Not to be confused with whey protein powder (which is basically the dry concentrated form), whey is the watery ‘stuff’ you’ll find sitting on top of your whole plain yogurt.
While it is best know for being a starter culture for home made cultured veggies and condiments, whey has health benefits all on it’s own!
Here are some of the health benefits of using whey:
Minerals
Protein
1 tbsp of whey in a glass of water with or before meals will help digestion
Use ¼ cup whey in a glass of water with a pinch of unrefined salt for better water absorption
Keeps joints movable and ligaments elastic
“For stomach ailments, 1 tbsp 3 times per day will feed the stomach glands and they will work well again” (Hanna Kroeger in Ageless Remedies from Mother’s Kitchen)
Wondering what else you can do with it?
Substitute it in any recipe that calls for water or milk (such as salad dressings, sauces, muffins, bread, pancakes etc.)
Instead of milk in smoothies.
To soak grains, lentils and beans for better digestibility.
Use it to cook your grains, pasta, rice or oatmeal with.
Use it in soups or stew when you don’t have broth.
Use it to marinate your meats for better digestibility.
Feed it to your plants.
Compost it!
Click here to learn how to make some for yourself!
Step 2: Stir in a ½ tsp or more of unrefined salt and garlic to taste and fresh herbs of your choice (if you have some on hand).
Step 3: Roll into balls and drop into a 500ml jar.
Step 4: Pour olive oil on top.
Step 5: Store in the cupboard or on your countertop.
Enjoy by scooping out balls as a side dish or spread on bread or crackers!
When you are done, strain the olive oil with a coffee filter and use to make salad dressings (no need to let it go to waste)!
The finished product does not need to be refrigerated as the olive oil will act as a preservative. The longer it sits, the more sour it gets, so if you don’t love the sour taste, then make sure to consume it within 3-5 days. Honestly in this house, we never make it to day 3!
This recipe is great to wow a crowd at potlucks or to gift to family and friends for the holidays. 1 quart of yogurt will make two small jars (as shown in the photo).
Cream cheese is nice, but yogurt cream cheese is even better (and FREE of nasty additives)!
What you will need: plain full fat yogurt
a cheesecloth or nut milk bag (or you can use a tea towel).
optional: unbleached coffee filter
Grab a medium sized bowl, your nut milk bag (or cheese cloth) and the yogurt. Pour the yogurt into the nut milk bag (or put a strainer over the bowl if you are using a cheesecloth). The liquid portion of the yogurt is the whey and it will begin to drip through into the bowl.
You will need to hang your bag over the bowl so that the process can occur over a period of 4-8 hours (depending on the texture you want your yogurt cream cheese to have). When I use cheesecloth and a strainer, I actually let the strain happen for a few days inside the fridge.
* To make sure that no milk solids have dripped through, do a second strain with a coffee filter as shown in the photo below.
Keep the whey and the cream cheese in separate glass containers and store in the fridge.
The cream cheese will last from 5-7 days and the whey will last for up to 6 months!
You will use the whey to culture your ferments.
You can use the cream cheese to spread on toast, to make cheesecake, cream cheese icing or whatever you normally use cream cheese for. Mmmmm…..imagine probiotic desserts!! A whole new realm of guilt free pleasure is available to you!!
Wondering what else you can do with your cream cheese?
Did you know that your baby is “cultured“ at Birth?
As our babies are being birthed, they are literally being “cultured“ by our vaginal flora.
“The medical science shows that the flora in the vagina comes from the gut. What lives in the woman`s bowel will live in her vagina… in women with recurrent thrush, no matter how many powerful anti fungal topical preparations are used, the thrush always comes back. Until she gets rid of it in the bowel, she is not going to be free from vaginal thrush. But why does this woman have an overgrowth of fungi in her bowel? Because she does not have a healthy gut flora to protect her from this fungus and many other microbial invaders. This woman has a condition called gut dysbiosis. She will not only have an overgrowth of Candida albicans in her gut but lots of other pathogenic microbes, causing many other health problems.“ Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride MD, MMedSci(neurology), MMedSci(nutrition)
Babies aquire their particular microflora balance at birth through the skin, eyes and mucous membranes of their mouth and nose, as they descend through the birth canal.
What happens when moms have gut dysbiosis (an imbalance of good vs. bad bacteria in the gut)?
Mother passes on her own gut flora (for better or for worse) to her baby. The state of mom’s flora has the potential to either promote healthy digestion, immunity and mental capacities or it can compromise her baby’s health right from birth causing a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering for both. Click here to read the article ‘How to prevent colic, diaper rash (and more) in baby’
Besides having a history of antiobiotic use (antibiotics kill our good bacteria leaving no competiton to keep the bad or pathogenic types in check) there are many other digestive, immune and mental indications that we need to restore our bacterial balance (or inner ecosystem).
Here are some key symptoms:
□ allergies and food sensitivities
□ vaginal yeast infections
□ difficulty losing weight
□ fatigue
□ depression
□ bi polar
□ OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder)
□ dyslexia or dyspraxia
□ ADD/ADHD
□ autism/aspergers
□ poor concentration
□ sugar/carb cravings
□ constipation
□ dairrhea
□ poor digestion and digestive disorders
□ acid reflux
□ sleeping poorly and night sweats
□ joint inflammation and stiffness
□ bad breath
□ gum disease and dental problems
□ frequent colds and flus
□ frequent infections
□ chronic yeast problems
□ acne
□ eczema
□ fungal infections
□ menstrual difficulties
If you suffer from 1 or many of the above symptoms you might be wondering how you can find the resources and the support you need to learn how to heal, restore or improve your current microflora balance, right?
Follow this step-by-step guide to improving your microbial balance in pregnancy:
Avoid natural sources of concentrated sugar ie: dried fruit, tropical fruits like bananas and mangoes etc. Instead include sour fruits like kiwi, berries of all kinds and green apples.
Acidify your colon (good bacteria thrive in a lactic acidic rich environment)- eat plenty of cultured foods– start with the kid friendly ones if you are nervous about getting started.
Eliminate all bleached, refined and deodorized fats like: margarine & vegetable oil food products like corn, soy and canola oil from your diet. Replace them with traditional fats like butter and coconut oil for baking and sauteing while using olive oil (raw only) for salad dressing.
Alkalize your blood- modern people are often overfed, yet undernourished. Mineralize deficient blood by eating plenty of cooked green vegetables, crispy seeds, gelatinous bone broth and seaweeds.
Take a probiotic pill with a wide variety of beneficial bacteria (10-14 or more strains) throughout your entire pregnancy and during breastfeeding.
Upgrade the quality of the animal products that you consume to being antibiotic free, from compassionately raised and free range or grass fed animals.
Drink, bathe and shower in water that has been filtered of chlorine (which is also unfortunately an antibiotic).
These practices must be adopted by couples planning to conceive, and by pregnant and breastfeeding women -and moms seeking to prevent common childhood disorders such as asthma, eczema, colic and tummy aches while promoting optimal immune health in their developing baby and children.
For people who don’t have severe digestive problems or a long history of antibiotic use, the aforementioned recommendations will be adequate to restore the gut flora in most cases.
However, in more severe situations such as autism, IBS and other chronic or persistent cases of digestive distress and mental illness, the family must in addition adhere to a grain free diet for 6 months to 2 ½ years to restore the gut back to its optimal state of health.
What should you do now, if you didn’t know about this before having your kids? These same steps apply for anyone who suffers from microbial imbalance. It is never too late to improve your own and your family’s health!
Want to learn more and how to make cultured foods at home that please even the kids (and kids at heart)? If you said yes, then check out our Cultured Kids e-course page where we show you a video of how we transform a standard North American lunch into a wholesome probiotic feast!!!
If you are like most people, you`ve probably sworn off bread or sugar at least once in your lifetime. The trouble is though, that at the best of times willpower often cowers in the face of a true physiological or bacterial craving.
The truth is, if you can`t stop yourself from bingeing on bread or overdoing sugar, it is not your fault.
Here is why:
1) From a physiological perspective – if you have blatant or subtle nutrient deficiencies, your body is driving you to consume sugar and refined carbs to feel good (although only momentarily). Unfortunately, sugar itself keeps you both on a roller coaster and a hamster wheel! The dips and spikes of sugar ensure that you crave just one thing- more sugar!! And as far as the hamster wheel is concerned, sugar isn`t an empty calorie, it actually puts us in a nutrient defecit, thus perpetuating mineral deficiency and subsequent cravings!
2) From a bacterial perspective – if you have sugar cravings, there is a very high chance that you also have a bacterial imbalance in your gut…sugar feeds pathogenic bacteria (the bad guys)! These bacteria beasties actually send chemical messages to your brain that will cause you to crave sugar and refined carbohydrates!
So as you can see, people crave sugar, because how could they not? – in the age of nutrient deficient food!
While there are many ways to nourish ourselves to make cravings a thing of the past, I bet you would love to know about the single most potent food to permantly eliminate sugar cravings altogether, am I right?
How about discovering one food that can address both the body`s physiological craving for food AND the bacterial one?
The food most ideally suited to stop your sugar and refined carb cravings is cultured foods!!
Culturing a food, means that you are infusing it with beneficial probiotic bacteria (you know, that good stuff inherently found in yogurt!).
So just how DO cultured foods address the root causes of sugar and refined carb cravings?
1) Culturing your food increases the nutritional value of that food. For example, sauerkraut has 100 times the Vitamin C as its unfermented counterpart, cabbage. Eating some probiotic condiments with each meal also promotes better digestion and the assimilation of nutrients. That in itself is a 3 in 1 benefit of cultured foods in terms of meeting nutrient deficiencies!
2) Cultured food also feeds beneficial bacteria in your gut, therefore helping to crowd out the more harmful or pathogenic flora. In addition, cultured foods do not JUST add good probiotic bacteria to your gut, but they also provide lactic acid which is not only food for the GOOD bacteria, but it makes your digestive tract inhospitable to pathogenic bacteria! That is a 4 in 1 benefit!
and if that is not remarkable enough…..
1) Ancient chinese medicine has taken note that the unique flavour of cultured foods actually has a balancing effect that neutralizes or cancels out our cravings for sugar!
2) Finally, one Ka-RAZY Kool effect of eating fermented foods with your meals is that if you give into a sugar craving and immediately eat a cultured food, the beneficial bacteria will start eating up the sugar you just consumed, therefore minimizing the amount that you end up digesting and assimilating!
Now if my math is correct, that is at least 9 reasons why cultured foods alone, can curb your sugar cravings!
So if cravings, are driving you crazy, and you want to immediately take action – you can purchase the following fermented foods and bubbly beverages at your local health food store:
1) Bubbies Pickles
2) Sauerkraut
3) Kombucha
Just make sure they say ‘raw’ or unpasteurized, because otherwise they will be devoid of probiotics from the heat.
However, if you have a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to take more than adding a few Tbsp of sauerkraut to your meals, then you need to get on this complimentary training.
I will show you exactly how to live the sweet life, without giving up the sweet, rich, creamy foods you love!
Click here to get access to the ‘Sweet Life Without Sugar’ complimentary training!
If you are like most people, you`ve probably sworn off bread or sugar at least once in your lifetime. The trouble is though, that at the best of times willpower often cowers in the face of a true physiological or bacterial craving.