A-Z Challenge - 'F'

Fermentation is the topic of the day. When we hear the word fermented we tend to think of alcohol, but there are a couple of fermented beverages that have less to do with the alcohol and more to do with probiotics. Kefir, kombucha, and kvass are three that come immediately to mind (don't worry, I'll be covering at least two of these in more detail on 'K'-day). In addition to these beverages, many foods also gain some nutritional benefits when fermented. Cabbage, for instance, is pretty good as it is but when fermented - becoming sauerkraut - it can be quite a bit better. Personally, this is not a good example as I can't stand the smell or taste of sauerkraut - but most people don't even realize that it is just fermented cabbage.
I have fairly recently embraced fermented drinks as a part of my regular nutritional intake. I have definitely seen some benefits!

For more information on fermented foods - specifically lacto-fermented foods (using whey from milk as the catalyst) - check out the book Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

...but if you try, sometimes you get what you need. In all of my posts that use songs or song references as titles, I don't think that I have ever used a Rolling Stones song. It seemed about time and You Can't Always Get What You Want seemed the perfect one for this post. When I got the whey from Deerfield Farm last Wednesday, I was all excited to try my hand at making beet kvass. When I went to the grocery store on Thursday, I was fully intending to buy some beets for the same purpose. No luck - I couldn't get what I wanted. But I tried again today, and I got what I needed! So today, I started the kvass-making process.

Sally Fallon provides a recipe for beet kvass in her book, Nourishing Traditions. It is as follows:

• 3 medium or 2 large beets, peeled and chopped up coarsely (I cubed them)
• 1/4 cup whey
• 1 Tablespoon sea salt
• Filtered water

Add all of the ingredients to a 2 quart container (I used two 1 quart mason jars). Add filtered water to fill the container, stir well, and cover securely. Leave the container(s) at room temperature for two days before transferring to the refrigerator.
That's it!

I gathered all of the ingredients and got ready to put it all together. For a little variety, I added a couple of baby carrots and a celery stalk to the recipe. As I don't have a larger jar to use (other than a plastic container that I don't want to use as the beet juice might permanently stain it), I am using two of my 1-quart mason jars. The 1/2 gallon container to the right of center of the picture is the whey.

I cubed the beets, carrots, and celery (though the celery obviously didn't result in cube shaped pieces!). It is not recommended to shred them as that would produce too much juice and the fermentation would happen too fast. This would result in more alcohol and less lactic acid. It is the lactic acid that we are after, here.

I divided the vegetables equally into my two mason jars to which I had already added 1/8 cup of whey (half of the called for quantity in each jar) and 1 teaspoon of sea salt. From feedback that I have read, following the recipe as written results in a too-salty drink. Rather than using the full tablespoon of salt, I used only the two teaspoons. I am hoping that adding the carrots and celery might produce a somewhat sweeter tasting kvass.

Finally, I added the filtered water to the jars and screwed on the lids. The jars are currently sitting on the kitchen counter (right next to my most recent batch of kefir!) where they will remain for the next 48 hours.


According to Sally Fallon, after most of the liquid has been consumed, I can simply top off the jars with more filtered water to make a second, slightly weaker batch. So, at a cost of $2.49 for the beets I will have about a gallon of kvass when all is done. This is considerably more affordable than buying bottled beet kvass at retail!

While I was in the 'creating' mode, I decided to be experimental with my smoothie for dinner. I used my standard 1 cup of frozen mixed berries (Trader Joe's Very Cherry Berry Blend) as a starter. To this, I added whey, kefir, some milk and raw honey, and a couple of prunes. For the experiment, I added a celery stalk! I wasn't sure if my blender would do a decent job of turning celery into a puree, but it worked. I was really surprised at how good it tasted. The celery was evident but not overpowering. Adding it is going to be a regular thing.

No Easy 'Whey' Out

The title for this post was an easy one for me, yet contrary to the title I did get an easy 'whey' out! So, the song may or may not be obvious to you but it has long been one of my favorites. It is 'No Easy Way Out' and can be found on the soundtrack from Rocky IV.
We were running low on milk, so I made a call to Deerfield Farm yesterday to reserve 3 gallons for today. I was surprised when Melynda answered the phone as I usually get the answering machine. I was further surprised when she told me that she had some whey for me! While I had inquired about having them reserve some whey for me when they made cheese, we hadn't been able to coordinate it up until today. Now I am the proud owner of a half gallon of whey! Well, it is now slightly less than a half gallon as I added some to the smoothie that I had for dinner...
As I haven't made my own yogurt in quite some time, I really haven't has any whey to use for other purposes. Unlike making yogurt and cheese, making kefir doesn't produce whey as a by-product. Now that I have a decent quantity of whey, I plan to make some kvass even though I wasn't terribly impressed by the taste of the kvass that I purchased. I plan to pick up some vegetables on our grocery shopping trip tomorrow so that I can try a couple of different blends in making my own kvass. I don't plan to make too much as I am not sure that I will like my own 'brew' any better than the purchased variety.

Changes

I admit it, I was having a really hard time coming up with a suitable song link for this post.  What I really want to talk about today is a trio of probiotic, fermented beverages and I just couldn't find a related song, band, or album to go along with them.  One possible link was The KKK Took My Baby Away by the Ramones, but only because all three of these drinks begin with the letter 'K.'  While I mention that song here, I decided against using it as the reference for this post.  Instead, I decided on Changes by David Bowie.  This is because adding these three drinks to my daily diet definitely (how's that alliteration?) represents a change for me.

So, what are these drinks?

First, I want to talk about kefir.  I am still not quite sure of the proper pronunciation of this word.  I have heard it pronounced as 'key-fur' as well as 'keh-fear.'  Either way, this is great stuff!  Kefir is primarily found as a cultured milk product.  I mentioned my then-new project of making my own kefir in a previous post - Wouldn't It Be Nice - so I won't go into too much detail about that here.  According to kefir.net, kefir is:

"a cultured, enzyme-rich food filled with friendly micro-organisms that help balance your “inner ecosystem.” More nutritious and therapeutic than yogurt, it supplies complete protein, essential minerals, and valuable B vitamins."

Since I began making my own kefir a couple of months ago, I have been drinking it almost daily - except for the duration of the master cleanse.  At first, I wasn't quite thrilled by the taste but neither did I hate it.  Now, I actually like it.  For that matter, I am also enjoying the taste of plain yogurt now though I really couldn't stand it when I first tried it.  My taste buds have definitely adjusted to a lot of foods that I never used to like.  While I haven't seen any major improvement in my health since I started drinking kefir, I know that I am better off because of it.  As with everything else, healing takes time.  While kefir is available at the grocery stores, I have yet to find any that is made from whole milk and doesn't contain undesirable additives.  Plus, all of the bottled kefir that I have found is pasteurized.

Next comes kombucha.  Kombucha is a fermented tea drink.  It is essentially made by using a kombucha 'mushroom' or 'mother' to ferment any variety of tea.  Because of the fact that it is made from tea, it can come in many flavors.  I have only been able to find one brand of kombucha locally, though I haven't exhausted all possibilities.  Neither Stop & Shop nor Trader Joe's carry it.  I am told that Whole Foods sells it, but I don't get out there very often.  As of now, the only place I have been able to get it is It's Only Natural so I am limited to what they carry.  Today, I picked up some Botanic No. 9 and Gingerade varieties.  I had previously tried the Multigreen flavor but I am not too thrilled with the taste.  It wasn't bad and I would drink it if the others weren't available, but it wouldn't be my first choice.
I am tempted to try to make my own kombucha.  The start-up cost is a bit higher than it was for kefir, but it seems like the ongoing costs would be less.  Rather than using raw milk that I pay $7.50 per gallon to make kefir, I would be using tea and sugar.  One gallon of sweetened tea costs a lot less than $7.50!  In addition to the mother, I would eventually need to buy some larger jars to make the kombucha in.  I currently use the one quart mason jars for kefir and I could start with them, but given the fact that kombucha takes longer to ferment than kefir, I would want to make larger batches.

Finally, kvass is another beverage that has been around for a long time.  There are a couple of different ways to make kvass.  One uses stale rye bread while another uses beets.  Kvass is really new to me.  I read about it in Nourishing Traditions, but have only recently tried it.  It was sitting in the cooler at It's Only Natural right next to the kombucha with a big sign: "If you like kombucha, you will LOVE KVASS!"  Well, I figured that I would give it a shot...  So much for truth in advertising!  While I do like kombucha, I certainly do not love kvass - at least, not the variety that I tried.  The flavor that I purchased was ginger-carrot kvass.  My guess is that instead of using beets to make the kvass, they used ginger and carrots.  It wasn't great but neither was it horrible.  Today on my trip to I.O.N., I decided to give it another shot.  This time I opted for the beet kvass (as I write this, the kvass is sitting in the fridge while I am drinking Gingerade kombucha).
Kvass seems to be a lot easier to make than kombucha - similar to kefir in complexity and time.  It does, however, require whey as the fermentation agent - at least, for the first batch.  Fortunately, whey is easy to acquire - I can separate some raw milk on my own or get some from Deerfield Farm when they make cheese.  While the jury hasn't reached a verdict on kvass - maybe it is just an acquired taste - I am thinking that the relative ease of making it and the ability to customize the taste by using different vegetables will make kvass a staple for me.  We'll see how that goes, though.


Without actually doing the math, it is obvious that making/brewing my own probiotic drinks is a lot more cost effective than buying them retail.  Of the three, kombucha is the most labor intensive having to first brew the tea, add sugar and the mother, and allow to ferment for 7-10 days.  Kefir simply requires the addition of the grains to fresh milk in a loosely covered jar (I use a coffee filter over the mouth of a mason jar secured with the mason jar ring) with an occasional stir during the 24-48 hours of fermentation.  Kvass seems to merely require cutting the vegetables into cubes, adding them to a jar with whey, sea salt, and water, and allowing the fermentation to occur at room temperature for 48 hours.

It will be interesting to see how it works!