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! 

The Pharmacy in Your Backyard

Probably one of the first acts of biotechnology our long-ago ancestors practiced was learning which mushrooms would kill you, and which were good to eat.  Then they learned that some of these mushrooms were just more than tasty, they cured illnesses.  The first medicine men were biotechnologists.  They learned to use the medicinal qualities of local plants to the advantage of the tribe.

Ancestral Biotechnology...hmmmmmm

Chaga

                                                              
A couple months ago I found out that I'm eligible for the "Post 9-11 GI Bill."  This is the Veteran's Administration's program for veterans who served during the current rounds of 'war' going on in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001.

I retired from the Air Force, where I was a combat engineer, in 2004 and have been working in the Process Controls and Electronics industries since that time.  My first job as a civilian was in a local water plant, then I moved to a coal-burning power plant.  After a few years, I tired of coming home blowing black snot out of my nose and after narrowly missing being caught in a devastating explosion, I took a new job as the Electrical Systems Supervisor at a local hospital.  I've been crawling around the underbelly of the medical establishment since 2007, and absolutely love my job.