Mouth Bacteria Transform Beet Kvass To Decrease Blood Pressure
Video Transcript:
[Emily] Hi everyone. I'm Emily Niswanger, a registered dietician. I welcome here today Ashley Oswald, a fellow dietician, and gut health expert. And today we're in my kitchen and she is going to teach me and you guys how to make some Kvass.
So fermented feeds kind of sound weird. I told her I don't even really like beets, but she said I have to try this because it's good for my health. And so I love to cook and get my hands dirty and so I will try anything. And so here we are. So Ashley, can you tell us a little bit more about Kvass and why you recommended making this right now?
[Ashley] Yeah, totally. So one of the reasons I wanted to show you guys how to make this is because it's one of the easiest foods to ferment. We just made a video on fermenting carrots and ginger and that was easy, but this is even easier, you guys.
And the reason I wanted to, we wanted to come together and make this is because beets have a nutrient in them called arginine.
Arginine helps to create nitric oxide in the body. And that's really great for blood vessel health, for decreasing blood pressure, and just for preventing atherosclerosis like this plaque buildup and the vessels.
So we know we're in Covaid season right now with this coronavirus and we know some of the risk factors are high blood pressure and metabolic issues. So whatever we can do to help decrease those risk factors is going to be a really smart thing as we get through this.
[Emily] Absolutely. And I talked to my followers all the time about lowering inflammation in the body and we know that like heart disease and hypertension, all that is related to inflammation, which beets are rich in antioxidants.
It helped to lower inflammation in the body naturally. So that's how we want to do it. We want to try to prevent high blood pressure and then we can treat it in a more natural way, and get it under control. How great is that?
So let me show you guys what I have in front of me here that actually instructed. I start with, I have a couple of beats of this one's still in half here and I just roughly washed them, chopped off the end, and then I've just been cutting them into like little tiny pieces here. And right Ash, you said just like less than an inch or something like that or flip dropped.
[Ashley] Yeah, that's perfect. So this beet kvass is really like this for, and so a way that you can think of cutting these beets up is that the more surface that's exposed, the more when it's emerged in the water, those nutrients are going to get pulled out into the water. And that's going to create that fermented juice. That's going to be the end product.
[Emily] It actually smells really good at it for someone who doesn't like beets. Now, what do I want to do?
[Ashley] So now, do you have your Mason jar?
[Emily] I do. This is a wide-mouth Mason jar. I use these for everything under the sun in my house. So I have dozens of biggies. So Mason jar check,
[Ashley] Love it! So you guys are going to be blown away by how easy this is. Literally, Emily just put two teaspoons of salt in the Mason jar. Okay.
And then, and it's an art you guys, as you can see, Emily's kind of roughly putting in two teaspoons, that's fine. And then add the beets on top of that. Fill it with water. Put the cover on.
[Emily] Oh, so I want to like actually spin. Okay. Salt, beets, and water?
[Ashley] Yep.
[Emily] I actually want to put my Mason jar cover on top of this.
[Ashley] Yeah, that's what we're going to do. And then I'll tell you kind of what you'll want to do in the next few days with it.
Okay.
[Emily] That looks like about, this was about four beets have maybe I picked up some small ones. I really, to be honest, didn't know which ones to pick.
[Ashley] Okay. So perfect. So now fill that with water.
[Emily] Okay. And then does it matter what kind of water? Does it need to be filtered? Does Chlorine affect this?
Does it matter what kind of water you use?
[Ashley] So Sander Katz, who's kind of known as the father of fermenting foods. Yeah, it's this big old, the art of fermentation book here. He says any water is going to be fine. So whatever you guys have at home.
But if you do have access to non-chlorinated water, like for example, I have this Aqua sauna filter, that's just, that's my faucet. So it's filtering out all the chlorine from the water I drink every day. Then use the water coming out of your filter. But if you don't have access to non-chlorinated water, then just use whatever you're used to drinking.
[Emily] Okay, cool. Great.
[Ashley] Good, beautiful, nice, and red. So put the cover on.
[Emily] Okay. I don't have a cover in front of me.
[Ashley] Oh, okay. So Emily going to do is she's going to then put the Mason jar cover on and mix it so that the salt kind of gets mixed into the water.
[Emily] Okay.
[Ashley] And then you just let it sit. So you let it set in, ferment, open the cap every day just to let, but just to burp it is what it's like. That fermentation is going to produce gases and you want to let those gases out. Yeah. Perfect.
[Emily] Awesome. Oh my gosh. It's so pretty. Feel free to eat. And you guys can think of like that red color as um, you know, it's red like blood vessels. So this is going to help your blood vessel health. Okay. And then you said, where does this go next and for how long?
[Ashley] So just let it sit at room temperature for like most other fermented foods for at least a few days and just start smelling it and it's going to start smelling like this vinegary fermented juice.
And then you can start tasting it. And once it gets to the taste that you enjoy, then just put it on your fridge, which is going to really, really slow down the fermentation process. And then you can just drink some every day until it's gone.
[Emily] Leave the beet pieces in here or drain or strengthened them out.
[Ashley] So you'll want to strain them out so that you kind of, you can have like a little half cup of juice.
[Emily] Oh, and then how much a day just to sip?
[Ashley] You can do just a sip and about a tablespoon. You're going to get trillions of bacteria, but it's if you want it to drink like a half cup of juice in the morning, that's a really great way to do it too.
[Emily] And is there any, what if I'm concerned about my salt intake for my heart, is the salt being taken up by the beets and then I'm, when I'm pouring them out I don't have to worry about it being like the high sodium drink or is the benefits of of the juice so much that we don't have to worry about that salt either?
do we have to worry about the salt intake?
[Ashley] That's a really great question. So, something that's interesting is when people eat a lot of real whole foods and not as many processed foods, they tend to not have an issue with overconsuming salt. So then having this in your daily eating, it's really not a big deal.
And probably beneficial because when I used to work with kids doing the homemade blended formulas for tube feeding, that was the number one thing that they kept being the low in because of just eating a lot of real whole foods. So I think this would be a plus.
[Emily] Definitely. I do tell people in my meal planning group that since we are cooking mostly from scratch and basically a hundred percent from scratch, you need to sell your foods because you're not getting all that salt from processed foods that you were before. Maybe fast food or even restaurants. So yeah. Great. That's so good to know. Okay.
[Ashley] Yeah. And at the end of the day, it's not that much thought either, especially since you're just having a little bit of it every day I'm sounder. Cottey does talk about how some people will ferment without salt, but usually, it's not the amount that's concerning.
[Emily] Okay, cool. Ashley! I'm so excited to try this color looks amazing. It's super pretty and I'm glad you got me to try something new because I wasn't a beet fan before, but maybe I'll really like them fermented. So I'm going to, I'll give feedback on what I think about it. Is anything else people should know about kvass?
[Ashley] I'd like to say in case you don't like it, at least you have your carrots and ginger backup. So if you guys don't like beets either check out our other video.
[Emily] Oh yes, I can not wait to have those. Awesome. Okay. So Ashley, how can people learn more about you?
[Ashley] So we work with people, helping people improve their gut health, IBS, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, all that, those bothersome symptoms. So you can schedule a free meet and greet call with our clinic or just come follow and hang out with us on Instagram.
We have some free resources at the link in my Instagram bio so you can go check that out. And then Emily has a really awesome meal planning group that she is facilitating right now and is ongoing. So Emily, can you tell people how to connect with you?
[Emily] Yeah, I'm mostly on Instagram, but I do have a website anywhere, nutrition.com you can see previews of my 12-week meal plan. I'm letting people join in halfway to do a short and six-week version of it right now, which I've never done before.
But yeah, that's what I'm passionate about, teaching people how to cook at home because we know that health starts with home-cooked meals and meals with your family or your loved one. And that's what I'm all about. So thank you so much for showing me how to make something new that I can share with my followers.
[Ashley] Absolutely. Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you again soon.
[Emily] Bye.
[Ashley] Bye.
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