Getting Back into the Holistic Groove

I couldn't resist. . . it appealed to my warped sense of humour.

From mid-November of last year until now, my efforts to maintain a better dietary regimen have really backslided. It's coming close to the time where I cycle into taking some measure to do some form of bodily detoxication. However, I'm going to make a point of not doing some method where fasting is involved. Whatever steps ahead I made health-wise compared to the one to two weeks of misery I experienced in the past within that duration of fasting wasn't worth it. The best way to go is approach things like I did early last year: eliminating as much excess simple starches and sugars as possible, and substituting them with complex ones, opting for more lean protein, and more raw, whole, "living" and unprocessed food. This time around, after researching several articles about the benefits of live culture fermented foods, either by yeast or lacto-bacillus cultures, I've decided to add more of those things as "living" foods to my lifestyle, more to see if they will act as alternative energy primers, and systemic cleansers. What I'm really interested in is experimenting with foods that have enzymes and nutrients that are classified as adaptogens. The idea is a more in-depth following from what I already learned and gleaned from Tim Ferriss' book, The Four Hour Body. After last year's big cancer scare, I thought I should take a more active interest into what these things can potentially do. Here is a run down of the things I'm looking into.

• Kefir - The diet I composed for myself last year was highly protein based, and since I couldn't afford to eat meat all the time, my protein intake was very egg and dairy intensive. However, I never was one to favour drinking a lot of milk. I don't know if it's just part of the aging process, but I seem have a harder time digesting it than I used to. Yogurt and cheese are OK, but expensive. I find buttermilk to be digestable, as well as delicious, but it too is so costly by a litre to litre comparison to regular milk. Soy milk has a gross chalky taste I don't care for; plus soy is a source of phytoestrogens, which can screw up male hormones. Almond milk is more tasty than soy, but. . .cha-ching. . . also expensive. The best option I've found so far is kefir, or rather the culture to make the stuff at home. Kefir is a drink that originates from Eastern Europe/Central Asia. Kefir 'grains' are colonies of organisms that are added to ferment milk, pre-digesting the lactose. It's just a more drinkable form of yogurt. My plan is to use kefir in my protein smoothies instead of milk. Not only does this culture ferment milk, but it will also ferment milk substitutes as well, like almond, soy, and coconut milk. The added advantage to this stuff is that it can be used for making sourdough, my next subject.
• Sourdough - If there is one starchy thing I know I couldn't live without, it would probably be bread. As a bachelor, sandwiches are a standard feature for quick and easy lunches. I especially love rye bread. Sourdough bread is better nutritionally because it doesn't require extra sweeteners to be added for leavening the loaf, and has more beneficial enzymes. Even though sourdough bread is readily available around here, the purely organic stuff is really expensive, and the fresh stuff in the bakery doesn't have a list of ingredients with it that mentions whether or not it was made with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup). HFCS was another thing I made an effort to avoid consuming last year, and that made a noticeable and profound difference in my daily energy and stamina. I got experimental, and thought I'd try making my own sourdough starter for my own custom rye bread, and use it at least until I rid myself of the extra junk flour I have in my pantry. I could have just pitched it out, but the frugal farmboy in me can't abide wasting stuff. I'll just choose to try to make it healthier. A jar, some rye flour, water, and a coffee filter to cover it and allow it to breathe is all I need to produce it. If I feel really adventurous, I may dare myself to make my own kvass (mentioned last entry) with any surplus of stale rye bread, my own healthier pop substitute to rid myself of the extra sugar here. Let the yeast convert it first to something more beneficial and healthful.



Rye Sourdough Starter.

• Kombucha - I associate this stuff with Rudolf, one of our old neighbours who emigrated from Germany with his family and settled on an acreage near the area where I grew up. He was also the same guy who initiated me into tasting and liking homebrewed beer. He was an interesting character, with interesting stories to tell, who had an equally interesting collection of home remedies. Kombucha tea was one of them. I remember the introductory sample he gave me as being very tart, but also very effervescent and refreshing. It's basically black or green tea that has been fermented with a symbiotic yeast/bacterial culture. The result is a drink loaded with probiotic enzymes and adaptogens. This stuff is reputed to: be a detoxifier, allow better digestion of gluten loaded food, counter joint inflamation, improve eyesight, improve skin tone and elasticity, serve as an anti-cancer agent, benefit gastro-intestinal health, as well have other benefits too numerous to mention. It's even supposed to stop and prevent greying of hair. How then could I not be interested? The name for this concoction is Japanese, but my research on this panacea shows a lot of different cultures throughout all of Asia and Eastern Europe using this stuff as a medicine and life elixir. Back then, Rudolf commented that there were people in the Caucasus mountains who drank this stuff on a regular basis, and were living well past a century; then again, I heard the same thing about the same alleged people who lived there; who were that long-lived and healthy because they ate their own version of homemade yogurt.

The alleged fountain of youth

I don't yet know how intensive, or especially taxing it will be to try to produce and maintain these weird things by growing them in cultural mediums. I presume that it won't be any harder to do than nurturing any other yeast culture, like I've already done on countless beer and wine making projects.

One top of what I mentioned here, the other indulgences that fit the bill that I already enjoy are foods like: raw nuts, sauerkraut, lacto-bacillus brewed pickles, kim chee, yogurt, unpasteurized cottage cheese, pickled herrings, ceviche, whey protein smoothies, lentils and other pulses, olives, collards/beet greens, bok choy, spinach, berries, eggs, rolled oats, chicken, curries. . .the list is really endless. There really is no way I could ever feel that I'm being deprived of anything.