How to Enjoy Kefir: My favorite breakfast shake

As evidence by my blog posting dates, learning about health has fallen off my radar.  However, eating and living healthy have not!!!  One of my favorite health secrets right now is kefir.  It's a yummy way to get fermented food and probiotics into your diet. Here's what you do:

1) Get kefir "grains" from a friend (they look like the tops of cauliflower).  Anyone who makes kefir has multiplying grains, so there's always plenty to share.  There are also places to buy them online. I've always just asked on a local e-mail loop.

2) Get good quality milk (raw, from a farm) and put at a least a couple teaspoons of grain in a quart of milk (or how ever much kefir you want to make.)  Let it sit out about half a day on the counter.  You are looking for it to thicken up around the grains at the top. OR do an internet a recipe for refrigerator kefir and make it slowly in refrigerator.

3) Use a strainer to separate the grains from the kefir.  Store grains in a little milk in the refrigerator till you are ready to make another batch.

4) Store kefir in fridge.  In my rather picky opinion, the kefir isn't good to eat plain.

5) Make a kefir shake.  Here's my recipe that I often enjoy for breakfast.

 Put in to blender:

•  1 cup kefir (I use the marks on the blender itself.)
• about 1/2 a frozen banana (stored cut into small chunks)
• berries or other fruit (such as 3-4 strawberries)
• one scoop of stevia (using the scoop that comes in my stevia...it is very small..the sweetness counters the sour kefir taste.)
• a squirt of honey (stevia sweetens, but this just adds a bit of flavor) 
• Cinnamon (helps blood sugar) and Nutmeg (good for adrenals)...I like the taste, but added these originally for health benefits...I have also use the above too with clove when I was worried about a possible ulcer.
• Sometimes I add a green powder or a few fresh green leaves.  I like to keep it small so  I don't affect the taste.

I love the taste and I feel great when I have this for breakfast. When you try it, let me know what you think!

A "Normal" Breakfast

I just had to share about breakfast! Yum. Today we had whole-grain pancakes that taste almost like white flour pancakes (made in a blender with Sue Gregg's recipe.) But the really exciting part is that we got to have butter. Real butter! It is made from raw pasture-fed cow's milk and made by a little old lady and sold on her farm. We just found this source of butter, so I'm really excited. Normally we buy pastured organic butter at the store, but my family can't have it b/c of allergies, so I'm the only one to use it. But I think the raw butter they can have (I'll let you know if I'm wrong--they CAN have raw goat milk, so I'm hoping raw cow's milk is the same.)

And then to top it all off, real maple syrup--I wouldn't touch Aunt Jemima's syrup with chemical flavoring and corn syrup which doesn't taste great and is horrible for your health. So, yes, maple syrup is expensive, but it is our treat to replace soda, candy, etc, so I find it worth the cost! Maple syrup is always great for your health--how many sweeteners can claim that?????

Now I really like to add eggs to balance it out, but we didn't this morning--but with the new butter, it was quite satisfying!

Eating Cereal BOXES for breakfast...

According to a study, (done as a joke) rats live longer off cereal boxes than the cereal itself! And it's possible that health food store variety could be worse. Makes you want to reconsider what your having for breakfast. See the full story at: http://www.nourishingourchildren.org/parents/cereal.html

At least I can still have my Ezekiel 4:9 cereal. But how does one survive a baby without Cheerios??? :)

Ok, let me make this easier. Other than Ezekiel cereal, you can have a bowl of fruit, muffins, toast, eggs, homemade oatmeal, shake, or pancakes (to name a few options). You can cook something ahead of time in a big batch and freeze so you can you don't have to cook in the morning. And just think of how good muffins can be with lots of butter and raw honey--with NO guilt. You can do this, one change at a time. And you don't have to achieve perfection--just small, steady improvements.