Christmas Kraut

I have met hundreds of people who are now on gluten-free diets. My daughter used to be one of them. How can this grain that has been around since time began suddenly wreak such havoc on so many individuals. Well it is definitely causing a lot of problems, but I was never one to just do something without understanding the reasoning behind it. I want to know the answers for myself and not just take someones word for it. So when my daughter developed IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and couldn’t eat wheat and every week the list kept getting bigger with things she couldn’t tolerate. I became a woman on a mission to understand what was going on. One of the things I have always hated about modern medicine is that they slap a band-aid on  problems such as blood pressure, cholesterol and a host of other problems. My question is why do you have high blood pressure and why can you suddenly not digest wheat and other foods? What causes the body to develop these symptoms. This is the best part of all our beautiful bodies. They call out to us with problems to get our attention. They are our best teachers and when you start having troubles there is much to learn.The only way to do that is to go within and become attentive to something we take for granted. The inner world of our bodies. I will share with you what I learned. This is my journey to understanding and yours may be different but maybe I can shed light on something that will help you.

Every morning my 16-year-old daughter would climb out of bed  and drag her self to the kitchen. Each morning I would pray that she would feel better that day. Her words were always the same. ” I never feel good mom,”‘ It broke me. She was only 16 and she hated getting up everyday to a life filled with pain. I took her to doctors and they wanted to remove her gallbladder for really no reason. It was just a guess. Then I took her to an acupuncturist. This was my first lesson in the body’s ability to talk to you. With much kindness our Chinese acupuncturist talked with Maci.  He said things to her like,” you have too much hurry worry and your body is hurting because of this.” I remember as those words came out of his mouth, I fought back tears, because it was so true. She came home that afternoon and broke up with her boyfriend and then the journey really began. I started researching the foods that hurt her gut the most and eliminated them from her diet. Here is what I found. The reason she was having so much trouble digesting grains is really two-fold. First her gut lining was damaged. Stress and foods she was eating and a lack of nutrient dense foods was destroying her gut lining. Not enough of the right bacteria to turn her foods into vitamins and fatty acids was causing much stress on her gut. There was nothing to protect her lining. Years of antibiotics had stripped her of all her good bacteria and left her defenseless. Just eliminating the food will eliminate the pain but then you need to fix the lining and add foods to do this. The best foods for this are cultured foods. She had a cultured food at every meal. Kefir for breakfast and 1 to 2 tbsp of cultured veggies at lunch and dinner. Then kombucha or coconut kefir to drink at every meal. She also had a lot of bone broths made into soups. They are healing to the digestive track because of the collagen in the broth. She also ate a ton of coconut oil by the tbsp. Usually 3 tbsp a day. I would watch as she got a burst of energy from this and was always amazed. All these foods are healing to the gut. Each one plays a different part in the healing. As she got better I discover why we have such trouble with grains now. Grains are not the same as they used to be. For 100 of years they would cut the sheaths of grains and stack them in the fields and leave them to gather the next day. The dew would make the grains sprout and unlock the nutrients and deactivate the phytic acid, and enzyme inhibitors. Than the workers would gather the grains and take the seeds off the stalks to be used. Today we have combine machine that take the seeds off instantly never allowing the grains to sprout. Then for years and still today in European countries we always used sourdough starters to rise our breads, which transforms the bread in the same way that sprouting does. It puts lactobacillus into the bread. These wonderful bacteria’s that not only change our breads into a healthful foods, also change our bodies the same way. Now we have instant yeast and the bread never has a chance to transform. Couple this with guts that are so damaged they can barely digest anything and you have a recipe for disaster. Grains take huge amounts of B vitamins to digest and when you are under a lot of stress you don’t have what you need. Sprouting a grain activates all the B vitamins that are locked in there, giving you what you need to digest it.

So the formula. Remove or deal with stress. Heal the gut with fermented foods and nutrient dense foods. Then once it is healed  add sprouted or sourdough grains. This is what I did and have watched many others do. My daughter can now eat anything and is free from a life sentence without grains. She loves life and can’t wait to get out of bed. Food is not something that she is afraid of but something that brings her great joy. If you are reading this blog chances are your body is trying to tell you something. Your body is your best teacher are you listening?

How to make Strawberry Gingerade Coconut Kefir

This Drink is so delicious you’ll want to drink it everyday. it is fizzy and bubbly and full of flavor.It is a great way to get probiotics in your kids because it taste so good!

Heat 1 quart of young green coconut water to 92 degrees or skin temperature. (You can find coconut water in the Asian sections of your grocery store or health food stores.

Add entire foil package of  Kefir culture package and stir to dissolve thoroughly.

You can also use 1/4 cup of  kefir whey, but you will have to use a new cup of kefir whey each time to make this. With the culture packages you can use the first batch 13 to 17 times to make new batches or until it quits culturing.

Add 1 tbsp of fresh grated ginger

Pour into a close able vessel.Such as a bottle with a clamp down lid. It will now take 4-5 days for the kefir to culture at room temperature.  The coconut water will become cloudy as the culture grows and it will become “fizzy” and lose its sweetness and become tart.  When the coconut kefir is complete ,add 4 or 5 frozen strawberries to about 8 ounces  of the coconut kefir and whirl in a blender. Then sit down and enjoy this delicious probiotic drink. Or refrigerate for later.

If you used the  Kefir culture packages save 6 tablespoons from each batch to inoculate the next quart of coconut water. It will culture faster each time. Many times it will only take a day to culture. You can do this up to 6 times on each package or until it stops culturing. Mine can go up to 13 times.

If you use 1/4  cup of kefir whey,  you will start over each time with your kefir whey in new coconut juice.

Here is how to make kefir whey.

Here is how I know a recipe that I have created is something people will like. This particular recipe scenario went like this. I sampled my recipe for breakfast and then while I was eating it, I started plotting when I would eat it again, like lunch. So then at lunch I start listing in my head all the nutrients and all over health benefits of eating this food many times. This of course goes on while I am eating the chosen recipe. Than after dinner I decide that it would make a fabulous dessert only to discover that someone has eaten the rest of it. Slightly irritated, I realize that yes my recipe is a success. Everybody is eating it and I can’t stop eating it. Yes, it is truly a love affair for me between the joy of eating something good for me, while enjoying the deliciousness of the food.
This recipe fits these criteria. Hope you like it.
But first I must tell you; The Legend of Kefir

There are so many stories of kefir that you can pick and choose which one suits you. It has been around for thousands of years. The stories are many and the mystics behind this food would make a great documentary. The one main point is that is seems to date back to the time of Abraham. It is there in ancient scrolls found in Turkey, that Abraham credits his long life to this fermented milk. There are  more stories told in Turkey and in Russia. The first is that kefir grains were the manna that fell from the sky to feed the children of Israel. Another story I heard that is told quite often in Turkey is that they were given to Noah from an angel to sustain him. Marco Polo also mentioned kefir in the chronicles of his travels in the East.

This is the most documented story about kefir. In the Caucasian Mountains, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea there is a legend that Mohammad who claims that the grains were a gift from Allah, gave kefir grains to the  people and taught them how to make kefir. The ‘Grains of the Prophet’ were guarded carefully since it was believed that they would lose their strength if the grains were given away and the secret of how to use them became common knowledge.
Other people occasionally heard strange tales of this unusual beverage which was believed to have ‘magical’ properties.
Not many people outside the Caucasus used kefir and it was mostly forgotten about for centuries until news spread of its use for the treatment of tuberculosis. Russian doctors believed that kefir was beneficial for health and the first scientific studies for kefir were published at the end of the nineteenth century.
However, kefir was extremely difficult to obtain and grains were the only way to make this drink and very hard to come by.
In 1908 a committee of Russian Doctors determined to get some grains, came up with a plan. They contacted  two brothers called Blandov that ran the Moscow Dairy and had connections in the Caucasians mountains, were they made some of their cheese products.

They sent a beautiful employee named Irina Sakharova, to the court of a local prince to see if she could entice him to give her some grains. The prince was quite taken with her but had no intentions of giving her kefir grains, so instead he kidnapped her for himself.
However the Tsar was not happy when he discovered the facts of what the prince had done, and ruled that the prince was to give Irina ten pounds of kefir grains, to repay  her for the insults she had endured.

In Russia in the 1930 the first commercial kefir was made and sold and the rest is history. In 1973 the Minister of the Food Industry of the Soviet Union sent a letter to Irina Sakharova thanking her for bringing kefir to the Russian people.

So this food that seems to have been around since time began has written it own story on the lives of my family and friends. The stories are quite astounding and they still continue to grow. Maybe it is time that you meet my friend kefir. Here is how to make kefir.

Here is another way to enjoy kefir on a cold winter morning.

Apple Kefir Breakfast

2 apples (Golden Delicious or Rome Beauty), medium size
2 Tbsps butter
1 tbsp sucanat
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts
1/4 cup of water

Wash and core the apples almost to the bottom. Don’t core all the way to the bottom. Take a apple peeler and peel a thin strip all away around the apple. Place them in a baking dish. Combine the butter, cinnamon/sugar mixture and walnuts. Fill the cavity of each apple with the mixture, dividing it evenly among the two apples. Pour the water into the bottom of the baking dish.

Bake at 375°F for 30 minutes. Then let cool and make the kefir topping.

Kefir Topping.

2 cup plain kefir

2  tsp cinnamon

4  tbsp maple syrup ( or four packages of stevia for a lower sugar option)

Mix plain kefir with the cinnamon and  maple syrup and blend in blender. You can also use stevia in place of the maple syrup if wanting to cut down on sugar. When apple is warm not hot, ( you don’t want to kill the good bacteria) pour kefir topping over top of apple and serve. You can add some golden raisins and extra walnuts if you like. This is really delicious and the house smells heavenly.