Focus on Fermentation Week: Kefir

Funny how the last few fermented foods I have written about are all foreign sounding words beginning with K. Kefir (pronounced ke-feer) is another lacto-fermented product that provides numerous health benefits. I was a little dubious about this one as people had told me it doesn't taste great. I still decided to make it and was pleasantly surprised to find that it tastes similar to yoghurt, and with fruit blended through it (as in the image above) it is actually really refreshing. As with Kombucha tea, the health benefits are astounding and are summarised and explained really well on Imperfectly Natural. 

Here are just a few of them:

1.     Diabetes - because of naturally occurring sugars within kefir, it is a good tool for regulating blood sugar for those who struggle with diabetes.

2.   Kefir boosts the immune system to effectively fight external germs and potential diseases.

3.   Treats digestive disorders such as constipation, diarrhoea, and substantially decreases bloating, wind, discomfort in the abdominal area, and thrush.

4.   Kefir apparently assists with colon cancer, ulcers, respiratory conditions, eczema, psoriasis, acne and diseases bourne from gut dysbiosis (a destructive imbalance of microbial flora which is linked to e.g. inflammatory bowel syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome).

6.   Kefir is teeming with vitamins and minerals that are easily absorbed by the body such as vitamins B and K, folic acid, phosphorous, calcium and magnesium.

7.   Kefir provides energy by assisting with digestion.

8.   Kefir improves the functioning of the liver, gallbladder, circulation and heart activity. it increases metabolism, oxygen supply to the cells and blood circulation to the brain. 

Phew, I am going to have the healthiest gut in the country at this rate!

As with Kombucha, Kefir also needs a special ingredient to get the culture started. The kefir 'grains' are what you need and they are not really grains, just a special culture that in many European families, is handed down through the generations. I found my grains on Ebay - $3 for one teaspoon including delivery and instructions...how could I not give it a go? This is the plastic bag I received (above).

The white grains stuck to the plastic so I scraped them off the best I could...with a plastic spoon, apparently metal is not good for the kefir.

This is what I ended up with in my glass, a little messy but probably about a teaspoon of grains.

Cover the jar with a cloth or paper towel and secure with a rubber band. Leave the jar on the kitchen bench and the kefir will ferment at room temperature. During winter you can place the kefir on the top of the fridge to ferment quicker. 

Check the kefir every 6-12 hours or so. Once the milk has thickened, the kefir has formed, usually 24-48 hours.  It is a good idea to let the first batch ferment for three days, then I have found subsequent batches are ready every 24 hours.

Another sign that you have kefir is if it tastes tangy and sour like natural greek yoghurt. You then strain the milk and the remaining grains are placed back into the jar and topped with fresh milk…a continual process.

If you want a stronger fermented kefir (with more probiotics) then wait until the floating curds separate with the whey (which stays on the bottom), then mix the two together and drink. 

The interesting thing with kefir is if you place the grains in a larger vessel with more milk, then the grains will multiply, producing a larger quantity of kefir. I am happy with one coffee jar full per day, which is enough for a work-day fruit smoothie and to add to my dishes for dinner. Last night I used it in place of yoghurt in a chicken curry, stirring through last minute. There are some amazing recipes for using kefir if you do a Google search.

So, there you have it...the last post in this current fermentation series, and another gut-busting sensation. Have you ever heard of kefir or do you already make it yourself?

Focus on Fermentation Week: Kombucha

Kombucha is a naturally carbonated, fermented tea. It is made from a starter culture called a Scoby (warning...it is one alien looking culture) and has many health benefits including the following:

1. It boosts the Immune System - because it is fermented it encourages the growth of beneficial bacteria in the stomach and is also rich in antioxidants, which help to strengthen immunity.

2. It is a Natural Detoxifier - The good bacteria that Kombucha promotes aids in detoxifying your gut, and it also supports liver function.

3. It is Rich in Vitamins and Enzymes - Kombucha is rich in Vitamin B which provide support for the body's metabolic functions including overall energy, utilization of carbohydrates, heart health, and healthy hair skin and nails. The digestive enzymes that Kombucha provides breaks down the food we eat into smaller compounds so the nutrients can be more easily absorbed into the bloodstream.

4. Increased Energy and Metabolism - The Vitamin B increases energy and the beneficial bacteria in the Kombucha help your body work better and take the burden off it's functioning.

5. PMS Relief - the Vitamin B vitamins break down and flush out excess estrogen from the body.

6. Relief from Arthritis and Joint Pain - As Arthritis is an immune disorder, Kombucha's probiotic bacteria assists in strengthening immunity.

So, when I read all of this on the leaflet that came with my mail-order Scoby, I knew that this was a fermented product that I just had to try...despite the initially daunting process, which, I am pleased to say was so much easier than I first thought. And the Kombucha tastes beautiful!! The above image shows how my Scoby was packed...taped up in plastic and posted in an envelope.

This image shows the 'starter tea' surrounding the Scoby - it had to have something to live on during transit.

Now, I did warn you...pretty gross looking right? A bit like a deflated chicken fillet.

My Scoby came with instructions to make my first batch by boiling 1.5 litres of water and adding three teabags (organic black tea works best) and 3/4 cup of sugar. Mix until dissolved and remove the tea bags after ten minutes. Then let the tea cool.

Once it is cooled, pour the tea into a glass jar (Scoby does not like plastic) with the starter tea (the liquid the Scoby came in) . I used this one with a tap so that I can easily taste test during fermentation without disturbing the Scoby. You place the Scoby  on top of the tea, seal with a cloth and cover with a tea towel. Then you leave it to ferment.

This shot was taken on day 3.

This was taken on Day 10. If you want a sweeter tea you ferment for a short time, but if you like it bitter then you can brew it for a couple of weeks. Ten days was perfect in this weather. It is slightly carbonated and still sweet. You can just see in the above image that the Scoby has spread out across the full width of the glass jar...and the dark spot is actually....

...A baby Scoby, one that can be given to someone to start their Kombucha. You just peel it off it's 'mother'.

Look how beautiful and clear the tea is. You can just see the bubbles on the edges. My boys said it tasted like beer, but the fermented taste is very mild. You can combine your tea with other liquids such as water or fruit juice for different flavours. Just keep it in the fridge and it will last for several months...if your family don't drink it all first like mine :)

Now, how is that for one weird science experiment? Now that I have more 'starter tea' I am making a full batch of five litres, so in ten days time I can experiment with some new flavours and juices. And all for the cost of $10 for my Scoby, a few teabags and filtered water...a very economical and healthy beverage.

Have you ever made Kombucha before or tasted it?

A-Z Simple Living: N = Natural Remedies

As a natural extension of the path that I am following, I have become increasingly fascinated with the use of herbal remedies. Common herbs were always something that I had associated with flavour, but I am beginning to learn that you don't need the fancy ones like Ginseng and Gingko Biloba in your garden to be reaping the health benefits. Here is a list of ten herbs or plants that I think should be grown in most gardens, with a short summary of what they can be used for:

1. Calendula

The calendula petals are antifungal and antiseptic. The most common use is to make a cream from the petals to relieve dry skin and irritations.

2. Coriander

Coriander is a powerful digestive aid and cleansing agent capable of removing heavy metals and toxic agents from the body.

3. Peppermint

Peppermint relieves digestive discomfort such as indigestion and nausea when brewed as a tea, and when used in a liniment and applied to the skin it can relieve muscle soreness.

4. Rosemary

Rosemary stimulates energy and optimism, and sharpens memory and concentration by bringing more oxygen to your brain - a natural alternative to caffeine.

5. Thyme

This herb also has antibacterial and antiseptic properties, so it is often used to relieve cold symptoms. It also relieves diarrhea and upset stomachs.

6. Lavender

Lavender is commonly used as a relaxant. It can be added to your bath to relieve stress, anxiety or insomnia, and can also be used in creams to treat sunburn and acne. 

7. Chamomile

Chamomile is used as a tea for treating colic, nervous stress, infections and stomach disorders.

8. Aloe Vera

I find this to be the most versatile home remedy to grow. I use the gel in smoothies as it has digestive qualities and is a diuretic. I also use it to relieve burns, sunburn and skin irritations.

9. Basil

I use this all the time but only recently found out it is good for healing cuts if applied topically. It is also good for stomach gas and lack of appetite (I never have that problem).

10. Sage

Apparently sage is good for skin and gum infections, digestion and menopause.

If you are looking for more detailed explanations of how to prepare the herbal remedies then I can certainly recommend Isabel Shipard's book "How Can I Use Herb's In My daily Life?"

Image Source

It is a beautiful reference book and extremely detailed. The brief information above was sourced from the internet (sources below) but Isabel will show you how to make the herbal teas and lotions. I was fortunate enough to visit Isabel's herb farm a few months ago and came away with so much information as well as unusual herbs such as this beautiful Brahmi which I use in smoothies (it is very bitter) to boost memory and concentration. It is so much cheaper than buying a bottle of tablets.

Do you make any herbal remedies or do you stick with what you can buy at the pharmacy? I would love to hear of anything you may have tried with success :)

Internet Sources

http://theselfsufficientliving.com/list-of-medicinal-plants-to-grow-in-your-garden/

http://www.healthline.com/health-slideshow/herbal-remedies-from-your-garden#promoSlide

Herb Farm and Ginger Factory

Last Saturday I set off on an excursion...just me, myself and I. Nanna Chel from Going Grey and Slightly Green (her blog is just gorgeous and one of my favourites so I suggest you visit one day) posted about ordering some herbs online from a herb farm in Nambour. I have been searching for comfrey in Gympie for a while now as it is supposed to be amazing for your compost and you can make it into a tea for fertilising your plants. When I saw that Shiphard's Nursery stocked comfrey, and many other unusual herbs, I couldn't resist the opportunity to explore.

The nursery is located at the back of Isabell Shiphard's home and is absolutely chock-a-block full of herbs and exotic plants. Isabell and her family are very welcoming and happy to explain the benefits and uses of any plant. Isabell has written several successful books, and intrigued by Nanna Chel's interest in medicinal herbs, I decided to purchase Isabell's herb book. It is an encyclopaedia jam-packed with everything you could possibly want to know about every herb and will be a valuable resource in my home as I expand my horizons on this simple living journey. Thanks Nanna Chel :)

I was given a free aloe vera plant for purchasing the book.

My husband and I favour natural medicines and take a wide variety of supplements, many of which we can grow here. After an hour of looking around and learning heaps about teas, sprouts, seeds and herbs, I decided on the following purchases:

Paul is a big fan of brahmi and as a supplement it is expensive to buy. It is commonly referred to as 'the thinking man's herb'. It is a shade loving perennial ground cover used in traditional ayurvedic medicine. It supports brain, heart and nerve function, mental alertness, learning and concentration, long and short term memory, circulation, digestion and sleep. Wow, that's one handy plant.

This is the comfrey I travelled for. There are two small seedlings in this tub and the leaves can grow as long as my arm, according to Isabell. Comfrey is a good source of vitamin B12, and is rich in iron, potash and nitrogen making it an ideal fertiliser. It is also high in protein so makes good chook food and can be used in poultices.

This is an interesting little fellow called Herb Robert. I heard about this from Nanna Chel and Isabell sells alot of it. You make a tea out of it or eat the leaves in a salad for anti-viral, antioxidant, antibiotic and tonic action. She suggests having it daily for overall wellbeing. It will be a while before we can do this as the seedling is only small.

Due to our warmer climate I have never had much success with growing lavender but this allardi variety apparently grows well here. Lavender has many uses as well as having an aromatic fragrance. It is analgesic, antibiotic, antiseptic, antispasmodic, digestive and is great for insomnia.

My last purchase was Aztec Sweet Herb. It is basically another form of sweetener which I thought would be useful as I don't eat sugar. Not sure how to prepare it yet so will have to consult Isabell's book.

After my herb farm visit, I decided to call into the Ginger Factory on the way home. It is at Yandina and if you ever go there I would also suggest visiting the Macadamia Nut Factory which is across the road. I was keen to get my new plants home and out of the heat of my car, so I just did The Ginger Factory.

If you ever see any Ginger Factory or Buderim Ginger products in your supermarket I can highly recommend them. I bought this pack of assorted goodies:

Ginger cordial that you mix with soda water to 'make' ginger beer. Ginger, lemon and lime marmalade. Ginger Sauce. Chilli Ginger Sauce and a pack of naked ginger (yummy sugared ginger treat).

I also couldn't resist this beautiful ginger root. It is larger than my hand and weighs 200g! And it only cost $4. I also learnt that you should grate your ginger while frozen for best results...and I now have my very own porcelain ginger grater which makes the job so much easier. Maybe my ginger beer starter might actually get productive now :)

Isn't it wonderful to go out and have a wander, and to learn and experience new things? All by your very self! I love the journey and the road I am travelling...there are so many rewards around every corner. All you have to do is open your mind and seek them out.

Have you been on a self-indulgent excursion lately?

Personal Accountability

Anyone who knows me well says that I think way too much...and they would be correct. Sometimes I can't turn my brain off and one thought leads to the next and the next. This is where my thought process led me last night....

The word that has been playing around in my mind this week is accountability. I don't necessarily mean in a financial or organisational sense such as a company being accountable or answerable to its shareholders. What I have been thinking about is being accountable as an individual with the various aspects of your life that you are balancing. Accountability means taking responsibility for your actions or, in other words, to account for them.

With some areas of our lives we are accountable to someone, just as companies are to their shareholders. We are expected to perform in certain ways just as we expect doctors or teachers to do. For example, we are accountable to our husbands to be a loving wife, to our employers to do our job well, to our children to be a good role model and responsible parent. If our actions contradict what is expected of us then our husbands, employers and kids will hold us accountable and expect us to explain or justify our actions.

So, what got me thinking is, what about those areas of our lives where we don't have to be accountable to others? What if we don't have husbands, children and employers to be accountable to? In these instances I can only surmise that we are only accountable to ourselves, or to our conscience or beliefs perhaps. We only have ourselves to answer to if we err in judgement or give up on a goal.  This is dangerous ground for me because I have found that I am persuasive and can talk myself out of being accountable.  I don't need to go to the gym after work, I've lost weight this week, I need a night off... or... I really need that chocolate bar right now, its been a stressy day. I am the boss of me so I can break the rules when I want to, and accept my rather weak justifications.

It therefore takes strength and sometimes willpower to be accountable to oneself. Sometimes I feel like Sylvester from the Tweety Bird cartoons with that little pain in the butt conscience angel talking him out of or into things. So, with all this deep thinking about being accountable today, I realised that I have already taken some measures to take the accountability away from just me.

For example, I have joined a gym with a program where I get weighed every week and measured every month. My mind then sees that I am accountable to my trainers Nikki and Kerrie, as well as myself. I want to do well and I hate going backwards. I want them to be proud of me (as I am of myself)  for getting fit and losing the weight. There is my accountability. Works for me.

Being a writer is a big goal of mine and starting this blog is making my writing accountable. Instead of thinking yeah okay I will watch television instead of doing that article or writing that chapter, I now have a regular pattern of writing. It has become less sporadic and more disciplined, I am more productive and savouring every minute of it. My writing will improve every day and I will reach my goals. Works for me.

So, now I just have to extend that personal accountability theory to those other areas of my life that are unbalanced. The main area that needs work is my personal finances.

 I work, I spend, I buy. Yes, I do have a budget, but there is still that voice that tells me I need to buy something or I can make it up next week. I have met a pretty amazing lady Stacey from the UK who knows exactly how much she is spending and saving every single day...and she documents it on her blog Mortgage Free Journey. It has inspired me to take a closer look at my personal spending (what I have left after paying my bills) and make it work towards my goals of a holiday and reducing my credit card debt. I have already started by growing my vegies and making my own cleaning products, but the rest needs a closer inspection and I will be doing that in further blogs.

So, there you have my theory of personal accountability. I have since Googled it and others define it simply as responsibility. That's where I am heading...towards responsibility and taking control of those neglected areas of my life. I imagine the little Sylvester or mini-me will still sit on my shoulder and try and talk me into things....sometimes he/she will win because no-one is perfect. We do the best we can. But with my goals in sight, only I can formulate and put into action the plan to get there...and the best thing is...I am working on it.

Do you have a plan? What do you think about personal accountability?

Simple Living and Balance

Image courtesy of Grant Cochrane/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Just as mindfulness was a buzz word for me a couple of weeks ago, this week it is balance. I'm not talking about the stand-on-one-leg type of balance, but rather life balance. We all have many roles and facets of our lives that need to be balanced in order for us to achieve peace, and apparently that's a fact that many of us are finally waking up to, in particular Australians.

I read an article on News.com.au yesterday (Work/life balance) based on a report from recruitment firm Randstad. Their findings were that Australians are more concerned about achieving work/life balance and having an interesting job than climbing the corporate ladder, and that Australians are the least aspirational workers in the world. Only eight percent of us are strongly focused on promotion, compared to 24 percent of people in the US.

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So, Aussies really are more 'laid back'. Hardly surprising I guess, considering the lifestyle and opportunities that are offered here. This statistic certainly sums me up. I had a high-paying corporate career in Adelaide for many years. I am degree-qualified in business and when I finally reached the top of my corporate ladder I found that I did not want to be there. This was mainly due to the fact that I had three kids by then, but also because I realised I did not want the pressure associated with my high-paying job. It was interfering with the rest of my life.

So...I moved to Queensland and became a beach bum. Well, hardly, but I can still dream, can't I? I still have to work to pay my mortgage, but I realised I could forgo the extra income and the flash house and cars, to have the lifestyle I have now. My current exploration into the concept of simple living is helping me continue along this work/life balance path.

It was only last night that I was talking to my mentor at Curves and saying that being fit and eating healthily has led to other positive changes in my life. I want to be in control of everything and not on the roller coaster I was. She mentioned she used to be a counsellor and gave me a piece of paper with a 'wheel of life' to complete, similar to the one below: (Wheel of Life)

You basically give each section of your life a rating from 0-10 in order to identify and document those areas of your life that require some work. I thought, oh yeah, that's obvious...what do I need this for? But I must admit I found the exercise rather interesting because it not only showed me where I wanted to be but also showed me, on paper, how much I had already achieved.

For example, I have improved my health by giving up smoking and eating healthily. Exercising at the gym increases my fun and recreation (and all that gardening!). I have increased my satisfaction with my physical environment through adopting simple life principles. Learning about new things and starting this blog has assisted with my personal growth. Minimising my alcohol intake has improved my personal relationships. Writing my blog is putting me one step closer towards my career goal of being a writer. So, in essence, I am working towards that life balance. The areas I do need to work on with this wheel are money and...should I say?...well, romance. Topics for further blogs I am guessing.

During the Women's Health Week (where I discovered the goji balls) I came across an initiative by Deborah Hutton called Balance. She takes the balance wheel one step further and tailors it for women, I believe, as she includes areas such as body, beliefs and emotions as well. She has programs you can join but I just found the information on her site interesting and if you like her Facebook page then you get all sorts of tips.

So, basically I wanted to share how my current discoveries with regards to simple living are helping me to achieve not only self improvement, as discussed in an earlier post, but also life balance...this benefits not just me but all of those around me. That's got to be a good thing right? If I am happy within myself and my work/life balance is optimum then there is nothing stopping me from reaching my goals. The sky is the limit!

I will definitely be working towards turning those 5's into 10's. How about you?

How do you set your goals? Have you ever thought about life balance before?