Yogurt from the Old Homestead (GAPS legal)

   There are many things that worried me as I prepared to start the GAPS diet, not the least of which was the fact that I had to ferment dairy. Ferment dairy? Does that sound foreign only to me? I already felt accomplished making my own kraut, crispy nuts, and dehydrating our wonderful fruit harvest. But dairy...dairy goes bad. 

   

   Yet, I pushed through the doubts, mustered my courage, and read a lot of blog posts. Oh, yes, there are plenty of posts about yogurt making, but I have been asked for these directions enough times to justify adding another post to the mysterious world of culturing milk. I included pictures for all you visual people, but there be warned: just because my uncle is a professional photographer, does not make me one! If you want eye-candy, go to his website, not mine!

   To start making your own yogurt and sour cream, ensure you have a big pot, the thinner metal the better; a large bowl wide enough for your pot to rest in it; a calibrated thermometer; jars with their lids; a starter, culture, etc.; and some time.

   Now, I use raw milk, which means the milk has not been pasteurized, killing all the beneficial microbes naturally found in milk and distorting its protein structure. For many years, however, we could not get our hands on this white gold, so we had to settle for store-bought milk. You can make yogurt with this, too. Never fear.

I use one gallon of milk, one quart of light cream, and one quart of heavy cream. Yum!

   The first step requires heating the milk. Yes, even though your lovely milk is raw, heat the milk. With raw milk, you warm it to a gentle 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Please note, your milk is still technically raw. Why heat it then, you ask? Good question. Raw milk is full of lively microbes, but there are many different strains of these probiotics present, and they will compete during the culturing process. The yogurt will end up tasting odd and may very well separate in to curds and whey. Unpleasantness, especially after spending this time and money on yogurt. Heating the milk to 110 degrees controls the levels of probiotics so competition is not as rampant, making the yogurt sour nicely and develop a thick, silky texture. And remember, all this and your milk is still raw!

   If you cannot use raw milk, then buy organic, full fat, low temperature pasteurized milk from the store. If you can get it unhomogenized, consider yourself blessed. Read carefully, now. Instead of heating your milk to 110 degrees, heat it to 180 degrees. Why? Well, sorry to say, since the milk was pasteurized at the factory, it lost its natural protection from invading microbes: its own probiotics. Sigh. Tragic. Why did they do this in the first place? Anyway, your milk is now contaminated with some pestulant flora, and we do not want them growing during the fermentation process. Heating it to 180 degrees kills all the beasties in the milk so none of them propogate later on. The microbes you will use to culture your milk will come from the starter you use in a later step.

White, foamy beauty waiting docilely in a pot.

      So, pour your milk in the pot, cover it with any lid you can find the correct lid, and turn the burner to medium high. Stay in the kitchen while the milk warm because we do not want to overheat or burn it. With my thin metal pot, I generally check the milk about seven minutes in to the heating process and it is almost at 110 degrees. Of course, if you are using non-raw milk, it will take longer to reach 180 degrees.

Checking the temperature. Sorry about the blur!

   While the milks warms, procure a wide, sturdy bowl and place it on a flat surface. This will later be holding your pot of milk along with some ice.

   Always keeping an eye on the milk on the stove, fetch enough jars to hold your milk and cream (a gallon of milk requires four quart jars, plus however many jars you need for your cream), and cover the bottom of each jar with your starter. What could your starter be? Well, any probiotic food or capsule, really. People have had success with using their probiotic pill, others prefer using some of their last batch of yogurt, some get fancy and order starters online, while still others, like me, buy organic yogurt from the store and use it as their culture. Do what works best for you. With raw milk yogurt, many find that using yogurt from their previous batch results in really sour yogurt due to the wider variety of probiotic strains with which you are working. I tried it once, and the taste definitely had to grow on us. My general practice is to buy organic, full fat, unhomogenized yogurt from the store or farmer's market to use as my starter. The farmer's market yogurt makes our yogurt so creamy in taste - delicious! Unfortunately, we do not get over there often, so we resort to Erivan yogurt from Whole Foods. Erivan is only found on the east coast, so do your research and see which starter is best for you!

You see how I cover the bottom with my starter yogurt? It is about 1/4 cup starter to 4 cups milk.

   Forget not thy milk warming on the stove. That would bring about no pleasant happening, now would it? Do not fret if you do happen to heat past the 110 degree mark. The yogurt is not going to be ruined, and you will still enjoy the benefits of the bacteria from your starter yogurt. In fact, the yogurt will be thicker the more you heat it because there will be less competing strains. And if you are not using raw milk and you miss the 180 degree mark, hey, your milk is dead anyway. 

   Once you hit 110 or 180 degrees, depending on your milk, immediately transfer the pot of milk to that wide bowl mentioned above. Take of the lid of the milk pot and fill the wide bowl with ice and some water, making sure to leave room in the bowl for melting. There. Now your set up should like this:

The bowl is wide enough to fit the pot and ice water. Remember to leave room for melting ice if you do not want to deal with Niagara falls all over your kitchen counters!

   Leave the milk in the bowl until the temperature goes down to 80 degrees. Once it reaches 80 degrees, you will fill the jars with your milk, but for now, just be patient until it cools all the way. In the meantime, take your cream (which you did not heat) and pour them into a few jars with starter yogurt on the bottom. Take a spoon and stir the starter into the cream. That is all you need to do for sour cream! By now, your milk should be cooled...

Checking the temperature. Still a bit more to go until 80 degrees!

 
   Has your milk cooled down to 80 degrees? Good! Only a few more steps to go until creamy goodness. Carefully pour the milk into your prepared jars. Get a long spoon and stir the milk into the starter, as you did with the cream above. Gather all your lids and screw them on the filled and stirred jars. You should have something looking like this:

That was not so bad, was it?

   And into the dehydrator they go! Or not. We use a dehydrator to culture our dairy, but you may not have one. (Hint: if you are on the GAPS diet, I highly recommend one as almost absolutely necessary.) If that is the case, a crockpot on low has worked, as has the warming drawer which comes with some ovens nowadays. But, did you know people have been fermenting dairy long before ovens and dehydrators were invented? That is right! Fermenting is not an exacting science. If you have a water closet or an area near heating vents, or even on top of your fridge - any place with a steady temperature around one hundred degrees - feel free to use it. In our family, we pop it in the dehydrator at 100 degrees Fahrenheit for 24 hours. Whatever you use to culture your milk, be sure it is at a temperature around 100 degrees and for at least 24 hours. Not hard, eh? Here are our babies in the dehydrator. See the smaller cream jars in the front?

I see eight jars!

   Whew. Feeling overwhelmed? Do not worry, it gets easier every time and, in reality, there is not that much to it. Just develop a rhythm: warm milk, cool milk, pour milk, and do not spill! Here is a review of the directions:

1. Heat milk to 110 degrees.
2. Make sure your large bowl is handy.
3. As soon as milk reaches 110 degrees, place milk pot in bowl, fill with ice water, and cool to 80 degrees.
4. While cooling, prepare jars with a quarter cup starter per quart jar.
5. Once milk reaches 80 degrees, pour into jars and stir. Seal lids.
6. Place in dehydrator at 100 degrees for 24 hours.
7. Remove from dehydrator, stir each jar and let cool down in fridge. 

   Voila! You have just made your own yogurt. Enjoy!

*For all you GAPSters, this yogurt is perfectly legal at any stage in which you can tolerate yogurt. It has been fermenting for 24 hours, so there are no milk sugars (lactose) left, only probiotic scrumptiousness.

This post was linked to Simple Lives Thursday: #81 and Pennywise Platter Thrusday 2/2

The Why's and What's of the GAPS Diet

    So, I decided to give more background to the GAPS diet. You can skip this post if nutrition and gang wars amidst bacteria are not your interests. The next post will introduce Becoming a Fair Lady in Word, I promise, but the last post kind of left me hanging. And I wrote it! Thus, this explanation of the diet - why it works and how it works and what it means for me and this blog. 

Disclaimer: I do not pretend to be a doctor nor do I strive to council you in your medical and nutritional choices. If you implement anything I say and it backfires on you, too bad. Go sue someone else. Okay, so I should hunt for a better disclaimer. Bear with me.

What are Gut Flora?

    I mentioned critters, remember? And those cute little enterocytes? Yeah, we get to hear more about them. First, I shall give our critters names and set the stage for the saga of the stomach (and intestines, and liver, and, well, you know). 

    Gut Flora, aka critters, live all over your body, not just your gut. They live in the eustachian tubes of your ears, the mouth, and basically any surface tissue. But they mainly live in the gut. Scientists have distinguished three categories of gut flora: 

1) Indigenous - good guys your body uses

2) Opportunistic - bad guys which stick around but do not have a chance to grow due to good guys

3) Transitional - the guys you eat and inhale who pass through your body without bothering it

   Indigenous flora are bacteria, fungi, and various others of that sort which live and lodge in our body. God designed this symbiotic relationship between human and...critter which keeps us healthy and useful. Humans like indigenous flora.

    Opportunistic flora are those which dwell in our bodies, waiting for the opportunity to launch an attack on our little indigenous friends. They want to control the market, if you understand me. Humans dislike opportunistic flora - to a point. They do tend to balance the flora out, so we do not want to eradicate them, just not let them grow.

    Transitional flora are things we may eat or breathe into our bodies. They do not live anywhere, really, but are poor wayfaring strangers which we eliminate as needed. 

What Gut Flora Does:

    But what are these microorganisms doing in our bodies in the first place? They are very busy, actually. I tried to put their functions in five groups.

    First, indigenous gut flora protects our gut lining, and thus body, from opportunistic flora, entering viruses and bacteria, and toxins.

    Second, they attack the opportunistic and transitional flora. Not only do they protect our body from these microorganisms' deleterious effects, but they actively oppose them from spreading. Nice.

    Third, gut flora nourishes our body. It is the perfect example of symbiosis, we feed the flora and they feed us. You see, there are things we consume but cannot digest, like fibre. Fibre is important because it slows the flow of carbohydrates through our gut. But what happens to this fibre when we are done with it? We cannot use it in our structure nor metabolism. That is right, gut flora feed off fibre. Of course, we also eliminate it. This is just one illustration of the symbiosis, though. They absorb and digest certain sugars and proteins, too. That is why GAPS patients cannot handle these foods well; they lack the flora which absorbs and digests them! However, beneficial flora also make, or synthesize, vitamins we either cannot use from food or need during times we are not eating. The absorption of vitamins is a fast process. If we relied solely on our meals to provide these vitamins, there would be times during the day when areas of our body would be deficient. Gut flora, by offering a steady stream of select B vitamins and K vitamins, ensures our bodies always have what they need.

Fourth, indigenous gut flora do what I like to call nannying. I direct you to our buddies, the enterocytes. These cells are imperative for proper digestion and immunity. They live on the villi of our intestines and form its brush border, producing many enzymes necessary for digestion and absorption of food. Without them, we would not be able to use most of what we eat and starve, no matter what we shoved down our throats! Gut flora nanny these helping hands. They govern the enterocytes' mitosis (formation) and maturation, making sure they develop in to healthy, functioning units in the assembly line of our digestive system. 

    Fifth and last, gut flora detoxes our bodies. A host of unwanted substances enter our bodies through the food we eat and the air we breath. Beneficial flora are a first line of defense against those toxins by taking part in the production of lymphocytes and therefore immunoglobulins, like IgA. They also are somehow involved in processes of neutrophils and macrophages, which "eat" viruses and toxins to eliminate them. Plus, beneficial bacteria help produce regulators of immune response, without which our immune system would behave like a mob. All of these substances detox the body, and they would not exist without the help of gut flora.

What Happens during Gut Dysbiosis

    As we have seen, gut flora plays a major role in our normalcy. They do a lot to keep us going as we do. So what happens when our gut flora does not do its job, when the three kinds of gut flora get out of balance? Basically, we can look at all their benefits and turn these gifts on their heads. Just a peek of this reverse will show you the havoc gut dysbiosis can wreak. 

    For one thing, your lining is no longer protected so it is attacked by viruses, toxins, and opportunists, some of which embed themselves in the gut wall, causing it to deteriorate and leak. This leads to a "Leaky Gut" where food passes into the bloodstream partially digested. Yikes! Your body does not recognize these macromolecules of food as at all good for the body, so it starts attacking them. This is a way allergies (really they are intolerances) develop.

     Beneficial bacteria no longer keep the opportunistic flora at bay, so they take their chance to raid the gut, releasing a slew of toxins and poisons and other not so pleasant things. On top of that, when E. coli or Candida albicans or Clostridium dificile, to name a few, grow in number they destroy the gut wall even more. It is not a pretty sight. 

   Then, because good bacteria are no longer producing vitamins you need nor aiding in the absorption of foods and care for enterocytes, you become malnourished no matter how much you eat. You no longer have the resources to fight assailing disease! Invaders are just a smidgen of the problem, though; the overgrowth of bad bacteria and fungi crave foods for themselves (like sugars) rather than what would restore gut balance. It becomes a vicious cycle of cravings and reactions followed by more cravings and more reactions.

   Then our gut develops its own orphan community. As mentioned in passing, instead of happy homemaker bacteria nursing enterocytes, we have bad bacteria attacking these cells so vital for digestion and immunity. 

   The impaired immune system now stages a counterattack. We have two branches in our immune system, but, due to handicapped and dead gut flora not protecting us, they become unbalanced. Th1, the branch which is known as the first line of defense against invaders, gives way to Th2, the branch associated with allergic reactions, inflammation, and autoimmunity. Thus, this latter set of defense mechanisms becomes hyper-active, resulting in the myriad allergies, intolerances, and autoimmune diseases we have today. 

   In short, damaged gut flora leave your body open to invaders, malnourished so it cannot combat the invaders, and results in compromised immunity which tends to maniacally attack its own cells or otherwise normal substances. What is more, the gut is leaky, so toxins and partially digested food leak into the bloodstream, unleashing horrible reactions and toxicity. This results in many of the disorders and intolerances we see today, like autism, celiac, etc. Who knew it could all begin in the gut?

What Causes Gut Dysbiosis:

  But how did it go wrong? What led my body to the dilapidated state in which it now is? There are a few factors leading to the demise of anyone's gut.  Disease, antibiotics, toxic environments, and diet all play a contributing role to Gut Dysbiosis. Usually, the sorry state of things cannot be attributed to any one factor, but to a variety of each. Say you get really sick and weak, and you need to take antibiotics to strip away disease, all the while eating hospital haute cuisine of toast and jam and ten percent apple juice. This would leave you pretty much done in. Or perhaps you returned home from an exhausting day at the mall, full of its cleaners and perfumes and who knows what else, to pop inscrutable microwave dinners into your little microwave oven. And you have a cold. These situations put a lot of strain on your poor gut flora and enterocytes! If you make this a habit, they may well throw a fit and go sit in the naughty corner!

   However, diet is on my mind. It is the hard-to-digest polysaccharides (or large, complicated sugar molecules), the processed foods replete with chemicals, and poor quality fibre that make your gut a play house for bad bacteria. As we saw, they feed off fermenting fibre, settle down in the glue-like abodes so happily produced by processed sugars, and relish a fine snack of polysaccharides which you are too compromised to use. But you do not help. You continue to eat foods your digestive system can no longer handle, and they leak through your gut, invoking all sorts of mayhem and withholding from your gut the chance to heal. 

What Cures Gut Dysbiosis:

    Well, no more! There are three components to restoring your gut flora and thereby curing Gut Dysbiosis. Imagine it as three legs to a stool: take out one and the whole piece crashes. First, there is a need to detox. You must rid yourself of all those poisonous substances accumulating in your body with every bite you eat (no matter how "healthy" that bite may be). But this must be accompanied by a drastic change in diet, one which starves the bad guys, feeds the good guys, and cleans up the crime scene. This diet is full of nourishing animal fats and cartilages, grass-fed or pastured meats, non-starchy vegetables, very ripe fruit, and lots and lots of soups. All starches and grains are eliminated to let the gut heal. The fats, cartilage, and broth restore the gut lining while the meats and vegetables provide much needed building-blocks and energy. To aid these two legs, we have a third: supplementation. This is not permanent. A healthy body should be able to live from food, not pills. However, so many of us have gone astray that we need a little help to get back on track. The main supplementation comes from probiotics. They are just good bacteria we put in our stomachs via fermented foods and encapsulated strains. 

   So, this is what I am doing, and it is fun! With steady perseverance, I hope to be healed soon. Upcoming posts will probably involve recipes and musings. Maybe a few "I can't do this anymore" posts, too. It is hard work. But, all in due time. Now you ought to give your eyes a break. They have been reading blogs much too long!

Post Script

Here are some interesting writings on the whole gut flora idea:

http://www.textbookofbacteriology.net/normalflora.html

http://www.ajcn.org/content/73/2/444S.long

http://www.wasamedicals.com/pdf/ref_smj_eng.pdf

http://eebweb.arizona.edu/courses/ecol409_509/searsreview.pdf

My Story IV - Still on the Journey: An Introduction to GAPS

  Yes, there have been struggles and triumphs, but it is by no means over yet. I still have much to accomplish for physical healing; and spiritual healing, well, is it not a lifelong work of sanctification which God promises to complete? It is always helpful, though, to know where you are on the journey to have a better idea of what needs to be done and in what direction you are heading. So where am I?
    A picture may be of use. 

    You will remember from this post that I did not look healthy. Well, I think in this picture I look healthier. This is a good thing! Now, there are still problems to solve in my body, like more energy, less intolerances, and a pain-free back. The improvements in these areas abound so I cannot complain. But the road still winds ahead.

There are spiritual trials, too. I still confront control, specifically in the area of time. Head on collision! Yet I know what is right and what is wrong, and earnestly desire the right at any cost. That is half the battle. I could work on my tone when speaking to my dear family. Does it matter they love me unconditionally (as far as a human can)? Should I take advantage of that gift? Of course not. Why is it we are kinder to our waitress than our mother? It does not make sense, and it is certainly not in line with Christ, so making that change is on the top of my to-do list. These are just examples of the hurdles I have yet to leap, the habits I have yet to change. After all, the mountains loom ahead.

But there is hope for my journey, both physically and spiritually.

Let me introduce you to my physical problem-solver: the GAPS programme. GAPS stands for Gut and Psychology Syndrome or Gut and Physiology Syndrome, depending on what your health difficulty is. I fall under the latter category, if you wondered. What on earth does that mean? Simple, really. The name connects the state of your gut (think stomach, intestines, etc.) to the state of your health, so the idea is to heal your gut which in turn heals your body. Not too hard of a concept to grasp, eh?

Now just how does this work? You see, we have these little critters living inside our guts which help digest food, eliminate toxins, protect the gut lining, and a host of other things. We also have these little cells called enterocytes living on our gut linings. Well, when a person has a GAPS dilemma, the little critters get out of control, turning to gang violence and covert operations, while the helpful enterocytes meet a tragic end, and are not replaced. What grief... Anyway, by repopulating our guts with good critters and eating in a way which perks up those sad, starved enterocytes, your gut dysbiosis will return to its state of gut symbiosis, and your body will thank you for it.

But what does this programme look like? GAPS Programme does sound a bit like a brainwashing squad, but it is actually quite wonderful! You take probiotics, cut out grains and starches, and eat all that scrumptious food you were told would give you a heart attack like burgers, butter, cream, gravy, bacon, and brussel sprouts (okay, okay, this girl really likes brussel sprouts). See, by eating these healing foods, you give your gut a break from breaking down complex carbohydrates, while at the same time, you nourish the gut to restore it to full functioning capacity. 

There is a much more scientific explanation coming soon, but I did not want to bog down uninterested people with alien-sounding terms. :) I know, I just used a smiley. 

Spiritually, also, there is most definitely a game plan. It is called Scripture. How can I become a Fair Lady without pursuing the only One who is fair? How can I pursue Someone I do not know? How can I know the Unknowable if not by His own revelation? Yes, my heart's desire is to make His word not just a light unto my feet, but the light unto my feet. It shall be my aim to listen to His voice amidst all the voices Satan uses to drown His. And God is powerful for this. He is mighty to make Himself heard, and hard hearts respond. I have already seen this in my life, and my Father will continue the work He began to completion. 

For everything, then, He deserves praise. No matter what means He uses to shape me, whether it be a food plan, a strong family, or crazy blogging homeschool mamas, all the glory goes to Him and Him alone. My prayer is that this lady will glorify her King. And that is my story...so far!