Why Fermenting Wins in My Book!

  Perhaps it is a little backwards that when it comes to food preservation, beyond freezing everything, I jumped into fermenting before canning.  While they both have their benefits I will ALWAYS choose to ferment and freeze before I can and here is why:

  #1  You have a nutritious food that you can pack even more nutrition into and make all of the nutrients more readily available for your body.

  #2  The food is alive!!!!  Not only is it alive, it is filled with wonderful colonies of bacteria that will do wonders for your health.

  #3  You know if it has gone bad.  This is a really important factor for me!  When you ferment and it goes bad, man I think everyone on your block knows that it has gone bad!  There is no mistaking it, I have never thought "Wow, that smells terrible perhaps I should take a taste just to make sure."  When I first started to look up canning online of course the first thing that came up was botulism...guess what the water bath canner that I had just purchased went into storage for that entire first summer.  No way was I going to dive into something that could result in a deadly bacteria that I can't even smell.  Ask my family about how I cooked my first few chickens after I gave up my vegetarian ways.  I hadn't cooked meat in about 10 years and I was sure they would all fall over ill from salmonella so I cooked those first few birds until they were bone dry.

 I think we all remember this image from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation...

this is what my first chicken looked like.

  Anyway, I have gotten over my fears of cooking meat with the help of a great meat thermometer, but my fear of canning still sticks with me.  This summer, for example, I received in a trade from a member of our community garden about 10lbs of pickling cucumbers.  I came home with this beautiful box of cucumbers and my husband started drooling.  He begged me not to "ruin them with fermentation" and asked that I save a portion to be pickled and canned the way his mom used to do.  While I was quite insulted, I did agree.  Even though I know in my head that these pickles have been processed properly and come on, they are sitting in so much vinegar that nothing could possibly live in that jar, they still make me nervous!  Each new can of pickles that we open I insist on eating one and not allowing the kids to have any until 24 hours later.  I am not even sure if botulism would make me sick within that time frame but some how in my head it makes sense.  My husband said that I just might be crazy enough to take on a job as a food tester for royalty to make sure that their food has not been poisoned...do they still hire for that position?  I bet it pays more than Kohl's!

This is the most recently opened jar.  I tried a pickle before dinner (it was insanely yummy and crunchy), so if I haven't fallen ill in the next 17 hours I will allow the kids to enjoy them as well.  Yes, don't judge me, I already know that I have issues.

My Vaccine Rant!

  This post has been sitting in my head for quite some time and it finally has to come out.  Being that we are now living in the age of social networking and people can hide behind a computer to say nasty things to someone that they don't even know...I have been seeing a comment quite often lately on Facebook debates over vaccinations.  The comment being that "non vaccinating parents should be labeled as child abusers."  Wow.  I would never even think of saying that to a vaccinating parent!  Because I know that deep down I respect the fact that they are doing what is best for their child, just as I know that I am doing what is best for mine.

  In fact, let me go on to tell you why nothing could be further from the truth.  My husband and I did not go into this decision lightly, our oldest 2 children are almost completely up to date but while I was pregnant with our 3rd I started hearing some things about why we should do more research.  We read, we researched, we spoke with our Dr. and our Chiropractor and we came to the conclusion that this is not want we want for our children.  We were done.  Yet, the journey had just begun...we don't decline vaccinations and sit back and rely on herd immunity (basically that theory is crap anyway), no, we choose to give our bodies the best we can to aid its natural immune system.  I limit sugar, make as much as I can from scratch, I am diligent about tending to my families gut health, when we do come down with something we give herbs, oils, homeopathic remedies, broth, probiotic foods, and lots of rest so that our bodies can do the job it was designed to do.  Our bodies are amazing healing machines and when given the right fuel, it can do some astounding things.

  I once saw somebody post that they would rather risk their child get autism than risk getting one of the diseases that the vaccinations protect against.  REALY?!?!?!  I dare you to say that to someone that has a child that has been damaged from vaccines.  My children and I fully recovered from the chicken pox in about a week...autism, in most cases, is for life.

  I am trying to figure out how on earth the fact that I choose not to inject my children with toxins (here is a list on the CDC's site and this is just the tip of the iceberg, the list goes on to include things from MSG to aborted fetal cells) that will produce a false immune response and may not even protect them anyway, gives someone the right to call me a child abuser. By the way, if your vaccines work so well then what do you have to fear from my unvaccinated children that are hardly ever ill, and when they are we give healing foods to help build their immune system, not antibiotics that destroy all of the good gut flora along with the bad.  By doing so we are strengthening their immune system even further making it stronger and stronger all the time.  When you look at it this way, I think this makes me mom of the year!

A Day to Remember

  For months I have been planning my trip to Fermentation Fest in Reedsburg, WI because I knew that Sandor Katz was going to be there.  If you are not familiar with the work of Sandor Katz, I highly suggest that at the very least you check out his website at www.wildfermentation.com and then go and borrow a few of his books from your local library.  What truly inspires me about this man is that not only does he have so much knowledge on the subject of fermentation but he is so humble in his delivery.  When listening to him speak all you feel is his passion for the subject that is driving him to share his knowledge with everyone that is wanting to listen.

  Today was finally the day that I got to make the 2 hour drive for the Fest and most importantly, to meet Sandor Katz.  Today was a day that I will never forget...First, it was a great road trip that I got to share with my daughter.  Some days it can be hard to split your attention amongst 4 kids and one on one time with them is so special.  Second, I got to meet my fermenting idol...seriously, I rank him up there higher than most celebrities that I would like to meet.  Sadly, my list of "celebrities" pretty much only includes big names in traditional foods.  Next on my list are Sally Fallon and Wardeh Harmon, and yes I realize what a nerd I am.

  Anyway, Zola and I headed out of town this morning and after registering we made our way around the Art DTour.  There were art exhibits, stands of homemade goods, and farms to tour, we had so much fun.  We also stopped in at the Fermentation Gift Shop and did a little shopping.

I purchased this glass that will now be known as "Mom's glass, so keep your hands off!"

 One of the many great art exhibits.

We got to tour a sunflower farm.

I want to have a sign like this for the front of my house!

  Now, for my favorite part of the day...after our fun on the Art DTour we had dinner at the pub where the book signing was to be held.  When Sandor came in Zola and I gathered our things and got in line.  We had to preregister for a spot at the book signing, at first I thought this was odd but then I realized that it was because he was kind enough to spend quite a bit time with each person that had registered.  I had ample time to give my praise, ask questions, and to give more praise...oh and to have my daughter take a picture of the two of us.  He asked Zola if she like sauerkraut and she truthfully answered "I think it is gross but I love kombucha and fermented fruits."

  I am so happy that I was not the only person there that was beside themselves with excitement...I turned to the lady behind me to chat while in line and I made a comment about being so nervous and meeting a fermenting rock star.  She commented that she had met Eric Clapton and how she was 10 times more excited to meet Sandor Katz.  I guess it is a "culture" thing that some people will never understand.

Nourishing cereal??? It does exist!

  The other day I was browsing around on The Healthy Home Economist's site as I often do, and I was looking at her list of popular posts.  One caught my eye and that was a video on  how to make healthy cold cereal.  The convenience of cold cereal is something that I really do miss now that we have gone to traditional foods and I know that my kids miss it.  How could they not?  They are bombarded with cereal commercials every day.  The moment that the 2 part video ended I knew that we had to try this.  It seemed like a lot of steps but not too overwhelming.  I really suggest checking it out, part 1 shows the steps before you bake and part 2 is what to do after to make it crunchy along with the written out recipe.

  So, the next day I pulled out the flour and yogurt and mixed it up, do to my work schedule and my poor timing this mixture actually sat on my counter for a day and a half.  After that I finished it up in just a few steps and it really didn't interfere with our day.

 

Mixing in all ingredients after soaking for a day.

Bake

Crumble and dehydrate (recipe calls for baking but I set my dehydrator to the highest temp of 160 degrees and it was done in about 8 hours)

 Store in the fridge

  This recipe is great for so many reasons #1 It is pretty easy and doesn't take a lot of thought.  #2  There are so many ways that you could flavor this to your families liking that you would not get bored.  #3  Did I mention how much more nourishing this is for your children than any item purchased in a box.  Seriously, make this cereal!  Everyone here gave it a big thumbs up, my oldest son even said it tasted like ice cream.

  Her recipe is just a starting point, I did not have some of those ingredients so I just went on what I had.  I had very little maple syrup left so I used honey and doubled the vanilla because maple flavoring is not something I keep in the pantry (um never even heard of it).  Also, instead of cinnamon I went with our family favorite and used Chinese 5 spice.  The pictures above are of the recipe cut in half, I figured I would start with less to see if they would even eat it.  Now I need to go and soak more flour as this is going to be a major staple in our home.