Dear Tincture Users,
This is a complex question and to answer it in my life daily I lean on hours and hours of study and research in the classroom, at the computer and in wonderful ancient texts. So I have to start with the disclaimer that this is not medical advice and you should do your own thoughtful research when making decisions for your family.
Understanding illness from an Eastern Perspective...explains alot!
Take a diagnosis, any diagnosis...say, "headache" and what does it really tell you?? It is like an engine light saying "something is wrong". Our bodies are incredibly complex and multi-layered machines and pain is our friend if we are tuned in to our bodies. Without pain we wouldn't know when we have stepped on glass, burnt our hands or used a knife without accuracy! So, when our internal mechanisms go wrong and our pain 'lights' go off, why do we think that the 'engine light' is the problem and not the indicator??
Looking at symptoms as indicator lights rather than as diagnoses is the first step in true self-care.
So, you have a headache, what now??
Time for some diagnostics...
First, look at common indicators- Have you been drinking enough clean, room-temperature filtered water? Have you eaten whole healthy foods recently? Have you had any processed foods recently?? If your body is undernourished, your head will hurt. If you body is undernourished but overfed (result of eating processed food) it will hurt more. Are you sleep deprived?? Are you fighting other symptoms besides just the headache??
Take a quiet moment and just tune into your body. Breathe deeply, relax and FEEL. Your body is SMART! It knows what it needs to be healthy and it is very much interested in feeling good. Empower it!
Eastern questions would include a couple of yes/no indicators?
So, for the sake of our tinctures, let's get on to some common things we can treat at home to help our bodies fight 'evil invaders'. (What!) In ancient days
Monday, September 22, 2014
Tincture magic
My hubby just got back from an eight day international trade show in Amsterdam. He wore himself out and came back SICK! He asked immediately for some "magic tea" to help him feel better. Immediately I went shopping for some of my basics that I usually make at home, but don't have here with me and was surprised to see a smallish bottle of Dandelion Tincture for 22 canadian dollars! Whoa... that is sticker shock! After making my own since the beginning of my love affair with tinctures, I am thrilled with how much money I have saved!
My friend "Ophelia Jane" called and wanted to understand more about the tinctures we started before I left America and the moment came for me to sit down and write! Forgive if I ramble!
What is a Tincture?
You have been using tinctures your whole life and didn't even know it... Vanilla Extract is the tincture that is sitting in your cupboard right now. The tincturing process removes the taste and medicinal action of a food or herb and preserves it in alcohol. This preservation process keeps the medicine good on your shelf, if pure, for up to ten years or more. But, of course, it is preserved in alcohol to make this happen, so we have a myriad of ways of dealing with the alcohol and as many personal beliefs about whether or not that alcohol is a big deal. I'll try to address some of these methods below.
Shelf Life
Once properly tinctured and bottled, the medicine should be put in dropper bottles, preferably darkened as in these cobalt blue dropper bottles, and stored in a cool, dark cupboard. Avoid keeping these near ovens or other heat sources to help maintain quality.
Once the alcohol is removed, the medicine will deteriorate quickly, so is only used for the short term.
How to Use
So before we talk about WHEN to use these tinctures, let's walk through the "how". Mark needed some magic tea, and of course I used some dried herbs that fit his particular need, like spearmint for instance, but I also knew that he needed an antibiotic effect. For his sore throat a dandelion and honeysuckle combination would be the perfect combination...in Montreal in September. Of course there were no fresh greens to throw in a salad, so I needed to go to stored medicine. Food is always preferable when it is available and appropriate:)
So, step-by-step...
1. I boiled the water. (This electric kettle is one of our favorite finds from when we lived overseas...a household treasure!) But however you do it, boil some water for a tea.
2. Pour the boiling water and a dropper full of tincture into the same hot chocolate mug and add any other ingredients that you feel work well for your child, whether that is a comfort beverage like ovaltine or an herb tea that is a favorite, add it now!
3. Wait five minutes.
Some people object to alcohol use for their families for religious reasons and some object for health reasons. I had a professor who objected because her body didn't tolerate alcohol well at all. She indicates that she was able to tolerate tinctures using this method because the alcohol dissipates during the resting period with the boiling water while the medicinal value is left behind.
There are plenty of conflicted reports about how much alcohol is left behind, so I have to turn to common sense here...We are talking about a couple of dropper-fulls, and we never worry about the similar or higher alcohol content of Vanilla Extract in our cooking. We swish industrial age mouthwash around in our mouths with lots of alcohol and the additional tragedy of harmful chemicals. I just can't get too upset about a little alcohol byproduct when people are routinely ingesting chemical chaos in our soda based society.
Drink! Voila! Simple...
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Water Kefir.. the care and maintenance
After my usual rant about the evils of soda (I know, I was an addict!) one of my friends exclaimed, "Then what am I supposed to drink?"
It is a common concern as fruit juices cause a sugar spike, milk is difficult for many people to digest, soy has hormonal consequences and water simply gets boring to many people. To my friend I have to reply....
Water Kefir!
It is a wonderful drinking option.
Water kefir is a wonderful way to add 'good' bacteria to your gut. There seems to be a wave of research and marketing going on right now in Western culture about the benefits of probiotics, thankfully. Here's one about mental ability and behavior and one about arthritis from today's feed. We know that many ancient cultures made great use of fermented, probiotic-creating preservation methods, and apparently not just to preserve their food resources.
Probiotic foods, like raw probiotics, make nutrition from your food intake more easily absorbed and bioavailable. Making your own Kombucha or Water Kefir is a cheap way to build these beneficial but tiny friends into your daily life.
Making water kefir is simple and quick and is well explained here and a great video here. These well-known bloggers did such a great job, I think I'll just pass you over...
You might notice that there are some discrepancies between these two blogger's descriptions of how to make water kefir. Does the water have to be boiled with the sugar? Or can you just swish it around in pre-boiled water?? Can you add fruit in the first ferment or not??
It sounds confusing, but in my experience, so far, I have found that it really doesn't make a big difference. Whatever your preference, it will be OK! As one writer said, "it isn't rocket science" and she is right. This has been done for centuries and there has to be a huge range of details that have been employed... all good!
One thing that absolutely does matter is the quality and mineral content of your water. City water can have additives that will kill the good bacteria and yeast--like Chlorine for instance. Super filtered water is wonderful for you and your kefir grains, but may be lacking in the trace minerals that we both need for growth. A simple squirt of trace minerals in your water is recommended by Cultures for Health, find theirs here. I find that my grains won't ferment as well without this addition.
But what about the care an maintenance of the kefir grains and the water kefir that is produced?
First, kefir grains are alive and so need to continually be fed. They feed on sugar and turn it into a balance of good yeast and bacteria, so keep them active!
Secondly, they respond to temperature. The warmer the environment, the more the grains will grow and consume. So, if you go on vacation or get an overload of kefir on hand, make sure you feed them and slow their little metabolisms way down by putting them in the fridge.
Leaving them without an additional feeding for a long period of time can lead to an over/undergrowth and the balance of yeast and bacteria can get out of whack. One blogger reports that if growth slows down, then she adds a little honey to the second fermentation to get the good yeast back on track. I gather that it is more common for the bacteria to overgrow the yeast than vice versa, but you will get to know your own grains and your own colony with a little experimentation.
Don't be afraid to try new things! Here are a few rules that I've gleaned from a myriad of bloggers and retailers...
1. Don't use honey in the first fermentation. It is naturally anti-bacterial and will get things out of balance.
2. General agreement is that adding fruit juices or dried fruit in the first fermentation may damage your grains, so better to add them the second fermentation.
3. Counter time is generally 48 hours. Don't stress over this number and understand that there is flexibility. Life happens! Putting your kefir in the fridge slows the fermentation way down and holds it until you are ready to drink it...within reason.
4. Mold is a bad thing! It shows an absolute conquest of the good yeast by the bacteria or the invasion of "bad" bacteria. If you see it, throw out your kefir. Rinse your grains well if they were involved and then try another batch with extra care for cleanliness...if the second batch is bad, get new grains.
6. Mold can happen from too much cooking/cleaning/dust in your fermenting area. Generally the kitchen area is pretty clean, so this is usually safe, but be aware of the fermenting environment and take notice if something impacts the taste and health of your kefir.
7. REAL FOOD ROTS, which is a good thing that makes it digestible and absorb-able, but it also makes it so it can't sit on the shelf or in the fridge indefinitely. If your kefir gets strange floaties that taste, smell or looks suspect, throw it out.
It will cost you a quarter cup of sugar to start again! Not bad!
So...keeping those seven points in mind, try adding fruits, juices, and fun to your second ferment. The fizziness and the variety of flavors will keep you feeding your gut flora, and if you stumble on something wonderful, please share it!
Eating foods "in the season thereof" is such an important thing for gut health. Kefir is a great place to add seasonal favorites, so mix it up and have some fun!
Fermented beverages
Hi Enochka! :)
This blog post is especially for you and for anyone else wondering about natural, food-based ways of getting pro-biotics into your diet. Why?? Well, Sarah Pope does a great job of explaining some the ways that pro-biotic foods have traditionally helped the body.
There are so many diets and ways of eating out there, bookshelves of data to try to digest! But, in reality, they are based on ideas and theories and sometimes they may miss a key piece of data that inadvertently shifts their fundamental premise into the realm of, well, unhealthy.
I LOVE the Weston A. Price information because it is based on traditional diets and real food that blessed cultures where folks died of acute events, not painful, chronic illness. Pre-industrial revolution eating honored the state of food as it was placed on this earth, without the fundamental altering of it (and profit making) by mankind. There is something very natural and real about that!
Did I mention that chronic illness is definitely on my top ten of worst fears?? I have lost two sisters to chronic illnesses, and their last decades were painful. I've spent time on that path, and I have researched and changed my life to get gut healthy and to reach better brain functioning as a result. What I share on this blog is probably a direct result of the reality checks when my second sister passed. I miss them both and don't want to lose anyone else to metabolic dysfunction, no matter what their genetic tendencies.
It is a journey, so please take this information one bite at a time and do what you can do. Whenever you are ready for another bite, check in here or go to one of these beginner videos and see what looks great for you next! There is so much great information out there--and I want to share it even in little bites.
Next post will be the whys and hows of water kefir use....see you then!
This blog post is especially for you and for anyone else wondering about natural, food-based ways of getting pro-biotics into your diet. Why?? Well, Sarah Pope does a great job of explaining some the ways that pro-biotic foods have traditionally helped the body.
There are so many diets and ways of eating out there, bookshelves of data to try to digest! But, in reality, they are based on ideas and theories and sometimes they may miss a key piece of data that inadvertently shifts their fundamental premise into the realm of, well, unhealthy.
I LOVE the Weston A. Price information because it is based on traditional diets and real food that blessed cultures where folks died of acute events, not painful, chronic illness. Pre-industrial revolution eating honored the state of food as it was placed on this earth, without the fundamental altering of it (and profit making) by mankind. There is something very natural and real about that!
Did I mention that chronic illness is definitely on my top ten of worst fears?? I have lost two sisters to chronic illnesses, and their last decades were painful. I've spent time on that path, and I have researched and changed my life to get gut healthy and to reach better brain functioning as a result. What I share on this blog is probably a direct result of the reality checks when my second sister passed. I miss them both and don't want to lose anyone else to metabolic dysfunction, no matter what their genetic tendencies.
It is a journey, so please take this information one bite at a time and do what you can do. Whenever you are ready for another bite, check in here or go to one of these beginner videos and see what looks great for you next! There is so much great information out there--and I want to share it even in little bites.
Next post will be the whys and hows of water kefir use....see you then!
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