It's been awhile

Wow, it's been over a year since I last blogged. Life got busy, priorities shifted and time flew by.

A short recap of the past year would tell you that we sold our house in July, I'm still doing "no poo", I stopped brewing kombucha for a bit and just recently started back up again, we're waiting on the seller's bank approval for a short sale we put an offer on and I just recently started making homemade soda. And that brings us to today's post....

Homemade soda. In my research of fermented drinks, like kombucha, I came across different websites talking about homemade soda. Since we started school back up for the year, I've made a new commitment to make it to the gym at least 4x a week. I've got to get in shape, lose some weight and be healthier. Part of that was replacing Mountain Dew with kombucha, But reading about homemade soda got me curious about other alternatives. At best, I can get two of my kids to drink kombucha, but the other two refuse. Maybe I'd have better luck with fermented soda? I thought it was worth a try.

Here's the basic scientific basis for fermented soda. Start with a "ginger bug", which is nothing more than grated ginger, sugar and water. The ginger has natural bacteria and yeast which feeds on the sugar and starts a fermentation. After a few days of feeding the bug, it starts to bubble and is ready.

My very own ginger bug

Add some of this ginger bug to any juice, I used grape for my first try, cover with a cloth and stir twice a day for three days. During this time, the yeast starts feeding on the sugar in the juice and ferments the juice. This also lowers the sugar content. On the third day, it's ready to be bottle air-tight so that the yeast will continue producing carbon dioxide, which carbonates the soda. This brings us to last week. Wednesday was day three for my grape soda and I was uber excited to bottle it! When I checked it in the morning, it already had a thin layer of foam on the surface. This, combined with the four inches of foam that developed when I stirred it, should have been my first clue. But I was following all the instructions I had read: bottle air-tight for no more than 24 hours, then refrigerate. I poured the soda into my empty juice bottle making sure to leave enough head space and placed it in a stockpot on the kitchen floor. You know, so the pot could catch any soda that might accidentally escape. I also had a little left that wouldn't fit so I put that in a smaller, single-serving sized bottle.

Fermenting soda aka "Moses"

Layer of foam

Foam after stirring

Bottled and ready to carbonate

After an hour or so, the bottle had expanded and was quite tight. That should have been my second clue. I released some of the gas, but left it in a stock pot on the kitchen floor. It hadn't been nearly 24 hours yet, right? Well, as I'm in the bathroom that night getting ready for church and Tim is in the kitchen starting dinner, I hear what is best described as a gunshot. Followed quickly by Tim shouting something that sounds like "what in the world!?!?" Not good. Not good. at. all. I quickly run to the kitchen and find this:

Oh yes, this happened

24 hours, you say? Tell that to my kitchen which was now covered in grape soda. Or to my loving husband who was almost impaled by a flying juice bottle. According to him, the bottle flew up, hit the ceiling and then landed. Four feet from it's original spot in the stockpot. Let's just say the man was not well pleased. Did I mention this happened about 45 minutes before we should be walking out the door for church? Or that dinner hadn't been made. So we enlisted the help of our boys in the dinner making and we set about to clean. The walls. The floor. The ceiling. Sticky, dripping, grape soda. Did I mention earlier we sold our house and are living in a rental? Yes, sticky grape soda all over the rental kitchen.

Yep, that's the ceiling

And floor

But it was delish!

Grape soda, anyone?

What's Brewin'?

The brewing process

The latest thing to come across my radar is kombucha (kawm-boo-chah) which is a fermented tea. Now, before rumors start about how I've turned into a day drinking lush, let me clarify that ferment doesn't automatically mean alcoholic. While kombucha can contain trace amounts of alcohol, it's typically less than 1%. Compare that to pure vanilla extract that has at least 35% alcohol or beer that is usually 4% - 6% alcohol by volume. So if it's not alcoholic, what exactly is it? Kombucha is an effervescent fermentation of sweetened tea that is high in probiotics and healthy bacteria and is said to promote healthy gut flora as well as detoxing effects. I started drinking it for the health benefits, but am totally in love with the flavor! My first taste of kombucha was a bottle of GT's Kombucha. It was great, but at $3 - $4 for a single serving bottle, it wasn't practical to have on a daily basis. So I googled and googled and decided the best route was to start brewing my own. Fast forward to today - I have 2 brews constantly going.

It's really not that hard to brew at all. In fact, the hardest part was waiting for the SCOBY to come in the mail! The SCOBY is what ferments the tea. It's a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. Yah, it sounds and looks gross, but once you get past that, it's a great drink! You feed the SCOBY freshly brewed green or black tea and sugar. The bacteria and yeast eats the sugar and multiplies - lowering the sugar content of the kombucha.

Beautiful SCOBY

My beautiful thick scoby

"No Poo" Update

Day 8 of no poo

It's been 3-1/2 months now since I decided to go "no poo". 3-1/2 months of no shampoo, no conditioner, no styling products, and no hair spray. The first question is always "you don't wash your hair?" Well, yah, I do, just not with modern shampoo. And not as often as modern hygiene standards dictate. Like most, I grew up thinking that in order to be clean and pretty, I needed to shower and wash my hair with shampoo every day, or at the very least every other day. Then, because shampoo strips your hair of natural oils, I needed conditioner by the bucketfuls to be able to comb through my hair after every shower. Then gel to tame my wild curls, hair spray to hold flyaway hairs in place and the list goes on.

So here's the deal. Baking soda. It's good enough to clean my bathrooms, why not my head? Yep, every 7-10 days, I break out a few tablespoons of baking soda, mix in some water and scrub my scalp. It's a little tricky because it doesn't suds up like shampoo, but it gets the job done. It's naturally abrasive so it will clean your hair without stripping it of the natural oils your scalp produces. Here's the part I never knew: our bodies are designed so that oil is produced on a supply and demand basis. Shampoo strips the hair of oil, making your scalp think it needs to produce more, which makes you think you need to wash your hair again! Baking soda won't do that so the scalp will balance itself out and only produce oil as needed. I rinse the baking soda out and then use diluted vinegar (or apple cider vinegar) as a conditioner. Again what I always thought was wrong. I assumed vinegar was drying and would dry my hair out. But it actually works as a conditioner and makes my hair really soft. Rinse the vinegar out and I'm good to go. Don't worry, the "Easter egg" smell disappears when it dries. I've found that I only need to no poo wash every week or week and a half. Here's another little gem: dirt and sweat wash out with just water. Who knew!? I was concerned with my hair getting stinky, especially after sweaty nights at the gym. But nope, never smells. So I pay attention to my hair and when it feels like it's a bit oily, I no poo wash. Otherwise I just rinse and kind of pretend to wash it with the water.

Ah, so the verdict is in! I will definitely not be going back to shampoo. I was a huge skeptic when I started this. Long, naturally curly hair does not seem like a good match for a no conditioner lifestyle. But, I was wrong. After a few weeks, I sort of fell into a natural balance with my hair and it became very manageable. At the beginning it can be a little iffy because your head will produce more oil until it realizes it's not getting stripped every day. I wore it up the first week or so. I was having great success with straightening my hair, brushing it was no problem, it had a great texture and felt healthier. So I went for it and tried the ultimate test. Curls. I've always been a huge gel/mousse/hair putty/whatever I could find girl when it comes to curling my hair. And here I was going to try the natural curly look with nothing. And amazingly it worked. I still don't think it's quite the same polished look as it was with gel, but it's definitely not frizzy like I dreaded it would be. It's noticeably fuller without the weight of conditioner.

So that's the basics of how I do it. There are a few other things. If you feel like your hair is too oily one day, you can use cornstarch to absorb some of it. I took an empty plastic Parmesan cheese bottle and use it as a shaker. I kind of rub it in my hands and then run them through my hair. Then brush it out so I don't look like I'm going gray. And I made my own hair spray by dissolving a bit of sugar into hot water and putting it in a spray bottle. I've found that I don't feel like I need hair spray nearly as much as I used to, but it's nice to have an all natural option for the few times I do. That's about it. I do have another spray bottle that has water and a few drops of lavender essential oil. I use that on my hair once in a while for the pretty smell. The only other thing I can think of is the boar bristle brush I just bought. It was $10 at Target, but so worth the money. It helps to distribute the natural oils from the roots to the ends and leaves my hair looking super soft and shiny.

3-1/2 months no poo

It has been a great change for me and I don't see myself going back. It's very simple. I feel more in tune with myself, I can feel my hair and know it's about time for a no poo wash. And it's cut down on my daily routine tremendously. If you're interested, google no poo and you'll find tons of links for sites that give more information. My advice for someone first starting out would be to give it at least 2 weeks. There is a transition period where your body will over produce oil until it finally realizes it needs to slow down. I don't have naturally oily hair so my transition was fairly easy. But I have read some women say there hair was a greasy mess. Don't give up! Put your hair up in a messy bun, wear a hat, whatever, but keep going and I guarantee it will get better. The other thing would be not to wash it too often. Get to know your head and the feel of how natural hair is supposed to be. I don't even keep track of when or how often I wash anymore. If I can go 2 weeks with it feeling and looking good, then why not?

I'd love to hear from anyone else who has done the no poo thing. I'm a skeptic turned believer!