Kombucha

I've been making kombucha for the last few weeks. Pretty much, kombucha is a fermented tea which is made by making a sweetened tea and letting it ferment using a "SCOBY", also called a mushroom. The SCOBY is not actually a mushroom at all, it's a "symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast". Sounds delicious, hey?

 Kombucha is supposed to have a number of health benefits, ranging from general body detoxification to cancer prevention and pretty much everything in between. Because it's highly fermented, what you are drinking is pretty much a tea vinegar and can be very very tart. I have to water mine down a fair amount or ad it to gingerale or some other drink.

I don't know anything about the health claims. I just enjoy drinking it because it is quite tart like a string lemonade. Maybe it tastes like it should be good for me because of that?
Mostly, people make the kombucha out of green or black tea. Adding a lot of extra stuff is not recommended because the SCOBY may be sensitive to different chemicals in herbs or other kinds of teas. Having said that, though, I've used lemon based herbal teas and lemon based black teas without any problems.

One paper (referenced in the wikipedia article on Kombucha) lists some other possible kombucha media such as lemon balm, echinacea, and peppermint. This paper looks at the antimicrobial activity of the lemon balm kombucha and also the antioxidant activity and concluded that both were significant in the lemon balm kombucha.

I haven't tried using lemon balm but my plant form last year seems to have spread all over the place so it's probably a good time to try.

It's worth noting that there are potential risks to kombucha and reports of GI problems and liver toxicity. I recommend drinking a small amount and seeing how your body reacts before you start. I wouldn't drink it if you have any kind of immunodeficiency, have some other chronic condition, or are pregnant, or  Personally, I don't drink more that 6-8 ounces in a day and I do dilute mine, as I said, with water or some other liquid. I have no idea of doing so removes any chance of the health benefits but I enjoy it that way.

Mmm brussels sprouts

As I mentioned recently, brussels sprouts are among my favorite vegetables. I'm not really sure how this happened because my mother never prepared them for us when I was growing up. We didn't really have much from the brassica family except for broccoli. But I started eating them a few years ago and i haven't looked back since.

As you would expect, brussels sprouts are low in calories; a cup of steamed sprouts has only about 40 calories but they feel dense to me so I find them to be quite filling. Thay are full of Vitamin C and a have a pretty good amount of vitamin A as well. They (and the rest of the family) are also reported to have cancer fighting ingredients which is just a perk, as far as I'm concerned.

I generally roast my sprouts in a bit of olive oil with just some salt and pepper but I'v elaso enjoyed them steamed with a bit of vinegar on them.

Where have you gone BIll Bailey?

Ahh, I haven't disappeared for good. I just got hung up with some family drama (now resolved) and was taking classes (lots of work). But I'm feeling spiffy now and still committed to living the (cheap) good life.

As much as I love the assortment of vegetables at the market in the summer, I really love what comes out in the fall. In fact, it may sound crazy, but I think that brussels sprouts are my favorite vegetable. Sadly, they are not cheap. I bought a quart for $3 this past week. That will be 4 servings so it's not disastrous. But, I'm realizing that I may need to readjust how I've been handling my food budget in terms of the breakdown between produce and staples.

The summer was a very luxurious time, peppers and summer squashes were cheap, Even corn didn't break the bank. But now, unless I want to eat only cabbages and greens, I think I have to devote more of the budget to fruits and vegetables.

I'll let you know how that works out.

Meanwhile, I've had a few slip ups but I've mostly been good abotu sticking to my grains and beans as basics with eggs and a little meat thrown in. Truth be told, I've mostly given up eating meat but I still throw it in there to cover vitamin B12 in my diet. I dont' really miss it either, except that now I'm craving things like chicken soup.

In fact, living on $5/day has really become sort of second nature to me. Maybe after the new year, I'll see if I can go lower and still be comfortable and nutritious.

Farmer's market haul 8/2, stretching food, and moods

Last week, I was surprised at how much food I had left over from the previous week. I was trying to figure it out because it felt like I had been eating my usual diet, for the most part, and I didn't think I'd overbought by that much the week before. In retrospect, I realized that I had changed a few things form what I'd been doing for the weeks before.
For one thing, I made more things that were combinations of foods. For example, I made a ratatouille based on This recipe form Culinate.com, and I made salsa, and I made a pasta sauce. All were tomato based using the second tomatoes I'd bought previously. While they also used other vegetables, they didn't use as much of those as I had.
I realized that before last week, I'd been eating a lot of single foods. For example, I'd roast eggplant or zucchini and I'd slice up a cucumber. When I eat like that, it's easier to keep track of how much is being eaten because I'M aware that I put half the cucumber in the container, and three small eggplants, or whatever.
I guess I was unintentionally doing things that would stretch my vegetables out because I tended to eat more grains and starches with the prepared dishes.

This gets to the other things that was happening for the last couple of weeks: I've been stressed by somethings going on in my family and fighting a mild depression and it's making my diet go off kilter.

My moods are very much affected by what I eat. I know this about myself. I know that eating two much sugar and carbohydrates in the morning without balancing it with protein or fat will make me really cranky by lunch time. I also know that when I"m stressed I have that common reaction of wanting to eat comfort foods that are easy and quick and not generally as well balanced as I try to be.

Because I was having the internal argument of eat what I felt like eating vs eat what I knew I should eat, I wasn't eating as much as I should of anything and that was making me even cranker because I was feeling like I was denying myself things that would make me feel better in the short run. Sometimes, when you argue with yourself, one of you becomes that recalcitrant teenager who sort of knows that the voice of reason is right but refuses to acknowledge it.

So, this week, my goal is to get my diet back on track and spend time investigating moods and food from other people's perspectives.
There are a couple of websites I want to spend some time on:

Mind.org: Food and mood
MoodFoods

I'll also peruse the medical and public health literature (if you don't' already use Pubmed, you should. It's amazing how much of the medical and scientific literature is available and understandable).

From the farmer's market this week:

eggs- $1.75
3 zucchini- $1
3 green peppers $1
2 LB kale $2
1/2 gallon milk $3.50
rhubarb (seems like it's never going to end this year) $3.50
onions $2
Black beans $3 (so much more expensive than buying then canned or dried but worth it)
6 ears corn $2.50
$20.25 total

Not bad. I'm really going to make myself eat it all too!

Farmer's Market 07/26/2009

The Farmer's market had a million things to buy but I didn't need much of anything. Honestly, I'm not sure what I ate last week because it seems like there is still lots of food left in the refrigerator.

So, I pretty much limited myself to eggs, milks, rhubarb (yep, they still had some), cantaloupe and and adorable eggplant. My total was $14 so I splurged and got an iced coffee for $1.50.

Splurging is a funny thing. For a long time, I spent some money every single day. Even if all I bought was a soda or a cup of coffee or tea; pretty much no day went my without spending something. In the last few weeks the number of says that I haven't spent any money at all has outnumbered the days I did spend significantly. I didn't really even notice. But, I was also getting a bit obsessive about not spending anything at all just so that I wouldn't be spending.

Yesterday, I volunteered at a small local festival. It's a fun day and bring sin a very diverse crowd which always makes me happy. There are always a few vendors and I never know how well they do so I usually try to buy a few little things to support them, but I've gotten into such a frugal state of mind that I couldn't convince myself to buy anything yesterday. Now I'm sorry because they had falafel sandwiches from the best place in the city for $5 and I love a good falafel.

I had a similar ambivalence earlier in the week when I went to a donation only performance. I want to support that kind of endeavor and make it worthwhile for all involved but I also don't want to break my own budget. As it happened, I forgot my wallet (hmm, what would Freud have to say about that?) and couldn't pay anyone anything. I was mortified and will find a way to make it up to them.

These events raise an issue I struggle with frequently: supporting events that I think are useful without sacrificing my budget. Volunteering is one way to do it. But many of the events rely on people who need to make something back on their investment (even if it only means breaking even). I make an effort to find inexpensive things that I can buy to show support. but i also don't want to end up with a bunch of things I don't need and, sometimes, the less expensive food items are things I don't eat (soda or high sugar foods).

I suppose that I will continue to struggle with this and will just have to take it on a case by case basis.

Market haul 18 July

Not the nest picture but it shows how much stuff there was.

Rhubarb is almost done for the year so I bought two pounds so I can put some away for the fall. That was my big expense.

8 tomatoes (seconds) 2.50
2 lb rhubarb 7.00
3 big zucchini 1.00
3 medium cucumbers 1.00
8 small eggplants 3.00
5 apples 3.00
1/2 gallon milk 3.50 (I split this with my housemate so i don't usually count the whole thing in my expenses)

$21.00 for the lot and the milk, rhubarb, and apples are really only half mine.

I feel a ratouille coming on this week. I usually just wing it when I make something like that but I may go and find an actual recipe.

In the end, I couldn't help myself. I just know that someone is going to clear out the refrigerator at work and throw away a ton of the food that is still hanging around. So, last night, I made a nice plate to take to a meeting I had up the street. It's not required to take food but I knew that people would eat it if I took it. So I picked up some cheese and salami and pepperoni and olives. Yes, this goes against my belief that eating just to get rid of food when you don't need to eat is the same as throwing the stuff away. But, I couldn't fight the urge.

It turned out to be a great idea. At least two people hadn't eaten dinner before the meeting and were starving and afraid that all there would be were sweets or junk. They were incredibly happy to see real food. I was happy to put it to good use. One of my meetingmates took the leftovers home to make pizza. I feel much better.

My trash for the week consists of:

teabags (bag in composting tag in recycling)
Tea wrappers- two in recycling, several in the trash
veggie bits into the composting
plastic wrap that was on some containers I found in the cupboard

my big trash is dog poop. I live in a city and I walk the dog in the park so I have to pick up his poop and throw it away. I reuse the plastic bags from the farmer's market and grocery store which means lot of extra plastic for clean up. But, when I've looked up biodegradable dog poop bags, they average over 10 cents each and I'm not sure about the expense vs the plastic. The problem is that I don't have any other way to recycle the plastic bags so I feel better that they are at least being used for something.