Soda is older than we think... and it used to be healthy!
Among the easiest things one can produce at home, even in a tiny apartment without much sunlight, are probiotic cultured beverages, or home-made soft drinks. Because they are healthy, cheap and easy to make, delicious with a great variety of tastes, and quite a novelty even among health-food enthusiasts, I immersed myself in their production, and today we are rocking the Alternative Market of Tlalpan. Here I just want to give a quick introduction of these cultures, the information and the pictures come from my blog.
At this point I can see many readers recoil in disgust.
Soft drinks? You mean soda? Like pop?
Actually, the answer is yes and no. While industrially made soft drinks rank among the vilest poisons people can ingest, they have come a long way from their healthy counterparts, that have been enjoyed for centuries, probably even millennia. Originally people fermented their own soda at home using a culture of various types of bacteria and yeasts. Today most soft drink manufacturers have adopted cheaper ways to make sweet fizzy drinks, with lots of sugar, artificial gas, and horrible additives such as phosphoric acid. As a result probiotic cultures have been forced to the edge of public consciousness. So our challenge is to bring them back! The three kinds I like to introduce here are Kefir, Tibicos (or water kefir), and Kombucha. Each one makes wonderfully delicious and healthy drinks.
Kefir – The Best Form of Fermented Milk
The most commonly known type of probiotic drink I make is the kefir. In Europe, and probably many other places, it is even sold commercially, though many people like to grow their own. It is quite easy.
The cultures look like small pieces of cauliflower and they live in milk, eating the milk-sugar (lactose), converting it into lactic acid. In about 24 hours at room temperature they can turn the milk into a bit more rigid substance, though still more liquid than regular yogurt. To harvest it, I usually pour it through a strainer while stirring it to get all the liquid out. The solid cultures can be washed in water to get the grease off, then added into the next batch of milk. The harvested kefir can be enjoyed straight from a glass, with fruit and granola,or as part of a tasty dish, such as Šaltibarščiai, a Lithuanian cold borscht.
I consider kefir superior to regular store-bought yogurt, not only because of the taste, but because of the diversity of life. Yogurt has by definition only two types of bacteria (Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus). They are added to the milk in a sterile laboratory, so it can be guaranteed that there is no more, and no less included. Things are of course completely different even in the cleanest kitchen. Since the microbial community in the kefir can develop without much restraints, it will have consequently a greater diversity of life, which makes it more stable, especially once inside our guts.
Tibicos – Our Ancestors' Soft Drink
One of the many names of tibicos is water-kefir, and unlike other monikers, it describes it quite well. Very similar in appearance to the kefir grains, but instead of white they are transparent, and they prefer to live in water rather than in milk. That is because the sugar of their choice is glucose rather than lactose. So by placing them in sugar water they are already taken care of. In case of tap-water I generally like to let the chlorine evaporate first. The amount of sugar I give them is around 70 grams (2.5 oz) per liter (quart), which they use up in about two days.
Once harvested, the water is going to have a sweet-sour taste, but without any added fruit it will be quite boring. Fortunately the only limit to the possibility of flavors is our own imagination. I’ve tried it with cherries, dates, apricots, peaches, figs, mangoes, kiwis, guavas, pears, cranberries, and blueberries, all with amazing results. For some reason dried fruit always worked better, but the options reach beyond the realm of fruits. Herbal flavors, such as mint or basil, are always well liked, elder flowers make a seasonal delicacy, especially for Hungarian tastes, and using the ginger root I make a ginger drink that has become my, and many other people’s, all time favorite. After all, it is the original Ginger Ale.
Kombucha – A sweet-sour tea to neutralize the body's acidity
The third culture I like to grow is a completely different one. Kombucha prefers to live in tea, more than anything. Tea means the drink made with the tea plant, so no herbal or fruit infusions for this culture. It looks a lot different from the kefir or tibicos grains, forming a membrane on the surface of the tea, which gradually grows thicker over time.
This drink, with its pleasant sweet-sour taste is in itself delicious enough that it doesn’t require any additional flavoring. Still, some people prefer to add hibiscus, or other pleasant flavors. One of the great properties of Kombucha is that it balances the acidity in our bodies. Since most foods that we eat (sweet and starchy stuff, meat, coffee, beer, etc.) acidifies our bodies, it is good to know that this process can be counteracted with a refreshing soft drink.
Making kombucha is a little bit more time consuming, but only because the water has to be brought to boil for the tea, then cooled down at least to body temperature before the culture can be added. For each liter (quart) I add around 70 grams (2.5 oz) of sugar, and one bag of green tea. Fermentation time is a week, so it’s usually a good idea to make a bigger batch.
Interesting fact: Once the culture has grown over one’s head, it can be turned into delicious sweet-sour snacks. Though to make their initial sourness palatable they need to be soaked and boiled repeatedly, then fried and served with honey. This recipe, originally from the Philippines, became a hit at the market in Mexico, where I usually sell my products.
Probiotics on Steemit
There are many great resources on probiotics. The one I found greatly inspiring was the book The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz. Among the numerous internet sites on this topic, I would like to share some I particularly liked here on Steemit:
@raincountry has a couple of very delicious sounding flavors, and mentions some of the health benefits of tibicos here. @kennyskitchen posted step-by-step instructions on how to make kombucha. And in @baerdic's article there is even a short discussion on the origins of tibicos. Finally, @marymg has a beautiful post on how to make milk kefir, with some really nice pictures.