Published in Far West Almanac.

Mutual assistance enriches even the poor

Chinese Proverb

A couple years ago I finally had a chance to start making kombucha. My sister had gotten a hold of a kombucha mother/starter (known as a SCOBY – Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) while doing a house call, (she’s a nurse). Kombucha is a fermented tea created by a mysterious symbiotic colony of yeasts and bacteria. It looks and feels like a rubbery pancake, and floats on the top of strong black tea and sugar for 7-10 days. The resulting liquid is similar to fizzy iced tea and is very good for cleaning out toxins, supporting the liver and digestive system.

After making a couple batches I didn’t know what to do with all my SCOBY’s (a new baby is born every batch) so I posted my email onto the site www.kombu.de offering the babies to whoever wanted. To my surprise a steady stream of all kinds of people arrived at my door, each with their own kombucha experiences. The most recent being a South African lady who started drinking kombucha while living in Malaysia, she had gotten her SCOBY from someone in Kuala Lumpur via www.kombu.de.

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As we have all learned from having been subject to over thirty years or so of social and scientific experimentation with drug and health fads — there is much more to know about health and nutrition than we really understand. Our scientists keep finding out new things which then seem to contradict what they previously discovered. One year the most healthy thing to eat might be canola oil and the next year butter. We are constantly finding new levels of organization in the interactions of organisms. It has been a confusing few decades and most of us are fed up with the whole thing and annoyed to say the least.

I like the idea that we trust the Earth and the way she packages her products. They don’t need be refined. She knows exactly what she is doing. If we need sweet foods, which we do, stick to raw honey, maple syrup, unrefined palm sugar or something like that.

How many people do you know who have really lost tons of weight switching to sugar-free soda? This is not a good solution to weight issues. Your body is not satiated if it is not receiving the nutrients it needs and eating no-calorie foods will not help.

It is also interesting how much money is involved in this sweetly sugar-free industry. Perhaps if we can get these big businesses fighting amongst themselves over our money we might actually be able to hit them where it counts.

According to market research firm IRI, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, Splenda sold $212 million in 2006 in the US while Equal sold $48.7 million.

wikipedia

We sure are shelling out a lot of money to be poisoned, and our tax-supported organizations who are meant to keep this from happening are in bed with these big-money groups.

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