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Kombucha + New Conversations on Nutrition

June 29, 2015 By Lauren

kombucha

These past few weeks, I’ve been taking a break from a dear old friend.  A friend that, through the years, I’ve gotten to know pretty well, intimately, even, as this friend has taken up residence with me in various cool, dark corners for going on two years, now.  Her name is kombucha, or ‘ booch as I sometimes affectionately refer to her, and she’s been a presence in my life since I first became interested in health-food.  You probably already know her pretty well.

Tides are turning, and more and more folks are becoming interested in alternative paths toward wellness and in health-food especially.  Kombucha, an effervescent beverage made from fermented tea, is no longer relegated to the shelves of your neighborhood’s organic co-operative grocer, or the back of your hippie friends’ fridge but has become a veritable staple in supermarkets, cafes and even the occasional gas station convenience store.

Tides are turning, and as the demand for information on health-food increases, the spotlight on those sharing that information does, too.  Recently, in the article “Green is the New Black: The Rise of the Healthy-Eating Guru”, the credibility of a few superstar nutrition-and-food personalities, or, to use the author’s word, gurus has been called into question, with the author pointing to many of these gurus’ lack of credentials to discredit their advice.

Go gluten-free!  Juice your greens!  Swap cow’s milk for nut milk! Drink kombucha!

The author finds fault with these commands, as they are typically issued without substantiation by scientific research and by individuals without a scientific designation.  I find faults with these commands as they are just that–commands–which remove the possibility for conversations.

It’s undoubtedly important to be well-versed in the subject on which you are offering public advice.  However, I feel the real issue (which the author neglects to mention) is that so many of us remain unversed in the subject of nutrition which is, when you think of it, one of the most essential and relevant subjects we can ever learn!  What other subject serves to keep you and your family and, even, in a broader sense, your community healthy through all life’s ebbs and flows?

The other issue, as I see it, is that most of us have relied on the advice of allopathic medical experts for so long that even when we begin to seek an alternative path to wellness we do so within the same paradigm:  We choose a personality–an expert or guru–and follow their commands without question or conversation.

kombuch

Drink kombucha.

A few weeks ago, I started to notice that I was feeling a little out-of-it after drinking my habitual glass of the ‘booch.  Nothing had changed–my scoby was healthy, my recipe and process were the same as they’d been for the past two years–but, still, something seemed off.

And yet, I continued to drink it.  Because it’s a health-food.  Because it contains probiotics.  Because the nutritionists I admire recommend it.  Because my teachers told me to.  The idea that kombucha can be at once a fundamentally healthy beverage and at the same time an “unhealthy” choice for me, at this moment, was challenging to accept.

I have an education in nutrition that the author of the aforementioned article would find lacking.  I’m no dietician, but I did study nutrition for a full-year academically and for many years prior personally.  I didn’t enroll in my studies to become a guru, but to better learn what health-food means to me, for me, through all life’s ebbs and flows.  This knowledge empowers me to ask questions, to start conversations, to come to my own conclusions and to share what I’ve learned with others.

So I started a conversation: I’ve lived in Switzerland for almost a full-year now.  I can feel, at times, anxious, and as I’ve found myself more and more settled here I’ve found this anxiety increase.  I’ve lived in many places, but never w/ the idea of staying put, and it’s been both a lovely and terrifying experience.  Kombucha is a stimulating beverage–I make mine with un-smoked lapsang souchong tea– and I realized that it was contributing to my anxious feelings.

And so I stopped.  I made the best choice for myself in that moment by shifting from observing command to starting to question, to converse.

Tides are turning, and there’s a need now for more conversation and less commands.  The rise of the healthy-eating guru points to something far more significant than a few individual personalities.  It points to the fact that people are eager to learn about food and explore their relationships to it.  Instead of condemning the interest in health-food, I say we take nutrition out of the hands of the experts and/or gurus and place it back in our own.

After all, they’re the ones that feed us through all life’s ebbs and flows.

Filed Under: Nutrition, Sidenotes Tagged With: conversations, kombucha, nutrition, sidenotes

Nutrition Rule #1: Nourish Yourself

April 11, 2015 By Lauren

sunny porch

It seems that Winter has blown its last breath in Geneva.  Hallelujah!  March is long gone (& so swiftly did it pass, with many thanks to the kind friends who participated in last month’s Collaboration Celebration) and we’re well into Spring, with all its sunniness, open terraces and blossoms.  Can I get a (non-demoninational) amen?

L & I spent this past week in the mountains, where a few (relevant-to-this-post) things happened:

#1. I had the chance to talk nutrition with a new friend &, as a result of our conversation, was reminded just how challenging it can be to have a clear view of what it means to eat “well”.

#2.  We witnessed, what I reckon to be, the last snowfall of the season and the first downright summery days of the year all in the span of less-than-a-week.  Spring is truly the season of rapid change, with so much new growth and such vivid, formerly-dormant energies shooting forth into the light.

What better season to wipe our proverbial nutritional slates clean?

chocobunni

These days, there are a lot of rules for eating well.  I attribute all the murkiness surrounding nutrition to these rules.  You’ve probably heard at least a few:  Don’t eat carbohydrates.  Only eat raw fruits.  Never eat after 6pm.  Intermittent fast and only eat after 4pm.  Add coconut oil and butter to your coffee.  Don’t drink coffee.  Juice-fast.  Don’t eat sugar.  Eliminate gluten.  Sprout your grains. Cut out dairy.  Include dairy products only if your blood type is B.  Eat clean.

If you feel like this list has left you wondering what you can actually eat, dear friend, you are not alone.

hermesmirabelle

The word nutrition comes from the latin verb nutrire–meaning to feed, to nourish.  These days, nutrition has been turned into an industry that sometimes seems to connote the opposite.  The products of this industry change–perhaps it’s a book, a type of protein powder, perhaps it’s even a personality (ahem, Food Babe)–but the objective remains the same: to sell.

Let’s look at Rule #13–Eat Clean–as a prime example.  The implication behind this phrasing is that it’s possible to do the opposite, to eat dirty.  Actually, I prefer to do just that as the foods I love are foods that come from soil, dirt, the same dirt under my feet, in fact, as I like to keep it regional.

The other nettlesome implication is that we are dirty.  Toxic, even.  We must eat clean, detox, cleanse, restrict in order to be healthy, or “clean”.  We must buy juicers, high-tech blenders and spiralizers, follow the same grocery-store list as an author or blogger or celebrity (Goop must be stopped) living in southern California if we really want to eat well.

Now, let’s all take out our erasers and let’s start with #13.  Clean-slate-time, friends!

cows

Do you have your piece of chalk ready?  Because I’m going to share with you the only rule for eating well you’ll ever need to follow:

Nourish yourself.

eggs

Fill your diet with the nourishing foods that surround you.  For me, this Spring, this means a spinach-and-egg-tortilla, a wild-garlic-and-new-potato soup, a glass of rhubarb kombucha, a jar of nettle infusion and, at the same time, a mirabelle-jam tartine, cracked-off chunks of a giant chocolate bunny, anchovy-and-caper pizza and a tall glass of beer.

I’ve found that the principle of nourishing our Earth (through choosing to eat according to region and season), is truly the most nourishing diet for ourselves, but I’ve also found that the principle of letting go of restrictions every once-in-a-while yields miraculous results (the joy of the late-night falafel, for example), as well.

What’s nourishing you this Spring?

Filed Under: Nutrition, Sidenotes Tagged With: nutrition, switzerland

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