Let Fermented Foods Infect You With Good Health!

For thousands of years humans have fermented tea to create kombucha, which arose in the tea growing region of ancient Manchuria where it was discovered tea can ferment at room temperature to form a slightly alcoholic, naturally effervescent beverage that makes the drinker feel wonderful. 

Touted as the “Tea of Immortality” and the “Elixir of Life”, kombucha travelled the silk road and spread throughout Europe where brewing became the domain of ‘ale wives’, who used herbal lore to create brews that could intoxicate or heal. A great deal of traditional brewing knowledge and herbal lore was lost in the middle ages when many so-called ‘witches’ were burned at the stake, yet kombucha along with other fermentation practices persisted, and kombucha has now spread around the world and built a reputation for improving general and digestive health, and strengthening the immune system.

Wellness can be just as contagious as illness, and kombucha and other fermented foods allow you to tap into the symbiotic wisdom of bacteria and yeast to infect you and your family with good health. Rather than buy soft drinks laden with chemicals, you can easily and cheaply brew your own health tonics at home with a home fermenter kit that includes tea, sugar and a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). You just need to add chlorine-free water. The fermentation process leads to biological enhancement of compounds from tea, along with proliferation of probiotic microbes and biosynthesis of vitamins and other nutrients. The natural complexity and health-giving properties can be further enhanced by adding juices, spices, fruits and medicinal herbs. 

EXTREMELY ALIVE WELLNESS TONICS 

Extremely Alive Wellness Tonics are made from living probiotic kombucha vinegar infused with carefully selected combinations of potent, organic, leaves, roots, flowers, fruits and fantastic fungi. These concentrated tonics contain no sugar or alcohol, require no refrigeration after opening, and can be sipped, taken as a shot, used to make refreshing drinks, spritzers, mocktails or cocktails, or used as a salad dressing. These tonics are extremely alive with over 200 microbial species and can be fed with sweet tea, and used as a starter culture to create an unlimited supply of your own home-brewed kombucha. 

Extremely Alive Wellness Tonics include blends designed to boost your brain, balance yourgut, detox and cleanse your metabolism, make you feel happy and horny, and boost your immunity. The immune boosting ‘Flu Shot’ blend contains many bitter herbs that include artemisia annua, andrographis, astragalus, echinacea, elderberry, elderflower, horseradish, tulsi and reishi, which have been traditionally used to protect against respiratory disease and viral infections. This complex, bitter-tasting blend is great as an apéritif before a meal to awaken your taste buds, increase your capacity to enjoy food, prepare your body for digestion, and quell sweet cravings. If you don’t like bitterness, it can be masked with apple or pear juice to create a deliciously complex drink that tastes like grapefruit juice, only better. 

SIMPLE PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS 

• Brew kombucha and add herbs to make your own tonic and/or secondary ferment.
  
• Give excess SCOBY to your friends or give SCOBY snacks to your dog or chooks.
  
• Test any kombucha to see if it’s alive by leaving it uncovered in a warm place for a few days. If it grows a SCOBY it’s alive, if it doesn’t grow a SCOBY, it’s dead.
  
• Use a SCOBY (preferably a jun SCOBY made with honey) as a wound dressing.
  

If you order tonics from extremleyalive.com.au you will get a 10%  at checkout if you use the coupon code: drmarc.

By Dr Marc Cohen.