New York Trilogy Class
Spend a day and immerse yourself into the world of making and eating cultured foods. Donna combines an inspiring day of information with lessons on how to make our trio, The Trilogy: kefir, kombucha, cultured vegetables, and extra info on sourdough bread, and water kefir. You’ll get to make and take home your own jar of cultured vegetables that will give you a starter for many more vegetables to come.
Your Teacher
Donna Schwenk has been making and eating cultured foods for sixteen years. She knows all the ins and outs of cultured foods, all the tips and tricks, and the simplest and fastest methods to give you the most success in making cultured foods. Learn the health benefits and the science on how to keep your body healthy by encouraging your trillions of bacteria to flourish and grow. Donna will not only be talking about kefir, kombucha and cultured veggies, but also water kefir and sourdough breads and all things cultured.
The Location
The New York Open Center offers holistically-based educational programs to create positive transformation in individuals and the world.
It was founded in 1984 with the intention of creating a forum for a new generation of seekers. Our founders felt there was an abundance of excellent spiritual teachers and practitioners in the New York City area without a physical space or destination in which to practice. With an event on the evening of January 13, 1984, the New York Open Center was born.
The initial focus of the center was on spiritual values but the mission quickly expanded to include how our values and intentions lead us to participate in the wider world. Since then, the New York Open Center has evolved into an urban destination for holistic learning, personal development, professional advancement and enrichment.
Programs are offered in spiritual inquiry and practice, psychology and self-development, holistic health, bodywork, movement and yoga, arts and creativity. The center also features concerts, performances and other special events. The Open Center is dedicated to making these educational and enriching opportunities available to anyone anywhere through online learning initiatives.
The Class
Have you heard about The Trilogy? Kefir, kombucha, and cultured veggies are three foods that can change your life and your body from the inside out. Donna will teach you all about these three powerful superfoods, and just how to make kefir, kombucha, cultured veggies, water kefir, and even tips on how to make sourdough bread. You’ll get to make a jar of cultured vegetables in class to take home, and the brine can be used again to make even more cultured vegetables. Eating The Trilogy changes you from the inside out quite literally. Diverse and with many different strains of probiotics, eating The Trilogy will change your gut and then the rest of your body begins to shine! Handouts, recipes, and giveaways will be given out during class. I will be making some special recipes for you to sample, so be prepared to eat!
The Class
Have you heard about The Trilogy? Kefir, kombucha, and cultured veggies are three foods that can change your life and your body from the inside out. Donna will teach you all about these three powerful superfoods, and just how to make kefir, kombucha, cultured veggies, water kefir, and even tips on how to make sourdough bread. You’ll get to make a jar of cultured vegetables in class to take home, and the brine can be used again to make even more cultured vegetables. Eating The Trilogy changes you from the inside out quite literally. Diverse and with many different strains of probiotics, eating The Trilogy will change your gut and then the rest of your body begins to shine! Handouts, recipes, and giveaways will be given out during class. I will be making some special recipes for you to sample, so be prepared to eat!
Here is what is included:
- Three methods will be taught on how to make The Trilogy – kefir, kombucha, and cultured veggies.
- Extra information and instructions on water kefir and sourdough bread.
- Handouts and recipes will be given to help you make all these foods at home.
- You will make a jar of your own cultured veggies that allows you to use the brine to make more cultured vegetables.
- There will be prizes and giveaways.
The Details
Where:
The New York Open Center
22 E. 3oth Street
New York, NY 10016
When:
April 27th, 2019
Time:
10:00 am - 5:30 pm Eastern Time
Cost:
- $125 for Open Center Members
- $155 for non-members
Best of Cultured Food Life 2018: Our Top Articles!
I hope 2018 was a wonderful year for you. I hope you incorporated cultured foods into your life and saw the difference they can make. I’ve been making and eating these foods for over sixteen years and they never cease to amaze and teach me. I hope you will look to this next year as a chance to find the you that you were always meant to be – healthy and happy. This is our top content of the year that you may have missed. Below you’ll find some of our most popular blogs of the year.
I wish you a year that is full of blessings and good health!
TOP TEN ARTICLES OF 2018
 The Probiotic That Inhibits Candida and Toxins
I love kombucha and not just because it tastes fantastic but because it has a special probiotic and is one of the most researched probiotics and has been used worldwide to support gastrointestinal health and can even work against candida. |
  A Cold You Can Beat After A Holiday Treat
As humans, we naturally crave a sweet taste. Sugar can drop your immune system by 75% and bring on colds and flu. Inside your body is a thriving inner ecosystem of microflora (good bacteria and yeasts) that keep you healthy and strong. |
  Overnight Sourdough Bread
I think fermentation is essential to bread making. If you don’t use the help of microbes to make the bread, you won’t get the nutrients out of the bread and gluten will become a problem. I’ve made a lot of sourdough bread and I have a new method that is working spectacularly. |
 How Gut Microbes Tell Your Hormones What to Do
Female hormones are complex and beautifully made. But take those hormones and ignore them, and they will get your attention through symptoms of discomfort that can lead to disease and believe you me, they can wreak havoc on your life. Your microbes can help you with all thing hormonal. |
  Probiotic Foods for Food Poisoning and Stomach Virus
Of all the health ailments cultured foods can help with, the one I hear the most about is either food poisoning or stomach virus (Gastroenteritis). I’ve seen it work personally on my family many times. When I started sharing this remedy with my friends, I was overwhelmed by how much it was helping them. |
 The Flu Shot in a Jar
Fall through winter is the time of year they call “flu season.” People are really afraid of it but I have often said, “The flu should be afraid of me!” When you build up the good bacteria in your body, you create an army that goes with you everywhere you go and touches every person you come in contact with. |
 Kefir And Your Blood Pressure
For years, kefir has lowered my blood pressure as well as the blood pressure of many others, but now I know why and how it works. I love it when food can bring you back into balance. These beautiful cells in our body know how to be well if only given the right tools. |
 Fermented Sauerkraut and Breast Cancer
Sauerkraut is incredible food. It’s so exciting to see the research flooding in about all the things these foods can do. Cancer and cultured foods have an interesting connection that has helped so many with this deadly disease. |
 Einkorn Sourdough Bread
Einkorn wheat is the most ancient species of wheat. All wheat that we consume today is descended from einkorn wheat. People who are gluten intolerant seem to do great on this bread and for good reason. Einkorn does contain gluten, but it is a different type of gluten and doesn't contain the troublesome D genome, which is the source of most gluten intolerance. |
 Is Kombucha Good For You?
As of late, kombucha has been getting a lot of press and as it becomes more and more popular, it is causing quite a stir in the beverage business. Learn the truth to the stories and see the research about this powerful drink. |
My Kombucha’s Not Bubbly?
Bubbly, fizzy kombucha is one of my favorite things. Understanding the science behind how it works can help you create the carbonation that most people are looking for.
#1 Probiotic Used in Hospitals
Let me explain to you how it all works. When making kombucha, the fermenting tea will form a SCOBY on top. It will be the size of the opening of your jar. It forms a seal, and this will let the yeasts in the kombucha seal in the naturally-occurring carbonation. Then the yeasts will begin to consume the sugar in the tea, and the by-product of this is a natural carbonation. Just as yeast makes bread rise, the good yeasts in kombucha make your tea bubbly. One certain probiotic yeast found in kombucha is called Saccharomyces boulardii. It is the number one probiotic used in hospitals, called Florastor. It is abundant in kombucha, and believe me when I tell you that you need this in your body. It helps a myriad of processes. There are good yeasts and bacteria in kombucha; and while most say it's a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeasts, this isn't exactly true. Bacteria and yeasts compete for dominance, and they can hold each other in a delicate balance. If one is weak, the other takes over and this can affect the carbonation in your kombucha.
Naturally-Occurring Carbonation
There are lots of bacteria and yeasts in kombucha, and when they start fermenting your tea they consume the sugar in the tea and create ethanol and carbon dioxide - or what I call naturally-occurring carbonation. The good bacteria consume the ethanol and create new compounds and amino acids that give you the boost your body needs. It can help your joints and assist your liver in detoxification along with a host of other things. Check out — Why I Drink Kombucha Every Day. So does this mean kombucha has a lot of alcohol? No, and in fact, it has such a small amount that you can get the same amount of alcohol in orange juice or a pack of chewing gum. The current testing method often confuses organic acids and naturally-occurring sedimentation for ethanol. This increases the reading of the alcohol content to a higher percentage than is actually contained in the product.
Kombucha is a lot of fun to make, and getting it fizzy is fun and easy. You just need to understand what's happening. Here are a few tips to help you with the process.
Tips For Bubbly Kombucha
Make Sure Your Kombucha Tea Starter Tea and SCOBY are Healthy.
If you haven't made kombucha regularly and have let the tea and SCOBY sit for months, it might not have the number of bacteria and yeasts it needs to make bubbly kombucha. If there are too many yeasts and not enough bacteria, it won't work properly. So it is best to get a new SCOBY and starter tea. The starter tea has lots of bacteria and yeasts in it, and is just as important as the SCOBY. The only way to know if it will work is to try and make a batch. If it gets bubbly, then you're good to go!
Don’t Let It Get Overly Sour.
Bottle your kombucha tea when it's slightly sweet. It will continue to ferment in the fridge. When it turns too sour, that means the yeasts and bacteria have run out of food and your kombucha will go flat. This is really important in regards to fizzy kombucha. Those microbes need the sugar to consume and make probiotics and lots of carbonation. Remember, the sugar in the tea is for those good bacteria and yeasts and not for you.
Second Ferment Your Kombucha.
This is a great way to make fizzy kombucha. After your first ferment, you can bottle it with a little fruit juice when it is still just a tiny bit sweet. Add your juice and transfer to airtight bottles. The yeasts will go crazy eating the sugars out of your tea, and will make lots of bubbles. Check out this link for the recipe on how to do this.
Use Good Bottles!
Use good bottles made for brewing. Clamp down flip top bottles work really well. You can also use old kombucha bottles, they work well too. You want a bottle with a good seal that keeps the carbonation in. You also want to make sure your bottles are made of thick glass and are made for brewing, or else they can build up too much carbonation and explode. If you use a canning jar, you're going to lose a lot of fizz since it doesn't seal the same way a bottle top would. Always fill your bottles up to the top for more fizz. I like to leave a half inch, but some people say they're more successful if they fill it up to the top and remove all the oxygen.
Temperature Helps Determines How Quickly It Brews
Temperature is a huge factor in the timing of when your brew will be done. If your home is 75 degrees or above, it can take one to three days, or slightly longer. Cooler homes can take longer, and warmer temps will brew it even faster. It also depends on how sweet your tea is, but the warmer the temps are, the faster it will brew. You'll need to check it every day to make sure the bottles don't explode. Open the bottles and if they start to fizz out, that means they're done. Then you place the bottles in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. Patience is a virtue!
How to Tell When Your Bottles are Done
If you open a bottle and it fizzes out, it's done. However, if it's been fermenting for a while, then you'll need to taste it to see how it's doing. If it's sweet, that means the good bacteria and yeasts haven't eaten all the sugar out of it and you need to let it keep fermenting. If it tastes tart and not sweet at all, and isn't fizzy, it's probably already started to turn into vinegar and is past the point of saving. You either bottled it when it was too tart and didn't have enough sugars to let the bacteria and yeast have enough food to eat, or your starter tea and SCOBY weren’t strong enough to begin with, so you’ll need a new one.
Best of Cultured Food Life 2017: Our Top Articles and Videos!
Happy New Year!
2017 Articles
I hope 2017 was a wonderful year for you. I hope you incorporated cultured foods into your life and saw the difference they can make. I’ve been making and eating these foods for over fifteen years and they never cease to amaze and teach me. I was talking with one of my good friends about how much we love kefir, and she has had a similar experience. We both have a love affair with kefir. We can’t go without kefir because of all the amazing benefits it brings to us. I think I know everything there is to know about this food and then something will occur in my life and kefir finds a way to help me through it. Whether it be emotional stress, anxiety, a virus, menopause, blood pressure, moving across the country, skin rashes, or cholesterol issues it is kefir and cultured foods that have been my constant companions and food-like medicine. I believe these foods found me when I needed them the most fifteen years ago. The gratefulness I felt was hard to contain and spilled into the books, classes, website, and podcast I create weekly. You see, this isn’t just food to me, it was the answer to my prayers and took me on a journey I did not expect. But love will do this to you, it can rearrange your life and fill it with new adventures and people. Pain and suffering can turn into joy and I found myself falling in love with invisible microbes that rearranged my body so they could help me. And then I found you. People I may never meet but I love and care for. Watching your lives transform from struggle to hope and then healing is the greatest gift I receive each and every day. You will never know how many times I have been bogged down with the stress of running a business and then I get a letter from you, sharing your life and how these foods have helped you, and I just cry and remember why I do what I do. We all are helping each other with our own stories and it is the greatest privilege of being human, sharing our lives with one another. It is my heartfelt desire that you know just how much I love and appreciate you, and even the struggles that lead you to the answers you’re seeking.
Here are some of this past year’s most popular posts – many are videos. Let’s make 2018 a year to remember. Love your guts, quite literally.
How To Fix Your Seasonal Allergies
I have had seasonal allergies since I was twelve or thirteen years old. For months in the springtime, I locked myself inside the house and turned to drugs and steroids that harmed my immune system. This seemed to be what everybody did and I did the same because I had nowhere else to look. . .
Jicama if You’re Sicka-ma! 📹 Video
If you are looking for an easy cultured veggie that your family will love, then you have to try Jicama if You’re Sicka-ma. […]
Probiotic Foods and Cancer
In 2010, I had just started my blog and Facebook page, and the second person to post on my page was a man named Chris asking me How to Make Kombucha. He was a friend of my older kids and what I didn’t know at the time was Chris had just been diagnosed with […]
Kefir and Diabetes
I remember that day quite vividly. It was over fifteen years ago. It was February and bitter cold outside. I made myself a breakfast that I thought was healthy – high-fiber cereal and skim milk. Thirty minutes later a terrible feeling came over me […]
Life Changing – 20 Second Kombucha Mayo
Mayonnaise is a common condiment that so many of us use regularly. Mayo was said to be the invention of one of the great chefs of France. Marie-Antoine Carême was the personal chef of the Duke de Richelieu in 1756. […]
Can You Make Happiness in Your Gut?
Emotions are my best friends. They help me not only understand my present state but also how my body is doing. Researchers are discovering that an imbalance in your gut can cause mental symptoms. They call the gut the second brain, and boy are they right. […]
Nut Milk Kefir That Looks and Tastes Like Thick Yogurt
We went to a nut farm this weekend and found just about every kind of nut you could imagine. Nuts are prebiotic foods and your gut loves them. I love my kefir, but nut milks don’t always make thick and creamy kefir as much as cow’s milk — until now. […]
18 Ways To Use Fermented Garlic!
There are certainly many ways to enjoy garlic, but having a jar of fermented garlic in your fridge is easy and convenient to use. You can use this in so many ways, and it is even great to hand on hand for heated recipes. […]
Time-Lapse Video – Kombucha SCOBY Forming
This is a time-lapse video I did to show you how a SCOBY forms in your kombucha. It’s quite a beautiful thing to behold with all the bacteria and yeasts dancing around in the jar. I hope you enjoy it. […]
Why I Drink Kombucha Every Day
Kombucha is an amazing drink. Sales have grown to be over 600 million dollars, and this was all done strictly by word of mouth. […]
My New Book “Cultured Food in a Jar”!
Cultured Food In A Jar
Cookbooks — I have a lot of them, 229 to be exact, and as you can see from the picture of the bookcase in my living room, I have quite a collection. My daughter Maci said to me, "I have a lot of cookbooks too, but you know which one I use the most?" I was curious and started guessing various cookbooks and she kept saying "Nope." Then finally I asked her which one it was and she said, "It's your books, Mom. I can't find recipes for these foods like I can in your books, so I use them more than any other cookbooks." I was pretty surprised by this since Maci cooks a lot, but on second thought I reach for my own books a lot too, and my new book is perhaps my favorite of them all.
In the midst of writing this book, we remodeled our house to get it ready to put on the market. My kitchen was a wreck and so was the rest of my house. Somewhere in the midst of all of this, my book came to be. I made Cultured Food in Jars that were easy, delicious, and could be taken with me even on the go, or when my kitchen was a wreck. Time and time again, I reached for these jars of cultured foods because I needed something handy and something that makes me feel good throughout the day. Cultured Foods do this through the power of microbes and enzymes that not only help your body feel better, but your mind too. I explain all of this in my book and so much more. I don’t go a day without these foods – they keep me healthy and happy.
We have a contract with food in this life but we also lead really busy lives. More often than not, we reach for foods that are fast and easy but not always good for us. I can't go back to ever eating the way I used to eat. Fast food and processed foods left me sick and fatigued and this book is a reflection of me and how I live. Most of the recipes tell you why the food you're eating is good for your body, or maybe the history of the food, or a personal story from me explaining why I eat these foods. It's not enough just to give you a recipe, you need to know why and how it's going to help you. So this is why I created "Cultured Food in a Jar." Probiotic foods work to heal you from the inside out and I tried to make it easy for you to grow your own probiotics in a jar with yummy recipes.
Take a look at a few excerpts from some of the recipes:
COLA KOMBUCHA
In April 1865, John Pemberton was wounded in the American Civil War. He was slashed across the chest with a cavalry sword and soon after he became addicted to morphine to ease the pain. As a licensed pharmacist in civilian life, Pemberton decided to search for a cure to his addiction. He began experimenting with cocoa and wines and eventually came up with an alcoholic drink that was made from kola nut and damiana, a shrub that produces small, aromatic flowers. But with much public concern about alcoholism, he was encouraged to change the formula. His altered formula came as a syrup and was sold in some local pharmacies around Atlanta. At one point, this syrup was mixed with carbonated water — and thus, Coca-Cola was born. The huge popularity of this drink prompted my daughter Maci to experiment with a formula for kombucha with much success.
If you like Coke, we hope you will give this a try. Here’s to John Pemberton and his strong desire to find a cure for what ailed him. I hope this drink can help you do the same.
You can find this recipe on page 162 of my book "Cultured Food in a Jar."
MY favorite GREEN SALSA
This is hands down my favorite salsa! Not super spicy and with a slightly lemony taste, tomatillos are a green Mexican fruit similar in size to tomatoes with a lantern-type shell.
Native American tribes have a long history of medicinal use of wild tomatillos. The Omaha, Ponca, Iroquois, and Winnebago tribes used wild tomatillos to treat headaches and stomachaches, help dress injuries, and against sexually transmitted diseases.
Researchers from the University of Kansas have found that wild tomatillos have been shown to halt, and even dissolve, aggressive cancer tumors. In several tests done on mice, scientists saw that aggressive tumors shrank quickly, while other tumors just dissolved. The cancers that wild tomatillos worked on were many melanomas, thyroid cancer, breast cancer, brain tumors, esophageal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and certain leukemias.
While much points to tomatillos as being powerful medicine, I encourage you to try this recipe for the taste alone. I suspect you’ll soon become a green salsa addict.
You can find this recipe on page 84 of my book "Cultured Food in a Jar," as well as my Winter Salsa recipe on page 83 and my Fresh Fermented Salsa recipe on page 86.
PEANUT KEFIR BUTTER CUPS
Do you crave peanut butter, especially when you’re stressed? There might be a reason for that. Peanut butter contains a compound called beta-sitosterol that fights the effects of stress. Beta-sitosterol is a chemical found in plants and often called a plant sterol. It can be found in nuts, seeds, fruits, and vegetables and is often used to make medicine. Studies showed that endurance athletes who used beta-sitosterol were able to normalize high cortisol levels, lower inflammation, and improve immunity.1
So the next time you’re stressed, try a little peanut butter and see if it helps. It works for me, and that’s why you will notice so many nut-butter recipes in this cookbook. Nuts are not only prebiotics but stress busters too!
You can find this recipe on page 141 of my book "Cultured Food in a Jar."
Cultured Food In A Jar
If you’re new to culturing, then this book has all the basics on culturing and much, much more. You’ll find lots of pictures and guides to make it easy and less daunting. Cultured foods are easy to make. If it feels challenging, it’s because it’s new; but it’s actually quite simple and I hope to keep it this way. Those who have read the book said, “I feel like I’m hanging out with you in your kitchen.” Which is exactly what I was trying to accomplish. If I don’t make this easy for you, you’re not going to do it and get well so I made every recipe so you can easily make it or put it in a jar. Give the gift of health! You can order my book directly from me if you live in the USA, and I’ll sign each copy!!! Just fill out who you would like me to make it out to. Check it out!
Six Easy Ways To Store Your Cultured Foods
Having lots of fermented foods in your fridge is the same as having a medicine cabinet stocked with natural remedies. We reach for these foods not only to keep us healthy and disease free but also when we find ourselves struggling with a virus, stomach ache, or any other kind of ailment that requires extra body support.
Cultures: How To Store Them
Cultures Can Travel
In 2017 we moved from Kansas City, Missouri, to southern California to be near our two older kids and their families. Selling our home, packing trailers, U-Hauls, dogs, family, and all our worldly possessions is an experience I don't care to repeat. We were on the road on my 57th birthday and I was exhausted from packing and staying up late trying to get it all done. On our journey across America, I felt myself getting sick with a sore throat and a stuffy nose. I had worn myself out and my body had had enough. Unable to breathe, I grabbed a couple of Q-tips from my purse, dipped them in my kimchi, and swabbed the inside of my nose. I had a radio show caller tell me that this got rid of a sinus infection she had for six months, so I thought, "I'm doing this, I'm desperate to breathe!" Five to ten minutes later, my nose began to run and I could breathe. My husband grabbed me a kombucha and I drank the whole bottle in like five minutes. The whole trip all I could think about was, "Where are my coolers and cultured foods and how can I get to them?" I've learned a few things about storing these foods because I don't go anywhere without them and they are the most important foods in my fridge. I trekked halfway across the country to bring my whole family together again and I took these foods with me tucked tightly in coolers. If you don't have a lot of room in your fridge, then let me help you make room for these foods that work like medicine. It's more important than you can imagine.
This last week, there have been lessons learned, pages turned, and a few bridges burned; but I'd do it all again to be with the people I love the most in this world. As long as my cultures are with me, I can take any journey, go the distance, and find my way home. Make your cultured foods a part of your family and everyday life. They can see you through the most troublesome of times, and they will live forever . . . inside of you. Remember that those around you benefit from these probiotic foods. You spread your bacteria everywhere you go, just make sure it's the good kind! 
Here Are Six Ways to Store Your Ferments
1. Use tall bottles. Using taller 32-ounce bottles to store or make your kombucha, water kefir, or even store your milk kefir is a great way to store more while taking up less space. Make sure when you're storing kombucha or water kefir that you have thick bottles made for brewing.
Check out this link to see the bottles I use.
2. As you consume your kraut or veggies (especially those made in a gallon jar), put them into smaller glass containers to save on space. Glass canning jars work great and you can use metal or plastic lids. I love Weck Jars, too, that have glass lids and clamps for easy storing.
Check out this link to see the jars you can use.
3. Even better, store your cultured veggies in square stackable glass storage containers! You can transfer your kraut, pickles, and more to glass food stackable containers. Just make sure they have at least some of the cultured veggie juice in with them (it preserves them even longer). This can be a great way to store them as you can stack them high and wide!
Check out this link to see the ones I use.
4. Use up, give away, or eat your extra cultures. I know it can be hard. These little guys are like family members to me, but don't hang on to dozens of SCOBYs or kefir grains or water kefir crystals. Keep enough extra cultures on hand in case you need to give one or two to friends or use as a backup for failed ferments. Then you can blend the rest up in a smoothie or throw them in your garden and then they live with you forever! Don't forget that they will continue to grow and you will get more and more every week and every month!
Check out the many things you can do with kombucha and SCOBYs. We have lots of ideas and recipes!
5. Buy a mini fridge. You would be shocked how much a mini fridge can help you when storing a lot of cultured foods and often you can find them used for very cheap at garage sales or online. It is said that in Korea they sell a Kimchi Refrigerator that is specifically designed for ferments! You can store a lot of cultures in a mini fridge and have room for other things, too. We second ferment kombucha in leftover store-bought kombucha bottles and store them in the mini fridge. If you make lots of bottles of kombucha, a mini fridge can store kombucha for over a year. I've had some that were left in there for close to a year and it was still good!
6. Leave your over-fermented kombucha out. When storing SCOBYs or over-fermented kombucha (to use as a starter tea), you can leave it out on the counter and it's better for the SCOBY than storing it in the fridge. The starter tea will simply turn to vinegar kombucha (stronger starter tea) and will last several weeks on your counter or on a shelf.
Check out the many things you can do with kombucha and SCOBYs. We have lots of ideas and recipes!
Best of Cultured Food Life 2016: Our Top Articles
As we close out 2016, I hope you will look to this next year as a chance to find the you that you were always meant to be – healthy and happy.
This is our top content of the year that you may have missed. Below you’ll find some of our most popular blogs of the year.
TOP TEN ARTICLES
| Do you want to make non-dairy kefir? Well, we have 16 to choose from, so we've got you covered. |
Coconut water kefir is fantastic for helping with candida and high blood pressure. It soothes my nerves and keeps me calm and I have a love affair with it. |
| Find out why you should be eating kimchi, which protected an entire country from the bird flu epidemic. It can protect you, too. |
It's no secret that I love kefir and with good reason! Check out the seven reasons I have it every day. It lowers blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and so much more. |
| Have you heard of the cultured drink Jun? Many think it's a new hybrid, but I think it's actually kombucha made with honey and it's crazy delicious. Get the recipe. |
 Will eating cultured food make any difference? Find out why it's so important to add these foods to your diet. It could change everything. |
| Learn how these Three Foods Can Change Your Life. They've most certainly done this for me and thousands of others. |
 Do you want to learn how to make ginger soda? Ginger is powerful medicine and it can work like ibuprofen. It also helps with weight loss and blood sugar and much more. |
| The Five Probiotic Foods I will always keep in my fridge forevermore. They're versatile, easy to make, and even small amounts can change your microbiome in a day. |
Cranberries have healing powers and they can prevent Urinary Tract Infections, stomach ulcers, E. coli, and many more conditions. |
Check out the articles and they will help you start the new year off with a new focus. I've already decided that 2017 . . . is going to be ridiculously amazing.
Happy New Year!!
Two New Grape Recipes for My Biotic Pro Members!
Fermentize This Salad!
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
This is a favorite summertime salad made with cucumbers, tomatoes, and red onions that are abundant in the summertime. The taste is so light and fresh that I can eat gallons of this salad. I have had this salad many, many times made with vinegar but it was never fermented. So I took it upon myself to fermentize it and fill it with probiotics. My brother-in-law has coined this word - fermentize - and he made me laugh when he asked if I can fermentize every known food under the sun. Here are a bunch of reasons to make this salad and not the least of them is that it's cultured, or fermentized, and loaded with enzymes and probiotics to make these special vegetables even more powerful.
Here are just a few of the things tomatoes can do for you
- Tomatoes beautify the skin and may even prevent sunburn
- Tomatoes shrink stroke risk by over 50 percent
- Lycopene in tomatoes may protect against 9 types of cancer
- Tomatoes may trim risk for Parkinson’s disease
These are just a few compound helpers in cucumbers
- Cucumbers are full of ionic potassium, magnesium, and vitamin C which give it a powerful alkalizing effect within the body.
- Cucumbers are great for stabilizing blood pressure and stimulating the body’s natural detoxification process.
- Cucumbers also contain the triterpene phytonutrients cucurbitacins A, B, C, D, and E. These phytonutrients have been the major focus of some extensive research looking deeply into their abilities to inhibit cancer cell signaling pathways.
- Diabetic Friendly - Research displays that cucumbers contain a hormone that the pancreatic cells need for producing insulin.
Red onions have powerful properties
- Allicin in onions fights regenerative diseases and fungi.
- Anthocyanins: A type of phytochemical which is anti-inflammatory and strengthens eyesight and the nervous system. Anthocyanins have also been linked to improving memory and the prevention of aging.
- Red onions are high in vitamin C that protects cells from oxidative damage, supports collagen formation in wound healing, and promotes a healthy immune system.
- Onion is full of flavonoids, particularly quercetin. Flavonoids are natural chemicals that prevent the deposit of fatty material in blood vessels. Quercetin is a powerful antioxidant that is believed to help reduce heart disease and protect against many forms of cancer. It also has anti-inflammatory properties.
