50 Shades of Gross

Haha, had to share this.  I know it's bad form to just cut and paste what others have written, so I will try to paraphrase from here as best I can. 

The author of this short piece, Katherine Dahlhausen, has dug up 50 "germ-phobic" tactics people use to avoid getting nasty microbes on them.  I'll admit, I still do a few of these.  I think that the underlying point here, though, is that we shouldn't have to be so 'anal' about avoiding germs.  In fact, avoiding all of these stray microbes has probably led us to the shape we are in.  Here's her list...how many do you do?  

Beet Kvass

Summertime at my house means beet kvass.

Got probiotics?

Kvass is the forerunner to a host of water fermented probiotic drinks such as water kefir and kombucha.  Kvass was traditionally made with rye bread (sometimes flavored with berries, raisins, or birch sap) in Russia and is still popular in places with a Russian influence.  Somewhere along the line, some poor sucker who couldn't afford bread made kvass with a beet.

Vinegar Magic

Yesterday I got an out-of-the-blue email from one of my old lurker buddies asking about 'wild fruit vinegars.' Christine, aka, WildCucumber, told me she's been making vinegar in her kitchen from fruit she gets around her home in Quebec.  This made me remember a paper I had recently bookmarked about the health properties of vinegar, but hadn't gotten around to reading. 

I clicked on the vinegar paper and scrolled down, wow.  Vinegar is amazing stuff! 

My New 'Schtick'...Ancestral Biotechnology

Here's me swimming in our muddy farm pond circa 1975.  Before drying off, we had to pick off the leaches between our toes.  I can't count the times I stepped on a bee running to be the first one in.