FREE + NATIVE | Beet Kvass
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We're so happy to have Lacy of FREE+NATIVE on for another beautifully informative and inspiring post. Enjoy!
This ancient Eastern European drink, which was initially made from rye bread, is a traditional folk Ukrainian blood & beauty tonic. It is an incredibly inexpensive, easy, and non-time intensive way to ease one into the world of fermenting foods and drinks to reap the abundant benefits of probiotic medicine when fermenting vegetables seems like a daunting task.
This has become a beauty tonic staple in our home—morning and evening. I somehow even convinced my partner Ryan Snow to imbibe in this daily, and now he craves its earthy, soft, refreshing taste. He doesn’t feel a day is complete without out it. So it’s not just for the ladies. Tolstoy even noted that Russian soldiers took a ladle full of kvass before venturing from their barracks onto the Moscow streets during a cholera epidemic—making this beverage a potent medicine against infectious disease.
I think the beautiful energies of the Pure Green community can really benefit from this tonic. Especially those with warmer constitutions that are battling: blood & liver stagnation, PMS, sugar & salt cravings, and acne.
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BEET KVASS
You can use three different methods of a culture (the beneficial bacteria) as a starter: whey (from whole milk yogurt emptied into a cheese cloth letting the liquid whey sieve into a bowl for 4 hours), juice from fermented vegetables that are already in your fridge (either homemade or store-bought), or high quality salt (which does take a bit longer). Because I always have fermented vegetables on hand, it’s quite simple for me to use the juice from that.
1-3 Organic beets | scrubbed and chopped into 1-2” cubes
Purified water
¼ c of whey | fermented vegetable juice | or 2 tbls salt
32 oz or bigger glass jar.
PROCESS | scrub beets well and cut into 1-2” cubes. Drop into the bottom of your clean jar. Add your ¼ c whey/fermented vegetable juice, or 2 tbls salt. Fill the jar with water purified water leaving 1-2 inches of room at the top. Close and leave on counter for 1-3 days—depending on outside temperatures. Cooler temperatures call for three days while warmer (75 or above) call for one and a half days. When it is fizzy, you know it’s time to move to the fridge. 2 days tends to be my average.
Drink 4 oz daily in the morning and evening. Once you’ve almost finished the jar of Kvass, you can refill it with water, whey (fermented juice, or salt) and leave on the counter for a second time to get one more use out of the beets before discarding them and starting all over again.
BENEFITS | wonderful blood tonic | blood alkalizer | promotes regular bowel movements | cleanses the liver | notorious for turning gray hair back to its original color and lightening liver spots (dark spots on face) | probiotic rich | major beauty tonic
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