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Learn about Kombucha
Kombucha is a delicious beverage made by fermenting sweet tea. It is acidic with a slight vinegar taste. An Internet search yields a wealth of information regarding Kombucha, its origins and nutritional benefits. I like fermenting for food preservation, good bacteria (probiotics) and additional nutrients. Fermented foods are pre-digested and easier on our digestive systems.
Some companies add sugar after the Kombucha is fermented making it more palatable. I like to stay away from those brands and prefer making it myself.
Making Kombucha requires a culture called a SCOBY. SCOBY is an acronym for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. The SCOBY, also known as “mother,” “mushroom,” or “pancake,” does the fermenting. Sugar feeds the SCOBY and should be eliminated, or at least almost eliminated, when the fermenting is complete. Once fermented, it will no longer taste like tea and there will be a new (second SCOBY) on top. Use the new SCOBY for the next batch and store the old SCOBY in a closed glass jar in the refrigerator for another batch, Kombucha Kandy, or give to a friend!
When this new SCOBY begins to form, it will make bubbles. These bubbles can easily be mistaken for mold. If mold does form, the entire batch needs to be thrown out. Be patient. Don’t be too quick to dispose of your first batch; wait and see if the “mold” turns into a SCOBY. I threw out my first batch of Kombucha mistaking the SCOBY bubbles for mold. If you think you have mold, ask an expert. If in doubt, yes, throw it out.
If you’re lucky enough to know someone who makes Kombucha, you might score a free SCOBY. It’s also possible to grow one with commercial Kombucha if it contains probiotics. Place it in a jar, cover with a paper towel, place rubber band around opening to keep out flies, etc., place on counter and wait. If all goes well and depending on weather, a new SCOBY will have formed in about 10 days. If a new one doesn’t grow, there are no live cultures or the conditions aren’t right.
Some people strain the brown yeast from their Kombucha. Unless there’s a large amount floating around, it doesn’t bother me. Even though that ugly brown stuff is yeast and not bacteria, it is beneficial for the gut. You can read more about good yeasts and probiotics here: Probiotics and Fermented Food
Please properly rinse and remove all detergent residues from any containers, utensils, etc. before using for Kombucha, as detergent can kill the SCOBY. Chlorine and honey can also kill the SCOBY since they have antibacterial properties. City water that contains chlorine will not work unless the chlorine is first removed. Keep in mind, anything that’s meant to kill bacteria can potentially kill the SCOBY.
While some metals are said to kill SCOBYs, I’ve found this isn’t true with stainless steel. Do NOT use any metal other than stainless steel! Nourishing Traditions says it’s even okay to store the SCOBY in stainless steel in the refrigerator, although I prefer glass. Mason jars work fine. NO PLASTIC!
My family drinks large amounts of Kombucha. At any time, I may have up to six, 2.15 gallon containers brewing—especially in the summer. ALWAYS USE A GLASS CONTAINER when fermenting! Make sure you use a container slightly larger than the amount of water called for in the recipe. If you don’t have a container large enough, and there’s a little sweet tea left, it’s okay to drink. Put some Kombucha aside for your next batch!
CAUTION: Never store in or drink Kombucha from plastic and NEVER shake it—it’s effervescent and can explode! When finished fermenting, store in refrigerator at 37°. NEVER eat or drink ANYTHING that does not taste right!!! Nourishing Traditions mentions some people may have an allergic reaction to Kombucha and advises if this happens, to use beet kvass for several weeks to detoxify before trying Kombucha again. If possible, purchase Nourishing Traditions cookbook; it’s a great book and well worth the price.
It’s a good idea to use pH strips to test if Kombucha is finished. Tasting can work, too. If it tastes sweet it’s probably not ready. Continue to test every 8 to 12 hours. When Kombucha is ready, bottle into glass bottles and tightly cap.
If you’re new to making Kombucha, you might want to purchase a starter kit like this one:
SUGAR: Organic white sugar or organic evaporated cane juice are the best sugar choices; the main job of the sugar is to feed the SCOBY. Do not use honey, rapadura, muscovado, etc. Always use organic.
FERMENTING NUMEROUS ITEMS: if you are fermenting numerous, different items like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, etc., make certain to keep several feet between them as the cultures can contaminate each other!
For more information about fermenting and Kombucha’s nutrients, go to this informative article by Sally Fallon Morell, the founding president of Weston A. Price Foundation, founder of A Campaign for Real Milk, and author (with Mary G. Enig. Ph.D.) of my favorite cookbook— Nourishing Traditions. http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/kvass-and-kombucha-gifts-from-russia
Click here for Kombucha Recipe
Protected: My Lyme Disease Journey
Are You Still Eating Wheat?
The words “healthy” and “natural” seem to have the exact same meaning these days—absolutely nothing! Let’s face it, EVERYTHING comes from the earth since we are not yet importing from Mars. Wouldn’t it be great if “natural” not only meant it came directly from the earth, but also meant “untainted by man.”
Whole-Grain Pasta and Bread
The food industry tricks us into thinking that pastas and breads are “whole grains” by putting the word, “whole grain,” on the label. Both are made from flour that not only had vital nutrients removed, but had synthetic vitamins added. Yes flour is made from a whole grain, but that doesn’t mean flour IS a whole grain; it’s not. No matter how we cook pasta, it will never turn back into flour nor will it ever turn back into a whole grain. Bread is the same—no matter how we slice it, it will never turn into a whole grain. Wheat berries are a grain; flour is not.
Dr. William Davis in his book Wheat Belly said, “Thirty years ago, nutritionists established the fact that wheat increases blood sugar more profoundly than table sugar.”
Dr. Joshua Plant nicely explains what the food industry is doing to wheat: “…We are products . . . of the food industry that has intentionally robbed . . . food . . . of nutrition. The reason . . . is that it is less filling and is more addictive when the nutrition is removed. Bread. It used to be brown, full of wheat germ and wheat bran and now we see bread that is white or bread that is dyed with caramel coloring to give you the impression it’s whole wheat. In actuality, the food—the wheat bran and the wheat germ, were removed from the bread (from the wheat) so that it stimulates a higher dopamine response in our blood system causing it to be more addictive—to give our bodies the feeling of it not being full makes us consume bread after bread after bread which drives the food industry’s profits and revenues. We need to get our nutrition from food….”
A Little History about Wheat
Most of us know wheat is hybridized, but not everyone knows that in 1917 wheat was invented (hybridized) by putting three species of grasses together. You probably think I’m wrong, but please read on.
February 28, 2001, I watched a 60 Minutes segment called What Have They Done to Our Food? It was about genetic engineering. I wanted to learn why scientists might want to inject the DNA of a flounder into a tomato, which sounded like a crazy idea to me. I wasn’t expecting to learn about something I ate almost every single day. If anyone had been watching me, they would have thought I was a German Shepard hearing the mailman arrive when Elliot Entis said:
“. . .we first began to cross-pollinate crops and breed mutant monsters like wheat, which is a hybrid of three separate grass species.”
Wow! Mutant monsters? Three separate grasses?
Those words kept repeating over and over in my head, and inspired me to learn more about wheat. I didn’t like that wheat isn’t a God-given food. I’m not a scientist. I’m not a doctor. I am, however, a sponge. I listen to those who have more knowledge, absorb whatever I can, and do my best to use common sense to decipher the information. The more I learned about wheat, the happier I became that I’d given it up as a staple for myself and my family.
So as it turns out, and according to Keeping Up With Research 136 , traditional wheat doesn’t grow well in the United States. Settlers brought wheat seeds here, and it just simply didn’t grow well. Many crops were lost. “Most of the improved varieties . . . were developed at Kansas State University (K-State). Between 1917 and 2003, thirty-six varieties of wheat have been released.” Honestly, I am no expert, but I’d have to guess that this hybridized wheat might not be all that good for us.
What I do know is that when wheat is commercially made into flour for supermarket shelves, it is something drastically different from home-ground wheat berries.
By now, you’re probably saying, “so what’s the big deal?” Read on.
How Flour is Made for Bread and Pasta
It’s important to know what happens to wheat when it is processed into flour. According to wholetruth.org, “Once the bran has been damaged or cracked open, the inner elements are exposed to oxygen, which destroys the vitamins and oils in just a short period of time.”
Since the oils quickly go rancid, it would be impossible for flour to sit for weeks or months without going bad. This is why the oil is removed. Seeing “enriched” on the label tells us that synthetic vitamins (drugs) are added back into flour before it leaves the factory.
Durum wheat is made into semolina flour—the most popular flour for making pasta. Mitsidesgroup.com tells us, “The grinding is done in stages where the wheat kernel is broken until the inner part of the grain (endosperm) is separated from the outer skin (bran). The milling derivative is then sieved to remove all bran leaving behind pure semolina.” Wheat can’t be a “whole grain” without the bran.
Gluten Intolerance or Glyphosate Intolerance?
As I said, I’m not a doctor nor a scientist, but I don’t believe gluten is the primary cause of Celiac disease. Is “gluten intolerance” strictly caused by the fact that wheat now has a high gluten content? Or is it more to do with the fact that wheat is sprayed with glyphosate before harvest? Could gluten intolerance actually be “glyphosate intolerance?” I didn’t come up with this idea on my own.
The National Institutes of Health mentions in an article about celiac disease: “Here, we propose that glyphosate, the active ingredient in the herbicide, Roundup®, is the most important causal factor in this epidemic. Fish exposed to glyphosate develop digestive problems that are reminiscent of celiac disease . . . Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate’s strong ability to chelate these elements . . . Glyphosate residues in wheat and other crops are likely increasing recently due to the growing practice of crop desiccation just prior to the harvest.” (Sugar cane is another crop that’s also sprayed with glyphosate.)
This doesn’t mean that all wheat is sprayed with weed killer. If the label says “organic,” it should not have been exposed to pesticides, insecticides, or herbicides (glyphosate). Unfortunately, testing shows that even some organic wheat contains glyphosate. And unless it’s ancient wheat like einkorn, it is most likely hybridized.
It Must be Bad—It’s All Carbs
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Wheat might be high in carbs, but so are fruits and vegetables. The difference in “healthy” and “not healthy” when related to food is whether that food contains nutrition. Fruits and vegetables contain so much more than carbs; they’re loaded with vitamins, minerals, and fiber if they are correctly grown. Unfortunately, our food doesn’t give us the same nutrients today that we got in the 1960s. (In case you’re wondering, scientists agree that we have to eat forty cups of spinach today to get the same nutrition we got in one cup of spinach in 1960.)
Here’s What I Think
Both vitamins and oils are destroyed when flour is processed, and glyphosate chelates nutrients. So what makes wheat a healthy food? What do you think? Do you think wheat is a health food? Does a “whole-grain” label make it healthy? Please let me know, in the comments below whether you think wheat is, or is not a “healthy” food.
Jovial’s Einkorn flour is my favorite, and the only flour I use. Tropical Traditions carries glyphosate-free flours. If you use my affiliate link to place your first order with them, you will receive the book, Virgin Coconut Oil: How it has changed people’s lives and how it can change yours!, for free and I will receive a discount coupon for referring you.
UPDATE: 1-1-2018 Jovial’s Einkorn Flour is out of stock at Tropical Traditions. Lucky Vitamin sells it for a good price.
UPDATE: Thanksgiving 2015 I asked my daughter if she noticed anything different about the stuffing (her favorite of the Thanksgiving meal that this year contained bread made with Jovial’s Einkorn Flour) and she replied, “Yeah. I don’t feel horrible.”
A recipe in my Facebook news feed, touted as “healthy,” inspired me to write this article. You can read about that here: Are You Still Eating Wheat? Facebook Inspiration
Article Summary:
- Wheat sold in the United States was invented in the US in 1917 by hybridizing three separate grass species.
- Wheat today has much more gluten than heritage wheat.
- The flour-making process destroys important nutrients.
- Before harvest, wheat is sprayed with glyphosate which chelates nutrients from our bodies.
- Synthetic vitamins are added to flour.
- The food industry removes nutrients from food products, which elicits a dopamine response and makes them more addictive.
I’d highly recommend this bread machine (it even has a gluten-free setting):
Here’s a healthier choice for white bread: Milk Kefir Bread
Dr. Joshua Plant taped call http://tapeacall.com/zkcurzfyzv
Transcript What Have They Done to Our Food? http://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-have-they-done-to-our-food-28-02-2001/
Elliot Entis, What Have They Done to Our Food?
Keeping Up With Research http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/historicpublications/Pubs/SRL136.pdf
Keeping Up With Research – A History Of Wheat Improvement At Kansas State:
Vitamins are destroyed http://thewholetruth.org/Health_Wheat_FAQ.asp
How semolina is made http://www.mitsidesgroup.com/lang/en/about-pasta-flour/about-pasta/how-pasta-is-made/
NIH Celiac Disease http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/
Tomato – Fruit or Vegetable?
There is no question here – tomatoes are fruit. Period. It’s easy to tell a fruit from a vegetable; there are two different ways:
- Look at the seeds. If they are INSIDE what we eat, it’s a fruit. If there are no seeds inside, it’s a vegetable.
- Look at the flower while it’s growing. If the flower suddenly has the edible part attached, it’s a fruit. (The flower will fall off long before the fruit is harvested.) Vegetable flowers are above or separate from the edible portion and turn into seeds.
So yes – tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, avocado and cantaloupe – all fruits. What we put into a garden/tossed salad or fruit salad, does not define whether it’s a fruit or vegetable nor does its placement in the grocery store. Squash, tomatoes and cucumbers, although fruits, are almost always in the vegetable section.
And speaking of squash, zucchini is not only a fruit, it’s a summer squash. The signs at the supermarket say “summer squash” on the yellow and “zucchini” on the green, but they are both summer squash. The yellow is usually a Crook Neck or a Straight Neck squash. Winter squash – hubbard, butternut, and acorn – are also fruit, and ready in the fall – usually after a frost.
Corn is a whole different story. Corn on the cob is one of my summertime favorites. It’s right up there next to watermelon. I’ve been known to eat a meal of exclusively corn on the cob for dinner. I usually buy four dozen at a time. No, I don’t eat that many at once! I steam them, cut the kernels off the cob with a sharp knife, place the kernels into an inexpensive plastic bag, then slightly twist the top of that bag and neatly place it into a vacuum-seal bag. I roll over the tops of the bag and seal with a clothespin. Into my freezer they go, flattened for the night. The next day I vacuum seal and return them to the freezer.
Is there anything better than fresh corn-on-the-cob in the summer? There just might be – frozen corn off the cob swimming in organic butter in January! It’s always a treat to eat on Thanksgiving Day or any cold wintry day! I’ve not bought insecticide-laden corn from the supermarket in several years. It is a lot of extra work and very time consuming to freeze my own corn, but well worth it!
Corn – is it a fruit, vegetable or grain? I personally think the jury might still be out on that subject. The Whole Grains Council defines corn as a grain if it is dried and a vegetable if it is cooked. Are the seeds inside the husk? Do we eat the seeds? Maybe corn is a seed! Hmmm…what category do YOU think corn would fit into? Comment below. If you haven’t already, take our QUIZ: Are You Smarter than a Turnip?
I Wish I’d Asked
When I was in my early twenties, it was suddenly no longer safe to eat raw eggs. Scientists supposedly had new information that raw eggs were making us sick with salmonella. If I had questioned this, I may have been told it was because chickens were no longer raised in the back yards of farmers and that they were now raised in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) – livestock factories. If I had asked, perhaps someone would have told me that CAFO conditions are deplorable and bacteria-laden.
When I was six or seven years old, our milkman stopped coming to our house. I wish I was old enough to question why he disappeared. Maybe I would have been told that the convenience of supermarkets and a ‘need’ to pasteurize contributed to his disappearance. I wish I had thought to question this when I got older, too. When I was in my early twenties everyone around me was saying it isn’t good to drink the fat that is in milk. I wish I asked why the cream and fat were no longer safe to drink and why milk was now sold in choices of 1%, 2% and skim. Maybe I would have been told it has nothing to do with our health and more to do with it being much more lucrative to separate milk into different parts – parts that the body might not be able see as ‘food.’ Maybe I would have realized if it were, in fact, better for us to drink 1%, 2% and skim that God would have had those different milks coming right out of different ‘spigots’ on the cow.
Suddenly in my twenties it was no longer safe to eat raw hamburger. Personally, I only ever tried it once–I didn’t like it. Many who are ten years my senior told me they grew up on raw hamburger. They anxiously waited for their mothers to turn their backs while making meatloaf so they could steal a small hunk. I wish I had asked why it was no longer safe to do this; I might have learned that the cows were no longer raised on farms, but instead, again, in CAFOs. I may have learned that cows raised in CAFOs now stand in their own manure up to their ankles, and sometimes up to their udders.
In my thirties, it was simply no longer safe to eat beef – period. I wish I had questioned why. Was it because cows were no longer raised on farms? No longer eating grass in pastures? and instead being fed a steady diet of corn – corn that is no longer sprayed with insecticide because the insecticide is now on the INSIDE? The same corn that causes e. coli in their stomachs? I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound good to me!
In my later thirties I wish I had questioned it again. Would I have learned the United States was the only country that approved Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and that other countries didn’t approve it because it makes the cows sick?
In my twenties I also wondered, what is this ‘canola’ oil that everyone is telling me to use. Why is something that I’ve never heard of suddenly the ‘heart-healthy’ thing to be eating? I wish I had not trusted those rumors and did my own research – maybe I would have realized it simply wasn’t true. Of course, I didn’t have the Internet or Google back then. I am embarrassed that I never even asked, “What is a Canola?” I knew what the olive in olive oil was and the sunflower in sunflower oil. If only I’d asked, perhaps someone may have told me that it’s an acronym for – Canadian Oil Low Acid. Maybe I would have learned that it came from a plant that was toxic before it was modified to be ‘safe’ for human consumption. I may have been told – before it was modified to be ‘safe’ for human consumption that it was only used for oiling machines.
I wish I had thought to ask, “What is Lard and why is it no longer good for us?” I knew it was a fat and that it came from an animal, but that was about all I knew. I wish I had asked why it was no longer ‘healthy’ to eat. Maybe I would have heard about a company that invented a product called shortening that was shelf stable for years and that there was a LOT more money to be made with this new product. If only I had asked, maybe someone would have warned me that it also might ‘shorten’ my life.
I am embarrassed and ashamed that I never took a long, hard look at what I was eating until I became so sick that I could barely function anymore. But in my own defense, I wasn’t just a Baby Boomer – I was a Supermarket Kid, too. I wish I had questioned when I was young, on what our Creator had intended my body to run. I might have learned it’s supposed to simply run on real food. Real food – it’s that plain and simple. Okay, so deciphering what is real food and what is fake/plastic food might be a whole ‘nother story. By now, most of us have learned that margarine is one molecule away from being plastic. Although I’m still learning about ‘plastic’ foods every day, I think I am finally getting it under control! I hope by sharing my experience and what I’ve learned about food will help others Make Healthier Choices.