traditional means of acidification in human diet, and as a German Sauerkraut seemed pretty obvious (although where I come from it is actually not consumed a lot). Interestingly it seems to have been used as a "health food" all the way back to the ancient Romans, who fed it to their soldiers to prevent diarrhea!

How does this now fit to sustainable sanitation and WASH? Well, one of the vital ingredients of the Terra Preta/lacto-bacteriological fermentation method is actually Sauerkraut juice (or a similar lactic acid fermentation product).
So far I always considered that an disadvantage, as making Sauerkraut (or similar fermented cabbage foods also common in East Asia) is not common in most countries which we usually target. However cabbage usually is widely available and the process is very simple too (you just cut and crush the cabbage, add some salt and let it sit in a container for a few days).
So maybe a combined effort to promote Sauerkraut for its health effects and also use its waste product (the juice) in EcoSan as by the Terra Preta method seems like a good idea.

What do you think?
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