Zukay Live Foods

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Eat Fresh. Live Healthy.

Probiotic, 100% natural and ridiculously fresh salsas, relishes, and ketchup.

You shouldn’t have to choose between great taste and good health.

That’s why you’ll enjoy every delicious bite of ZUKAY, the first line of probiotic condiments. Our ancient preservation technique provides three live active cultures* in every serving. More than just healthy — ZUKAY Live Foods can make you healthier every time you eat them.

Only fresh, all-natural ingredients go into our recipes. It’s the same food we serve our family, but with more flavor than the big food companies can manufacture. We’re glad to have you along as we strive to make this a healthier world in which to live and eat.

Products

Mild Salsa Viva

Hot Salsa Viva

Garlic Dill Relish

Horseradish Dill Relish

Ketchup

About

About Us

About The Founders

About Our Ingredients

About Our Location

Stores That Stock Zukay

Whole Foods

Independent Grocers

Learn

About Fermentation

Probiotics 101

Contact

Please, please let us know what you think of our products! Our goal is to give you the best tasting, healthiest products you can use in your everyday life, as well as introduce you to the wonderful world of probiotics and raw, fermented foods. Let us know what you think, what else you’d like to see us ferment, and how you ZUKAY!

We’re working right now to set up a system where you can order the product anywhere in the US. If you’re interested in ordering our products and you’re not near one of the stores that carries us (or, right now, outside of the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic and Ohio), please send us your information and we’ll notify you immediately when product is available.

If you’re a retailer who’s interested in carrying us, please also let us know, and we’ll figure out a way to work our distribution system. We’re all about getting healthy stuff to as many people as possible, so let us know how we can help you out!

Thanks –
The team at ZUKAY

Email us at: customerservice@zukaylive.com

Write to us at:

Zukay Live Foods LLC

PO Box 514

Elverson, PA 19520

Phone us at:

610-286-3077

We'll get back to you as soon as possible!

Your First Zukay Experience

Yeah, we’re a little different from your run-of-the-mill salsas, relishes and ketchups. We’re the only live, fermented product out there, and that does change things a bit. So for a bit of FYI, here’s a few things you may notice about our products that differ from what you’re used to:

It’s bubbly, and it raised out of the jar when I opened it.

Yeah, that was a different experience. That hasn’t happened before with your salsa. But your previous salsas weren’t chock-full of probiotic cultures. These little guys do sometimes create gas in the early part of the fermentation process. We do try to get most of that out in the production process, but it still happens. It’s not bad at all – it just means your product is still young and fresh. After a few weeks, the gassing goes away and the product reaches stabilization. Enjoy it. Celebrate the life in your salsa, and know that those cultures are going to work for you.

The shelf life isn’t as long as I’m used to.

True. But isn’t there something wrong with salsa, ketchup and relish that can remain on your shelf for a generation? Our short shelf lives are purely from a probiotic standpoint. Within the shelf date, we promise a dose of probiotics that should be effective. Unfortunately, the little guys don’t live forever, and their numbers decrease after some time. The product, though, is fresh and safe well beyond the coded shelf life. It just may not have the complete health benefits. It will still taste great on burgers, though.

Is this more dangerous than cooked food?

Nope. All these products are acidic below a point that pathogens can exist, and the cultures make it completely inhospitable to any other organisms. Plus, the product is made in USDA-approved facility and tested regularly for pathogens.

Why does my kitchen smell like fresh cucumbers or tomatoes?

You’re probably not used to that from your regular salsas. That’s probably because they’re cooked and not fresh. Enjoy, and, if it’s the winter, imagine it’s the summer. If it’s the summer, go out and grill.

Where did your produce come from?

We source as close as we can to our production site. It’s pretty easy during the season, and after the season is over, we have ways of keeping the ingredients fresh during the winter months. We do have to supplement some with ingredients from further locations, but we use those as little as possible. We’re completely committed to lowering our carbon footprint, which is what you’d expect from a family that raises all their own veggies and only buys local meat and milk. Over time, once we get a better grip on our volume (after all, we’re just a start up right now), we’ll be working with specific farmers and contracting with them so that we have better control over our ingredients.

Are these truly raw foods?

Pretty much. The relishes are almost completely raw. The salsas are also mostly raw, though they do have tomato paste for taste and texture. The ketchup, though, isn’t. We tried, but a raw ketchup is pretty nasty. Believe me, it’s wouldn’t pour out nicely onto your burger, and it wouldn’t taste much like ketchup either. We do, though, use raw apple cider vinegar for flavor, and none of the products are cooked once they are fermented.

Are these foods vegetarian or vegan?

Sorry, but they’re not vegan. Our culture is dairy-based, and there was pretty much no way we could get around it. The amount of milk proteins in the product is absolutely minimal, but it’s there, just so you know. The ketchup does have fish sauce in it, which gives the product an unbelievable tomato flavor that will make your burgers, hot dogs or fries absolutely shine, but it’s probably not for most vegetarians. The rest of the products are animal-product free.

Does this give me as much of a probiotic boost as a pill?

Well, we’re not sure, since there are so many different probiotic pills available, each with different amounts of the probiotic cultures and each with different probiotic strains. My best guess would be no, since the probiotic numbers in the pills are generally higher than most foods you would consume – much like vitamins, which can generally pack more of any single vitamin into a pill than any general serving of food can give you. Here’s the difference: Like with vitamins, the whole food you are eating has many different enzymes and proteins that aid in digestion of the nutrient you are trying to consume. In the case of fermented foods, the actual fermentation process creates many vitamin B-complexes that were not previously in the foods, and there are other very important enzymes and anti-oxidants (some with anti-cancer qualities) that are made purely through the fermentation process. This is why red wine has different health qualities than grapes – the famous anti-oxidant, resveratrol, is a by-product of the fermentation process wine goes through. No pill can supply all these nutrients. Therefore, we always suggest to eat the whole food, and that the pill is a positive supplement, but not the only way to go. Plus, pills don’t taste as good on burgers and chips.
If you want to learn more, there’s a wonderful book by New Chapter that explains it beautifully called The Life Bridge, by Richard Sarnat MD, Paul Schulick, and Thomas Newmark. It’s available on Amazon.

So, what’s your recommendation on what to eat or otherwise ingest?

Well, there’s no danger in getting too many probiotics. In the hoary, prehistoric past, it’s been thought that people had 1 million times as many probiotic bacteria in their systems than we do. So, if you eat yogurt, ZUKAY products, and take the occasional probiotic pill, as well as other probiotic fermented foods such as traditionally made sauerkraut and miso, you’re probably setting yourself up for a much stronger digestive and immune system than you would otherwise have. ZUKAY products are a magnificent way to get probiotics and the other benefits of fermented foods through everyday eating, but we highly suggest full experimentation with all the other wonderful fermented foods that exist as well. Personally, in addition to our products, our family eats and drinks plenty of yogurt, kefir, kombucha, raw milk, sauerkraut, and our own lacto-fermented vegetables from our garden. We don’t take any supplements of any kind, but that’s just us, and we’re very careful in what we eat. We are very healthy, and we love having all these foods as part of our daily diet.