Kombucha, Kefir and Cultured Foods

naomi.kohlmeier
naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭
edited October 2020 in Ferments

Help! I love making my own kombucha, kefir, cultured veggies, sourdough, etc, but my family will rarely join me in consuming these wonderful foods. With kombucha and kefir, I start to feel like I cannot possibly drink it all.

How do you keep up and what do you do with excess? I feel overwhelmed with quickly it accumulates and I feel like I'm wasting it and money if I don't drink it all.

How do you get your family on board with eating healthier foods? They've tried them all, but prefer to eat and drink other things. The only way I can get them to eat it is to sneak it in other things.

Comments

  • annebeloncik
    annebeloncik Posts: 62 ✭✭✭

    I struggle with this, too. I can pound some kombucha, I don't have trouble there! But my daughter is not a veggie fan... I try to fool her with zucchini in banana bread and spaghetti sauce, but I am not creative enough, or a good enough cook, to find other sneaks. I would love more ideas too!

    I did see an article about recipes using kombucha the other day, I think on the Hy-Vee website?

  • frogvalley
    frogvalley Posts: 675 ✭✭✭✭

    @naomi.kohlmeier You can always try to trade the kombucha with a friend for something you can use. If you are in Virginia, I could perform a wedding service in exchange for some. :)

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    @annebeloncik thanks! Here is a tip or two to try. I put spaghetti sauce and black olives (the kids won't touch them) in a blender and put it on high until the black olives were pulverized. When I lived in the country, and milk was running low, I would add a can of condensed milk and and equal amount of water to the milk jug, mix it well, let it chill overnight and they never knew the difference. Today I made cupcakes that called for a cup of buttermilk. I never have buttermilk in the house and I usually put a teaspoon of vinegar in a cup of milk for a substitute. Today, since I have an abundance of kefir, I snuck that in and they will never know. Muh-hahahahaha!

    @frogvalley if I lived in Virginia, and I wasn't already married, I just might take you up on that! Maybe my neighbor down the street would want some kombucha and or kefir. Thanks for the suggestion.

  • annebeloncik
    annebeloncik Posts: 62 ✭✭✭

    Muahaha! I love it!

  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I've been making Kombucha for 2 1/2 years now and it has finally grown on my entire family. Now my in laws love it too. I just took them a gallon apple juice jug and 5 bottles of grape, strawberry, and blueberry. One thing that helped my family finally try my homemade kombucha is that there is nothing to drink in our house other than water, kombucha, and unsweet tea. So, unless they bought something else that's what we had.

    My oldest daughter loves homemade kimchi. She will eat it by the jar. My other daughter and my husband won't go near it. I also make pickled cauliflower, zucchini, and okra which my husband will eat and sometimes my daughters. It just depends on the day...

    I think the more they're exposed to it the more of a chance they'll try it and hopefully like it.

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    @kbmbillups1 thanks for the encouragement. I'll just keep making it and eating it and hopefully they will grow to love it like I do.

  • tomandcara
    tomandcara Posts: 712 ✭✭✭✭

    @naomi.kohlmeier I remember reading somewhere that part of our taste desires are based on the microbiome of the gut. As a person is repeatedly exposed to small amounts of fermented foods, it does shift the balance of the beasties in the belly and things that used to be too sour suddenly become desirable. If you can convince them to just taste the fermented foods each day for an unspecified number of days, it should gradually shift the balance in the gut. Texture sometimes is more an issue than taste. I don't have any suggestions for changing a persons texture preferences.

  • Merin Porter
    Merin Porter Posts: 1,026 admin


    Honestly, sometimes for my kids I just have to compromise and make things a "little" healthier. I used to make plain homemade yogurt, but I was the only one who would eat it (except for when I added it to smoothies). Now I make vanilla homemade yogurt, with added sugar, and all my kids will eat it. It's less healthy, but at least I know what's in it and how much sugar it actually contains.

    On the veggies, I do serve them with dinner, and just give my veggie-adverse son a little bit every time. He has gotten much better with being able to down them without complaining. Some of them have even grown on him. But I don't ask him to eat a lot of them (although my other two kids love them and will eat lots), because I know that's just outside his wheelhouse right now.

    I also make quick breads with my extra squash and zucchini. Healthy? Not super much, but squash isn't really a family favorite, I get a lot of them in my CSA box, and at least it's a way to use them up where my kids will actually eat them.

    So, I don't know. I wish I could give you some sort of super "key" to sneaking in the veggies, but all I've been able to come up with is:

    -- Serve the best-tasting veggies you can (for me, this generally means "closer to harvest time tastes better," e.g. tomatoes, etc.);

    -- Consistently serve small, tasty portions to your veggie-adverse kids, because they should eventually start tolerating them a little better;

    -- Keep snacking veggies with a tasty dip handy -- my two veggie-loving kids will eat tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, and red peppers if I keep them cut up and set them out on a plate with ranch dip -- so I guess the lesson I've learned here is that people will be much more likely to eat veggies if they're readily available and if there's something tasty to dip them in :) ;

    -- And be willing to compromise on the "healthiness" of the dish; I may not love the health benefits of ranch dressing over olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a dressing, but if that's the way to get my son to eat a salad, then serve it with the ranch because, better to eat the veggies with ranch than not to eat the veggies at all....

    Anyway, would love to hear other folks' tips. This is certainly an age-old struggle, and I know we are not alone!

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    Thanks so much for the good tips and advice everyone. Sometimes I'm an all or nothin' gal. I need to give a little more grace and keep offering the good stuff and hopefully like you said @Merin Porter they will get used to it and maybe even like it or at least tolerate it.

  • AngelaOston
    AngelaOston Posts: 249 ✭✭✭

    Whole frozen strawberries fresh mint from the garden A little ice. 1/3 to half cup kombucha. If not sweet enough a little honey or maple syrup. And 1/3 to half a cup soda water (we have a soda stream). It beautiful, bubbly and yummy. And feels like your drinking a healthy mint julop . If You have fresh strawberry, even better. I keep them whole.

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    naomi.kohlmeier I don't know how long you ferment your kombucha. But I was thinking that maybe if you didn't ferment it as long, so it was sweeter, maybe then they would drink it.

  • erikawinterton
    erikawinterton Posts: 98 ✭✭✭

    I have three little picky eaters..

    while I dont typically have access I do struggle with getting them to eat alot of things.. fortunately my husband loves water kefir and kombucha, even when it is really vinegary or turns to alcohol. Lol.

    I do add milk kefir to smoothies my kids love. I also use milk kefir whey access to add to my sourdough pancake, or bread recipes. I also use it in place of recipes that call for buttermilk (as mentioned above).

    I do tend to water or milk starve my kefir grains when I end up with too much. I call it "hoteling". I just place them in fresh milk or water (respective to the culture) and then let them sit for a while until I am ready to make a new batch.

    My kombucha scoby is actually just fine sitting longer just on the shelf. I just typical use the vinegar it produces later in the backwash, cleaning, or just as vinegar. If you don't mind the more vinegar flavor you can also just drink older kombucha.

    As far as lacto veggies I can't keep them on hand. I personlly eat so much sour kraft, pickles, garlic, and other brines.

    You could always just use the veggies for something else fresh too. I also tend to get veggies in smoothies as long as it is sweetened. Lol

  • annbeck62
    annbeck62 Posts: 1,028 ✭✭✭✭

    I have a the same problem. My family won't go near my cultured foods/drinks either. So I get really creative :) I have let some kombucha keep going and it turns to vinegar. I use that instead of apple cider vinegar both in the kitchen and as a hair rinse. I also use kombucha and kefir to soak nuts, seeds, or dried fruit I need to rehydrate. They can also be used like a sourdough starter. I strain dairy kefir so it thickens and then use some in place of yoghurt or sour cream and turn some into cheese by dehydrating it either plain or adding herbs and spices.

  • MissPatricia
    MissPatricia Posts: 318 ✭✭✭

    Interesting thread! I was not a great vegetable eater either, but I knew that I needed to eat more so the funny thing is that I have planted vegetables that I did not like, and those are the ones that grow so well. The first one was red beets. I had grown up eating canned red beets, but fresh beets from the garden are a whole other eating experience. I also looked up recipes in my cook book to make a tastier dish. Okra is another one; I cannot say that I love okra, but I can eat it. Green beans are an "okay" one, but fresh from the garden is better. Turnips grow well because I don't like them (my perception), but cooked in stews or with mashed potatoes, and they are unnoticeable. They say to grow what you like, and that is good, but growing a bit more (what you don't like) has increased my vegetable intake. I have discovered that many vegetables taste better if you grow them yourself and if you try different recipes that make them tastier.

  • frogvalley
    frogvalley Posts: 675 ✭✭✭✭

    @naomi.kohlmeier I am a recovering "all or nothing" addict. Tried for years to reform my sugar loving mother-in-law. Once when my kids were little, we were putting vegetables on the their plates for dinner and she remarked "thank God I'm old enough so that I never have to eat another vegetable in my life."

    She developed type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancer and healed at our house from everything but the dementia by the time she went into a very nice long term care facility that she had always wanted to live in. We tried to limit her sugar in the dementia care unit, but she would sneak into the refrigerator and scoop up pudding/desserts with her hands and gobble it down. They put a lock on it, but she still found a way to eat enough sugar for a family of four each day.

    Well, she lived to be a very long strong 90 years old and was active until the last week, passing quickly after just a few days of being in bed. Her last meal - handfuls of M&M's she stole from my bag that were for my employees.

    The sugar bothered me a lot more than it bothered her it seems. Boy did I have to rethink my entire lifestyle, believes and practices.

  • Merin Porter
    Merin Porter Posts: 1,026 admin

    Same here. It's taken me a long time to realize that foods that are a little bit healthier, but that actually get eaten, do my kids a lot more good than the really healthy foods that they won't eat. If it doesn't go down the hatch, it doesn't do them any good! So, yeah. I totally hear you. I fought that battle for a long time before coming to a sort of "peace" with my reality....

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    @COWLOVINGIRL I ferment my kombucha for 10-14 days. My family has tried it and liked it, they just don't drink it

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    @annbeck62 how do you dehydrate kefir to make cheese?

  • Grounded
    Grounded Posts: 153 ✭✭✭

    My wife owns a small daycare center, licensed for 3-5 year olds. We talk to them about food and gardens, flowers and herbs seasonally. We also expose them to as much of a variety of different foods as we can. We encourage them to try new foods without forcing it on them. By putting it on their plate, whether they will eat it or not, at least they exposed to it. Additionally, in a group setting we find that they many times will eat what their friends eat. Parents think that we are miracle workers when they find out their child ate broccoli or assorted salad greens, when in fact it was just that their friends ate it. We also try to buy local, fresh and organic food as much as possible.

  • naomi.kohlmeier
    naomi.kohlmeier Posts: 380 ✭✭✭

    Thank you @tomandcara. I will check into that.

  • tomandcara
    tomandcara Posts: 712 ✭✭✭✭

    @naomi.kohlmeier you are very welcome. I have used both the plastic strainers and the cheese cloth methods. Cheese cloth avoids plastic and there are organic cheese cloths, but the plastic strainers are much easier for cleanup. Part of the decision is how much volume you want to strain. Either way, save the whey that drains off the "cheese" It is an incredible probiotic and can be used in fermenting vegetables or as a starter for more kefir, even though it doesn't have the grains. It still has all the microorganisms