It’s Alive! It Can Make You More Alive too :)

Which one of these things is not like the other (Nut Cheese, Ginger Carrots, Kombucha, Yerba Mate/Sencha tea)?

All of these things, except the Mate/Sencha Tea, are fermented. I know, ew.  It doesn’t sound very appetizing, but there’s a reason to eat fermented foods (lots of reasons, actually), and they really can taste good. The process of fermenting turns a regular food into a superfood!

First, let’s talk about the benefits:

• Initiate and Enhance Healing the balance of you Inner Ecosystem
• Rich in vitamins (one being vitamin C—used in the past for winter food stores and to prevent scurvy!)
• Rich in enzymes (the more we have of these the better we digest what we eat!)
• Alkaline-forming (we need to make our bodies more alkaline—–an acid body leads to aging and diseases like cancer)
• Rich in lactobacilli (an active culture that actually does what all those yogurt ads promise you their sugary yogurts will do—-it’s not the yogurt that’s good for your health, it’s the live active cultures in it!)
• Serve as a cheap and effective alternative to expensive probiotic supplements
• Improve digestion
• Help to control cravings for sweet foods
• Awesome for pregnant women (and the benefits transfer to the baby!)

So, how do you do it?

Choice #1: Buy it at a health food store (Lori’s sells locally produced raw cultured veggies)

Choice #2: Make it yourself!  I’m going to attempt this very soon (I just have to order the starter culture—Lori’s didn’t have it).  I’ll document on the blog how it goes.

Donna Gates, of the Body Ecology Diet, recommends you include at least 1/2 cup of these veggies in any meal where you are eating a protein or a starch.  You can also use the juice from the veg in salad dressings, just remember not to heat it or the cultures and enzymes will die. Donna also suggests fermenting the water of young green coconuts.  I’m excited about this because I love coconut water, but I know that I need to lower my sugar intake.  This way, I can indulge on all those beautiful coconuts in Wegmans in a healthy new way.  Apparently, the result of fermenting coconut water is a fizzy, sour, champagne-like drink.  I’m in!  Along with all the benefits of fermented foods in general, this specific drink is purported to aid in digestion of all foods, cleanse the liver (which is directly related to skin, eye, and joint health), eases aches and joint pain, improves skin health over all (reduce liver spots, causes warts to fall off), enhances hair, skin and nail health (due to high mineral content), cleanses the endocrine system (makes periods less painful, eases menopause—and can even reverse it!), AND it increases energy.

Does this sound too good to be true?

It might sound like it is, but the claims are based on scientific connections between what is actually present in the drink and what those things do in your body. I’ll test it, so if you’re hesitant, don’t worry, I’ll let you know how it goes!

After all this reading I’ve done regarding fermented foods, I thought I needed to add more to my diet, for some very specific reasons that I’ll spare you the details of. I’m just going to say that I no longer think genetics is something we can’t control—of course, genetic weaknesses will determine how our ill health manifests physically. However, if we repair our bodies at the root of the problem (not through band-aid approaches like drugs and antibiotics), we can be healthy to the core and genetics will have nothing but a healthy glow to manifest!

Note, I’m not saying to stop taking your medications. Just make sure you’re also doing everything in your power to become healthier. It’s your responsibility to be as healthy as you can be!

Onto my lunches for the past two days!