":, please consider my beer analogy again.  It would be quite easy to find reliable sources saying that beer is made from malt, hops, yeast, and water.  Many people think this is the only way true beer should be made.  Nevertheless some people do make beer out of other ingredients.  Now it might be correct to say that 'traditional ale' is made only of these ingredients and it is certainly true that beer made according to the ""Bavarian Purity Law"" should be made from only these ingredients.  

Is there no way you can temper your claim and also make it strictly more accurate and informative by saying something like 'traditional Korean kimchi is always fermented'.   

To:User:Martin Hogbin: Look. I would do it if it were true to my knowledge and/or there existed some reliable sources to confirm that. The saveur.com article, the only source against my claim that I consider at least semi-reliable, says ""It can also be eaten before it is allowed to ferment"". Do you think this confirms the existence of unfermented kimchi against all sources I gathered? Someone might like to have a bite of Sauerkraut before it is fermented. 
I don't want to argue with you or something, but I have heard that beer is made from only malt, hops, and water in Germany (as it should be). Unfortunately, at least in Korea, Japan, and the U.S., most beer includes rice, potato, corn starch, and many other ingredients I think unnecessary. At least they have ingredient lists on the bottles, and there are a lot of official documents on those additional ingredients.
But kimchi is a different story. Like I said, I have never seen any packaged/jarred kimchi labeled ""unfermented"", maybe except for Japanses ""kimuchi"" which is more like pickled vegetables. And both traditional and contemporary kimchi is fermented. (they are not much different anyway.) Nevertheless, I am willing to temper my claim if editors can find even a couple of reliable sources that say some kimchi is unfermented.    

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