Kombucha 101

I've jumped on the kombucha bandwagon, and I love it! Kombucha is fermented tea that is rich in probiotics and has numerous other health benefits. You can use black or green tea, flavored or unflavored, and you can add just about any other kind of flavoring to it. Kombucha cultures are very hardy. Unless you freeze them or toss them in boiling water, it's unlikely that you'll kill them, and contamination is uncommon. That being said, if you see any black discoloration on your culture at any time, it's become contaminated and needs to be thrown out.

Kombucha cultures Breed Like Rabbits, so you will always have plenty to give away! Your culture will produce faster than you can find homes for all the babies, so you'll have to throw some of them away. I know, that's depressing, but it comes with the territory. Oh, one other thing to be aware of: kombucha cultures look a lot like giant boogers. I'm just going to call that one like I see it.

Most people make kombucha in a half-gallon jar, but I don't have the counter space for that, so I've invented a recipe that you can do in a quart jar. The thing to keep in mind if you use a quart jar is that the fermenting time is basically going to be cut in half, so you'll need to keep an eye on it and make sure it's not getting too sour for your taste.

How to brew kombucha in a quart jar:

You will need:

-kombucha culture and ½ cup starter tea (get online or from someone who brews kombucha)

-1 pint of boiling hot water (half a quart)

-1/3 cup sugar

-2 bags of green or black tea, or generous handful of loose-leaf tea

-1 bag of other tea or small handful of loose-leaf tea for flavoring (optional)

-paper towel

-canning jar band and lid

-dry erase marker (for writing dates on jars)

Place the tea bags or loose herbs in a clean quart jar and fill up halfway with boiling water. Steep for 20 minutes. Remove tea bags and add 1/3 cup of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Put jar in fridge or freezer to chill to luke warm. (Mason jars can go in the freezer).

Add filtered water until the quart jar is filled up about ¾ of the way, and then add the starter tea and culture. Screw the band over the paper towel and let it ferment until it tastes right. My quart jars generally take about two days for the first ferment.  It'll depend on your kitchen's temperature and humidity level.

After the first ferment, it's time to add any additional flavoring. You can add fruit, cinnamon sticks, or fresh or dried herbs. Screw on a lid and band tight, and it's ready for the second fermentation. If you don't add anything to it, it will start to form cultures on the top of the liquid. Open it and dispose of these at least once a day. These baby cultures will make it too sour if you leave them in there. When I put fruit in for the second ferment, I don't have issues with baby cultures forming.

Once your kombucha is done, it can be stored in the fridge. I try to drink one or two 8 oz glasses a day, 3 if I'm coming down with something. I try to use it up within a week.

You can easily do this recipe in a half-gallon jar.  Just double all the ingredients. 

Kid Stuff: Stages of Child Development in Laymen's Terms

I have an associate degree in early childhood education, which means I've read a lot of books that use words like “hatching” and “launching” to describe different phases in child development.

While I have no objections to using those terms, I've come up with a way to describe the phases of child development that is, in my opinion, more entertaining and descriptive.

First stage: The “Watch out for the baby's head!” stage. (Roughly birth to 12 months.)

Second stage: The “Sweetie, watch your head!” stage. (Once the toddler starts moving around on their own.)

Third stage: The “Where the frak do you get these ideas ?!” stage. (Roughly preschool through early elementary school.)

Fourth stage: The “I don't even want to know where the frak you get these ideas!” stage. (Mid-elementary school up through high school.) 

Now that I'm an adult, the things my sister and I tried to pull as kids are starting to horrify me, haha! 

There Are NO "Bad" Foods!

I've had a rough weekend, so I was not happy when I saw that someone on Facebook labeled sweets as “bad.”

I'm going to be brutally honest here: Labeling ANY food as “bad” is not going to lead anywhere good. Food is neutral in itself. It's not good or bad. Our food CHOICES can be good or bad when we eat too much or too little of different things. I'm not against trying to make healthy food choices. But food choices are a separate issue from food itself.

As someone who's struggled with an eating disorder and nearly lost the battle, I take this issue of labeling “bad” foods very seriously. I'm not saying everyone who labels foods is destined to develop anorexia or bulimia, but you have to understand, it's a slippery slope. Once you start thinking in black and white like that, it's very hard to quit. I would know. I'm still working on it.

People who knew me back when I was at my sickest have told me how much healthier I look now. The kicker is, I got that way from eating lots of “bad” foods. When I was in treatment, I had a licensed dietician tell me to eat dessert every day. She also had me working on getting a decent level of fat intake from a variety of foods. (Did you know that all of our vital organs are made up mostly of fat tissue??)

So yeah, all that to say, I don't want to hear any more of this “bad” food business. Making the occasional batch of brownies is not bad. Being in danger of heart failure at age 21 because you're not eating? Now that's bad.

Identity Theft

For the past year or so, I have been growing more and more disgusted with the westernized church. In that time frame, my negative experiences with professing Christians have far outnumbered the positive ones. There are many problems plaguing the western church, and I will write about them as G-d gives me the words. The problem I want to talk about right now is identity theft.

No, I'm not talking about credit card theft. I'm talking about spiritual identity theft. For most of my Christian life, I have wanted to throw up whenever someone told me I needed to “get rooted in my identity in Christ.” I always thought that was because I was battling spiritual warfare, and once I got through that, I would find my identity in Christ and we'd all live happily ever after. I soon realized, however, that my problem was not that I didn't know who I was in Christ. My problem was that many of my fellow believers thought my identity belonged to them. “Getting rooted in my identity in Christ” was usually a euphemism for “Attend this group you don't have time or energy for. Take on this service project even if it makes you dead tired. Read this book. If you don't want/can't afford said book right now, I will question your salvation and your desire to know G-d.” As I've become progressively Messianic in my spirituality, “You need to get rooted in your identity in Christ” has become a euphemism for, “If you knew who you were in Christ, you wouldn't be so obsessed with Judaism.”

Spiritual identity theft is growing for a number of reasons. A big reason is fear. I see more fear inside the church than outside it these days. Christians simply don't trust anymore. We've become so afraid of sin that we think the only way to get a handle on it is to take away everyone else's free will and individuality. Another reason that kind of goes along with that is negativity. Christians focus more on what not to do than on what to do. And this hyper-focus on negativity is leading to micro-managing other people's spiritual lives in areas that might not be as simple and black-and white as we'd like to believe.

There are certainly times to ask for and give advice. But we need to give advice without snatching people's dignity. When people give us advice, we need to filter it through Scripture and the Holy Spirit and discern how to apply that advice in a way that works for our lives and our true, G-d-given identities. We need to approach the subject of identity in such a way that we do not commit identity theft.

Why Some Social Justice Issues Get All The Hype

I just read an interesting article from Sojourners about how the church is very sex-oriented these days. I wholeheartedly agree with this article. This post is not to criticize the article but rather to take the discussion a step further.

The fact that the church is getting sex-oriented is really a symptom that the church is attention-oriented, in my humble opinion. I would say that there are four main topics that generate a lot of hype in the church today. Those issues are abortion, homosexuality, human trafficking, and overseas mission work. People who participate in activism related to those issues often get a lot of external recognition. People want to support those efforts because they are seen as “worthy causes.” I'm not saying these issues aren't important, but we need to take a look at how we usually handle said issues. The reality is, it's easy to get involved in these areas without asking a lot of tough questions, and without challenging ourselves spiritually.

I'm at the point where I really don't want to read any more articles about those four main topics. Those topics have gotten enough hype. I want to see more articles about suburban and rural poverty, sustainability, and access to mental health services. These issues are just as “moral” as the issues that generate more hype, and yet I hardly ever see articles about them. I've come up with a few reasons why no one cares about these issues:

Reason #1: The solutions are extremely “ordinary” and won't bring you external praise.

One of the most effective ways to get people working together on issues is online petitions. You'd be amazed at the changes that people have brought about through this venue. I've written about the importance of the national missionary movement and how it's a much better alternative to overseas mission work in some cases. But supporting those things won't generate praise from other people, and for many of them, that's reason enough not to bother.

Reason #2: The solutions require us to let go of prejudice. I'm going to come out and say it: I am prejudiced. If you are a member of the human race, you are prejudiced. Period. We all have our pre-conceived ideas about certain types of people and certain ideas. Issues like poverty and mental health are extremely stigmatized. Sadly, I think the subject of mental illness is even more difficult for Christians, since so many of us are buying into the BS idea that mental illness is spiritual in nature and people just need to be freed from demons and whatnot. Talking and thinking about these issues is very uncomfortable because we all have our own pre-conceived ideas of what poverty and mental illness look like, and what causes them. It's very difficult to acknowledge that these issues might look different than what we expect.

Reason #3: People care more about parties than about working together and finding common ground. I know that if I start talking about corporate bailouts and the recent budget cuts to the food stamp program, politically conservative Christians are going to write me off as liberal and ignore me. I am probably ruffling a lot of feathers with this statement but I don't care. People are way too party-oriented, especially in the church. I have lost a lot of Christian friends because I don't vote Republican and don't identify as a specific party. If someone came to me and told me they wanted to work on these issues, I wouldn't care who they voted for in the last election. I would be thrilled that they see me as another human being with good intentions. If we could stop being party-oriented we'd be in much better shape, but I'm not optimistic that it's going to happen any time soon.