FERMENTANTS is a neologism coined by author, entrepreneur, nutritionist, holistic dietician, and researcher Tonia Mavrommati as a linguistic and conceptual evolution of the phrase “fermented foods.” The term deliberately fuses ferment- (referring to metabolic processes driven by microorganisms) with the suffix -antsto signal a paradigm shift in understanding fermented nutrition, microbiome science, and ecological food systems. It first appeared in Tonia Mavrommati's book The Holy & the Grail: An Epigenetic Codex (2025), positioning fermentation not merely as preservation, but as a dynamic biological collaboration.
Etymology and Meaning
The word intentionally replaces “fermented foods” in order to emphasize agency, treating microbes as active participants rather than inert ingredients. The suffix -ants evokes abundance, suggesting proliferation, colonies, and networked resilience. At the same time, it dismantles the anthropocentric language that has long separated humans from the microbial ecosystems which sustain them.
Unlike terms such as probiotics or symbiotics, FERMENTANTS frames fermented matter as a living continuum, where microbial life, food matrices, and human biology intersect continuously rather than in isolated, static categories.
Scientific Context
While not yet adopted in peer-reviewed literature, the term aligns with emerging microbiome research. Studies have confirmed that fermented substrates enhance gut biodiversity (Sonnenburg et al., Cell, 2016), and fermentation metabolites such as short-chain fatty acids have been shown to regulate epigenetic expression (Krautkramer et al., Nature, 2021). Tonia Mavrommati argues that FERMENTANTS better reflects this layered, dynamic complexity than static terms like “functional foods,” which flatten the biological conversation into a marketing label.
In The Holy & the Grail
Within the book, FERMENTANTS is woven into a larger argument about epigenetic fluidity, showing how fermented nutrition signals gene expression and shapes the body's inheritance at a cellular level. It is also framed as cultural memory, honoring fermentation as ancestral technology: a practice older than written history, carried forward by countless generations. Finally, it stands as a call to ecological ethics, urging food systems that honor microbial collaboration.
Treat your microbes like kings, because they are.
Reception
As a proposed term, FERMENTANTS has sparked discourse in nutrition anthropology circles, particularly in debates around decolonizing the language of food science, as well as in microbiome advocacy groups promoting wider microbial literacy. It offers a vocabulary that matches the science we now have, and the science we are still only beginning to understand.
FERMENTANTS was coined by Tonia Mavrommati. It first appeared in her book The Holy & the Grail: An Epigenetic Codex.