Becoming More Cultured

I’ve really been getting into cultured food lately, especially since listening to Donna Gates’ interview on RenegadeHealth.com. Mainly I’ve been making kefir, yogurt and sauerkraut. I started out making raw goat milk kefir after I found an organic farmer that sells fresh goat’s milk raw.  Unpasteurized, unhomogenized, live enzymes intact – WOW – what a find so close to home and I don’t have to sneak across state borders in search of (pssst…whisper) ‘real’ milk.

Kefir is super easy to make – just warm the milk to 90F, allow to cool to 75F, sprinkle in some kefir starter and let it sit in a warm place for 24 hours. Oh my gosh, it tastes sooo good and tangy! I like to eat it plain or blend in a little chai spice and stevia – tastes like melted ice cream. The live cultures eat the milk sugars, making it digestable even for most lactose-intolerant peeps. And it’s great for the gut because it’s teeming with good live bacteria. I’ve also made kefir with coconut water which is good too, but I prefer the raw goat milk.

Then I tried making yogurt with raw goat milk. I didn’t want to heat the milk to 180F which kills the enzymes, so I experimented with making yogurt by heating only to 145F, but it came out runny. Still tasted good, but missing that nice thick, creamy consistency.

Next I tried coconut meat yogurt. I blended the meat of about three cocos with kefir starter and kept at 75F for 24 hours. Mmmm…not too crazy about this one, but it may have been a texture issue. I used a regular blender instead of a Vitamix and it came out a bit lumpy. Next time, I’ll try blending this one with the hi-speed demon.

My latest foray has been in making my own sauerkraut. This is soooo simple, a lot of chopping, but worth it! My fave way to make it so far is to shred 2 cabbage heads and blend 1/2 a head with a bit of water, sea salt and 3 garlic cloves and mix it in with the rest of the shredded cabbage, sprinkling it with soaked wakame through out. Then I packed it into a large food-safe bucket, compacting it down hard and covered it with a few large cabbage leaves. I placed a plate on top with a water-filled jar pressing it all down and then draped the whole shebang with a clean kitchen towel. A week later, I had a nice yummy sauerkraut! It’s a chilly here in Oz (which slows down the fermentation process) so the first batch was a bit young, but still very delicious! Every few days, I scoop some out and see how the flavor evolves and changes. I love this experiment and it’s soooo healing for the gut.

My Homemade Sauerkraut

I’m now reading Donna Gates’ book Body Ecology (BE) and it makes a lot of sense! It takes a nice balanced approach to diet, mostly 80%+ high raw vegetarian, low sugar with some cooked food mixed in. It makes sense to me because the high-raw low-sugar model, has loads of nuts and seeds. But with Body Ecology, instead of nuts, you are advised to eat lots of cultured foods, raw foods, gently cooked veggies, quinoa, millet and buckwheat. The book is kind of a balance between 20% macrobiotic and 80% raw food diet depending on climate, blood type and the individual.

Haven’t really gotten into cooked veggies, quinoa or buckwheat yet, but I might be exploring this a bit more, since I feel like my digestion is not super optimal. I think high raw is the way to go IF your digestion is strong. But if your digestion is compromised, the BE way helps to heal the gut and build the digestive fire necessary for raw food eating. Lots of alternative heath practioners i.e. Ayurvedics, Homeopathic, Chinese TM, etc. have told me I have a weak spleen(?) and should be incorporatng cooked warming foods, but I was too stubbornly set in my “raw food is the best way” fanaticism (which coincidentaly I DO still believe – lol.) BUT I think there is one caveat – 100% raw is amazing only if you have strong, healthy, uncompromised digestion. Well, maybe two caveats – if you’re really ill, I think green juice fasting can be miraculous. So I’m still on the high raw road, but taking a slight deviation on the ever-learning, ever-turning, scenic path.

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