fermenting and soaking

I am reading a very interesting book right now, The Raw Milk Revolution: Behind America's Emerging Battle Over Food Rights  It is not necessarily persuading me to try raw milk, but it is very thought provoking about the fact that people have the right to buy and consume raw milk if they want to, yet in many states, the government is very prohibitive to the point of harassing to dairy farmers.  Here in California that is not true, so at least if I decide to try it, I wont have to circumvent silly rules to get it! There are however many great anecdotal stories of people benefiting greatly by consuming raw milk. Autism, digestive issues, arthritis, behavior, lactose intolerance.  A lovely history of pasteurization, germ theory vs. cell theory.

For awhile I have been occasionally reading posts on Nature Mom's Blog. Although I don't embrace all of her practices and ideals, I am challenged to learn a bit more about food.  I do love food. I like cooking it, eating it, reading about it, talking about it, buying it.  Food is good. 

She recently posted about Kefir and how easy it is to make.  It is milk fermented using kefir grains.  It is full of probiotics, the fermentation uses up the lactose, and it is a complete protein with all 20 amino acids.  Good stuff!  I bought a bottle the other day to try. It tasted basically like yogurt, was a little spendy, but I didn't want to buy supplies if I ended up not even liking the stuff!  Since it tasted like yogurt, I'm good with it!  I like it better in a smoothy rather than by itself, but I have had a small glass before bed each night and it is good.
Today I ordered Kefir grains from Amazon, and I plan to give homemade kefir a try!

On the same blog she addresses the need to incorporate fermented food into our diet. (Kefir is one way) and sourdough is another.  I was making sourdough a few years ago and it went reasonable well. Tonight I started a starter :) It will ferment on the counter for 5-10 days then be ready to use and maintain.

I already found a website that has some pretty nice looking sourdough recipes, including blueberry muffins.

Another cooking tip on the same blog is to soak whole grains.  The key to soaking them is to soak overnight (at least) in water with a little vinegar. or in buttermilk, or kefir, the point is to create an acidic environment. Then rinse them and use them.  flour can also be soaked.  I have read of this before but never cared to try it.  Tonight I set up barley to soak for soup tomorrow.  Not that adventuress, but a baby step maybe?
There is lots of information about soaking grains online, one place is this website.

 So, we shall see!  Introducing new foods is great for all of us.  Learning more about how nutrition affects our bodies and overall health, is great!