Was just reading Poland by James Michener, and he was describing one of the uneducated peasant women in a village and saying that she always made and ate the sauerkraut and drank the juice because she always knew it was very very good for her and had to do with the tremendously old ages some of the villagers lived to.
I got the pickle juice/sauerkraut juice drinking from my Polish grandmother....(one just drinks a little bit at a time)