The Alsatian sauerkraut could well be appearing on the plates of American consumers. The US Health Minister, Robert Francis Kennedy Junior, said he regularly eats sauerkraut. Since then, enthusiasm across the Atlantic has grown and sauerkraut producers are enjoying the trend.
It was on Katie Miller’s podcast, an American podcaster and former advisor to Donald Trump during his first term in the White House, that Cheryl Hines, the wife of the current US Health Minister, Robert Francis Kennedy junior, revealed her husband’s eating habits. “He has developed the habit of eating meat and fermented vegetables. Starting at 6:30 in the morning, he cooks his steak and eats sauerkraut. He is so involved in this diet that he even brings his own sauerkraut to restaurants. Once, we were in the car, dressed nicely, I had my little handbag and he handed me a packet of sauerkraut, asking if I could put it in my bag, and I said I couldn’t.”
Nothing is healthier than sauerkraut
A comical situation that amuses the podcaster and prompts reactions in our region, the land of sauerkraut, in Krautergersheim (Bas-Rhin). “It is true that it is good for the digestive system. Maybe not at 6:30 in the morning. Many people eat it on an empty stomach like that for the digestive system, but not us,” Megane, a resident of the commune, says with a laugh.
“My grandfather ate it every day, he lived to be 93,” assures Marie-Jeanne, a native of Krautergersheim. “It preserves! We have nonagenarians, we have a centenarian, it’s good for the body, it purifies,” she continues. And Xavier Ades wouldn’t disagree. “Some people tell me they didn’t know it was so healthy, but it is! We have been saying it for years but no one believes us,” laughs one of the owners of the family sauerkraut business Ades. According to him, people have misconceptions about sauerkraut. “Because they always say ‘it’s with bacon, with pork, it’s fatty’, but not at all sauerkraut is just cabbage, salt, and we let it ferment. There is nothing more natural and healthy,” he explains.
Hopes for Alsatian sauerkraut producers
This success across the Atlantic is not unwelcome to Xavier Ades. “It’s publicity, it generates interest in the product, it’s always good to take, it’s a pleasure,” he says. He hopes there will be repercussions, just like Sébastien Muller, the president of the association for the promotion of Alsatian sauerkraut, who is also the director of the sauerkraut house Le Pic.
“We are currently on a development mission in Canada, in the northern United States, and today we are seeing that there is indeed a demand for our product,” assures Sébastien Muller. “Already, the American market is quite huge, over 100,000 tons, which is almost three times the national volume produced in France,” rejoices the Alsatian producer who says he has already collaborated with a first American store in New York.
