Adrenal Fatigue ~ Beet Kvass

What's Cookin'?


We ate the sweet potatoes that we harvested from our garden.  We didn't get tons but at least enough for one very large meal.  I cut them up (along with a potato) and cooked in about 1 cm of oil.  Then I added some precooked stew meat and some precooked butternut squash.  I poured in about 2 cups of water at the end and it made a nice gravy (I thickened it with about 2 tablespoons of white flour).

Our Amish Butter order arrived Friday.  The lady who orders it is the local co-chapter leader of the Weston Price Foundation so I trust her selection of this company for butter/cheese (thanks, G.!).  The butter is almost the same cost as store brand organic butter with our bulk order.  I've only gotten the butter but was really tempted to get some cheddar this time; I just couldn't this time around.  Maybe next order if I save up for it.  The cost is just cents over a pound of store brand cheddar at the grocery store with our bulk order and we eat a LOT of cheese weekly.  It's just the cost at one time, KWIM?  The cheese/butter that she orders is from pastured cows with no antibiotics/hormones and is gently pasteurized.  I'm not sure what "gently pasteurized" means but I'm sure it's much better than what I'm getting :).

What's Schoolin'?

We keep pluggin' along with our Chemistry studies. 
The olders are ready finishing up their Civil War lapbooks.
Youngest dd has been able to get some really good work sessions in lately with shelf work.  She's been pulling out language materials such as the farm.  A month ago she was all about geography.  This month it's language; with the ocean materials thrown in.  I asked her what she wanted to study and she said sharks, whales, and porpoises.  We checked some books out from the library and I should be able to pick them up tomorrow.  She's also been making addition, subtraction, and multiplication booklets for memory work.  She has also done the fish bowl for addition and is ready to do that for multiplication and subtraction as well.  She absolutely loves the 1000 bead chain and chooses it over and over.  Right now she is setting up some dolls in the living room and will bring out some shelf work to do while playing school... or rather she is playing school while actually doing school!

I just found this site with a long list of free links for things such as typing, art, etc.  I didn't have time to look closely:
http://wonderinthewoods.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/free-curriculum-long-list/

Adrenal Fatigue

Someone asked recently what I've done that has helped my adrenal glands.  I thought I would go ahead and make it a post in case it helps someone else.  Please remember to ask your health care professional before trying anything that I might say worked for ME (that's my disclaimer!).

First of all I should give some background: Lyme Disease almost caused me to lose the function of my adrenals.  I was just barely on this side of the line of getting Addison's Disease.  Thankfully I didn't.

The 2 main things that have helped my adrenal fatigue are:

1) The adrenal support supplement recommended by my dr called Adapt.  To save money I only take 1/2-1/4 of what I should and it still helps.  Mainly I can tell when I haven't.  You can find it here:
















2) CONSISTENTLY drinking 4 ounces of beet kvass as a tonic at 10:00am and 2:00pm when my adrenals would usually crash.  The recipe is from Nourishing Traditions p. 610. [Later on I started adding some raw whey to the tonic right before drinking it (so I would remember) because that has a precurser to a precurser to glutathione which is healing at the cell level... but that would be an entirely different post!]

Beet Kvass was one of the very first recipes I used out of Nourishing Traditions.  It wasn't that I felt wow after drinking it; but rather I felt stabilized after drinking it consistently for about a week or so.  Less of a roller coaster ride and more even keeled.  It's easy and has a nice clean, lightly salty taste.  I guess there is the slight beet/dirt flavor, lol, but I don't notice it much.  It's such a pretty color - how could you not like it??

How to Make Beet Kvass:

To make beet kvass add the following to a 2 quart jar (or split between 2 jars that are each 1 quart): 

-3 medium peeled and coarsely chopped raw beets.  Do NOT grate them or you'll end up with alcohol instead of lactic acid!
-1/4 Cup whey [If you have never done this, it is very cool:  Put some yogurt with LIVE cultures in a muslin cloth or something like cheese cloth but with smaller holes (or a super clean dish rag) to drain overnight.  In the morning you will have delicious homemade cream cheese in the cloth and whey in the jar underneath.  I can go into more detail with pictures if you want.]
-1 Tablespoon Real Salt or other sea salt
- Filtered water.  Add the water last to fill the jar.

Then stir and leave out on the counter for 2 days.  Transfer the jar(s) to the refrigerator.  Strain to drink.  Be amazed at how refreshing it is!

In this photo is a bag of beet kvass from June, 2009 (yes, over a year ago) that I took out of the freezer a week ago.  It tastes great and feels refreshing just like freshly made beet kvass. [Also in the photo are the spaghetti squash I was getting ready to process.  Actually dd ended up pulling the strings out - kids like gooey things!]

These Beet Kvass instructions are part of Kelly's Real Food Wednesday:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2010/11/real-food-wednesday-111710.html