A Change of Pace

With the thrill of Covid-19, lots of things have changed while some remain the same... (Now, I have The Song Remains the Same going through my head!)

Today, two days earlier than expected, I received my recent order from Amazon: a case of Bai Puna Coconut Pineapple, Organic Chia Seeds, and Organic Stevia Powder. While I have consumed both the Bai Puna and the chia seeds, this will be my first attempt to use stevia powder. Sure, I hve consumed several things with stevia as a sweetener all ready included on the list or ingredients. The difference is that I don't add sugar/sweetener to anything. For instance, the tea I drink is always unsweetened.
One of the things that I like to drink, though, is Kevita's Lemon Cayenne water kefir. That uses stevia as the sweetener and it delivers only 5 calories per 8 oz. serving. I really like the limit in sugars, the taste, and the probitic effect that the kefir provides. I don't really like the price that one bottle costs, though. The best price that I can find it for is about $3. Not really expensive, but...

So, here's my plan! I'll brew some tea - either green tea or Bigelow's Lemon Ginger tea - and add some lemon juice, cayenne, and the stevia powder. I'll be lacking the benefit of the kefir but I'll gain the benefit of the lemon/cayenne. Bigelow's Lemon Ginger IS marketed as probiotic. It includes the ingredient of Ganeden BC30 probiotic (follow the link to learn more about that).
The RIGHT thing for me to do would be to squeeze my own lemons (and use grade B maple syrup) for the Master Cleanse, but that's not my current goal. I simply want to add the benefits of the lemon/cayenne beverage to my consumption without the price.
For dinner tonight, I'll be consuming about 5g of net carbs for the whole meal... chicken, cauliflower, cheese, and lemon ginger tea with the said added ingredients.

I definitely plan on increasing my lemon/cayenne tea over the next, couple of days. So, we'll see how well the added stevia powder works for me - I may just not like it...

A-Z Challenge - 'K'

The hardest choice for 'K' was whether to use kombucha or kefir as my topic. I have great reasons to talk about both of them - so I will! These have really become a major part of my journey to wellness.
Kombucha:
Now that the weather is getting warmer, I really want to start brewing my own kombucha. Getting the SCOBY isn't really my concern. I have found several, reasonably priced sources. I would rather find someone local that is already brewing it to get a baby SCOBY from, but so far no luck on that. The bigger part of the problem is having a suitable place to brew it - we just don't have that much room in our kitchen - and buying suitable equipment to brew it in. One website sells a 'continuous brewing system' that starts at about $170. While this isn't too expensive, it is a big chunk of cash up front. Somehow, an average of $4 per bottle seems a lot more affordable when spread over time rather than a big, one-time purchase. Of course, the brewing costs are minimal - a couple of tea bags and some sugar every once in a while will cost me considerably less per serving than the bottled kombucha.

Kefir:
Raw milk kefir has been an almost daily mainstay for me since I started making it in November of last year. While I intend to continue making and drinking milk kefir, I am now also making water kefir. I intend to replace some of my milk kefir consumption (average 20 oz. per day) with water kefir. Though it isn't always daily, I usually drink some milk kefir first thing in the morning - after I drink my VIDACELL -  to start the day with the probiotics and occasionally drink some more prior to eating the larger meal(s) of the day. My plan for water kefir is to use it in place of the pre-meal probiotic in addition to using it for regular hydration throughout the day. I may also alternate it with milk kefir for my morning probiotic drink.
For the last couple of days, I have added some additional whey that I got directly from Deerfield Farm - a by-product of their cheese-making - to my milk kefir. I only added about 2 oz.whey to the 20 oz. bottle of kefir. So as not to interfere with the culturing process, I waited until the kefir was done and strained (to recover the grains for the next batch) prior to adding the whey. The whey provides a nice boost to the protein content of the kefir.

So Excited!

Today's song is So Excited by Stevie Ray Vaughn. I am really excited because my water kefir grains arrived today! Moments after reading the really simple instructions, I started the process of brewing my own water kefir. It will take a minimum of 48 hours for the sugar water to fully ferment. If the kefir is still too sweet, I can choose to allow the grains to continue working for up to 6 days.
I went searching for other possible recipes to add some variety and it seems that just about anything will work. One kefir maker suggests straining out the grains, adding fresh squeezed/pressed juices to the 'brew,' and allowing it to ferment for another day before refrigerating. The longer it is allowed to ferment, the lower the sugar content and the higher the alcohol content. Every site that I checked noted that the alcohol content will not get to anything higher than 1% as there just isn't enough sugar to bring it higher. It is at this point that I really wish I had a juicer so that I could juice some grapes, apples, or other fruits to add to the recipe. Citrus fruits are easily squeezed, so I might just opt for lemonade kefir for the first attempt. While this isn't really a new step on my journey to wellness, it is certainly a modification.

Another reason for my excitement today is that I discovered a new flavor (for me) of kombucha! I stopped in to a not-so-local Whole Foods Market to see what they offered for kombucha and found that they had a really nice selection to choose from. They carry a wide variety of GT's kombucha and Synergy drinks. They are also almost $1.00 cheaper per bottle than It's Only Natural. I just wish that they were more local... Anyway, they only had a couple of bottles of the Gingerade flavor so I decided to try something different. My new favorite variety of kombucha is GT's Synergy Ginerberry! Instead of being pure kombucha, Synergy is 95% kombucha and 5% fruit juice so it is a bit higher in sugar. I had previously tried the Trilogy variety and while I liked it, I didn't find it to be all that different. As a result, I wasn't expecting much from the Gingerberry. The flavor blew me away! I will definitely be getting some more of it.

No Need to Implement Plan B

I purchased a new pack of pepper seeds just in case the ones I planted in the seed starter never ended up sprouting but never got around to planting them. As it turns out, plan B is not needed as the original seeds finally started sprouting. (Today's song reference is actually an album reference - Plan B by the Steve Dunn Band.) The only problem now is that the weather has not been consistently warm enough to move the tomato and cucumber seedlings outside and the pepper seedlings are far too new to take the lid off of the 'greenhouse' during the middle of the day when the sun is strongest. Hopefully, I will be able to plant the tomatoes and cucumbers soon and allow the peppers to fully develop.

Today was a pretty good day. Went to church in the morning, had lunch at Mortensen's with the family, gave myself a haircut (and it came out looking pretty good), and went for a walk (again, with the family but with the addition of Ginger).

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of the water kefir grains that I ordered the other day. I received confirmation that they have shipped, but there is no tracking information available. Hopefully my order will arrive soon and I will be able to start making and drinking water kefir! I know there is more than just water required to make water kefir, but it will still be considerably more affordable than milk kefir (though I will continue to make that - just less of it) and kombucha (until I start making that, too!). I am really excited about the potential of this next step on my journey to wellness!
I found a site comparing kombucha to water kefir. Check it out at: Common Sense Homesteading.

Take a Chance

Why didn't I think of this sooner? I have started keeping and washing out the glass bottles that I have been getting my kombucha in. Until now, I have been making and storing my kefir in one quart mason jars. This is great for making it and even though I consume a quart of kefir in a couple of days, I haven't been too pleased with using the jars to store it. I don't have any lids other than the two-piece canning lids and these are just not ideal for kefir. Canning normally creates a vacuum that makes the metal lids perfect for that purpose. Kefir, however, builds pressure in the jar. This hasn't been a real problem - it just tends to be a bit messy. For the last two batches of kefir, I have used the empty kombucha bottles. Two of them hold one quart nicely! Also, I find it easier to drink the kefir directly from these bottles rather than pouring it into a glass from the mason jar.

I decided to Take a Chance on water kefir (song reference courtesy of The Steve Dunn Band with Take a Chance). The other day, I got a $25.00 gift card for amazon.com as a reward for completing a survey. Today, I used part of it to order some water kefir grains to complement my milk kefir. I am looking forward to giving this a shot. It sounds really easy to 'brew' water kefir and also really versatile. Besides that, it will be a LOT more affordable to make water kefir than it is to make milk kefir! I do intend to continue making milk kefir - I will just be able to make less.

Gimme Some Water (Kefir)

Yesterday was a pretty encouraging day. Each Thursday for the last several weeks we have been going to the local YMCA for an hour of pool time. We ended up getting there a little early for our scheduled hour, but they are not strict about our arrival time and let us in. Rather than heading straight to the pool, I took a side trip to fitness room and ripped off three 'supersets' of seated row and bench press. A superset is basically just chaining two (or more) different motions together with no rest in between. Commonly, the motions will work opposing muscle groups - back and chest, bicep and triceps, quadriceps and hamstrings, etc.. It is a good method to use when you are looking for a workout but are pressed for time. By chaining opposing movements together, you can reduce downtime. One muscle group rests while the other works.
I didn't want to take too much time in the fitness room, so doing a superset of exercises that I cannot easily do at home just made sense. I didn't pay much attention to the weight I was pushing (or pulling). I started with the seated row machine and did about 20 reps before switching to the bench press machine to do about 15 reps. In both cases, I would have been hard pressed to do another repetition without a rest. I could have physically done more, but I felt that I had already taken too much time.
In previous visits to the pool, I hadn't really done too much actual swimming. Mostly I just spent the time playing in the pool with the kids. This time (as I had done during the previous visit) I spent some timing swimming laps. While I had always been a decent swimmer, I am currently closer to a manatee than I am to Michael Phelps in speed. I am also more of a sinker than a floater.
Already tired from the supersets and the lap swimming, I wanted to see how long I could maintain treading water. I went to the break from the shallow end to the deep end - deep enough so that I could effectively tread water but shallow enough that I would be able to stand if I got too tired. I held on for about three minutes for my first bout - not spectacular, but I am not complaining.
After swimming and grocery shopping, we came home and I went online to do some writing. Recently I started writing on a site called List My Five. This site asks contributors to create a Top 5 list of anything they want. The goal for the contributor is to create lists about popular topics that will bring in readers and generate ad revenue. More readers = more revenue which gets shared with the contributors. As a result of my new venture, I have increased my presence on Twitter trying to draw in some traffic to my lists. This has also had the effect of drawing in new twitter followers.
One of those new followers asked me if I had ever tried water kefir and directed me to his website. While I have not yet tried water kefir, I am more encouraged to do so. My experience with milk kefir has been excellent and my experience with kvass has not. I just don't like it and I am not going to continue making it. I have decided to add what remains of my attempt(s) at kvass directly to my compost heap - I am just not impressed. I am giving serious consideration to brewing my own kombucha and now will likely add water kefir. I encourage you to check it out at Tom's site: usuryfreeliving.net.
As usual, I started my day with a packet of VIDACELL blended with a tablespoon of coconut oil. Because of my last cycle with the Master Cleanse, I have quite a bit of VIDACELL on hand, so not only did I start my day with it, I also ended my day with another serving. As I intend to do another cleanse in the next week or so, I will build up an even larger stock of VIDACELL (I decided to refrain from using VIDACELL during the cleanse). My plan is to use an extra serving or two per day until I start the cleanse.

Given yesterday's encounters with water, I am using Eddie Money's song, Gimme Some Water as the title of today's post.