My sister the genius.

My sister is funny about some stuff: she can get a bit fanatical about the things she likes. For instance, she loves butternut squash soup and makes it all the time. She roasts it up with maple syrup and then blends it with the usual onions and garlic and probably adds some more maple syrup (obviously - she lives in Quebec). It’s delicious and slightly out of season right now - try and make it in the next six months - but it’s fully worth getting fanatical about. So she loves squash? Good on her. What else does she love? Living foods.

She introduced me to living foods last year during one of my visits. She made me miso soup topped with homemade sprouts, we drank kombucha* and she had a big jar of sauerkraut in her closet (of all places. But it was there) (I think she likes the idea of sauerkraut better than the taste but that’s just a personal opinion). Living food is simple – it’s still alive when you eat it. I believe fermented foods are alive as well because – and I`ll keep it simple because I`m no scientist - there is bacteria and mould present, and they eat carbohydrates, proteins and fats even while you eat it (eating means living!). In a nutshell. Some raw foodists try to argue it`s a dying food because it is kind of eating itself, but that’s beside the point.
Since living foods can entail all fruits and vegetables, they are good for you in all the normal ways. But the things I mentioned above are good for you because, and I`m keeping it simple, they contain living enzymes which are going to help with digestion. If you have any problems with any stage of your *ahem* digestive tract, these things could quite possibly sort you right out.

Miso and sauerkraut are two things I recommend buying in the grocery store. Sure you could try making them at home but sauerkraut is going to seriously stink up your home and miso is best left to the Japanese. But sprouts – these are pretty awesome to make at home. Doesn`t take very long, it`s ridiculously easy, and when you eat them they taste so good that you can kind of feel yourself getting healthier with every bite.

Here`s how you do it:
1. Choose what you want to sprout and put it in a bowl to soak overnight. Options:
-Mung beans
-Chick peas
-Lentils
-Quinoa
-Sunflower seeds
-almost any beans or seeds that are dry and raw.
2. Find a jar (I use mason jars of different sizes) with a lid.
3. Make some air holes in the top. Either bang some nails though the top of the lid, use some pantyhose, an old mesh shirt (?) or my sister likes to use bug catching nets she gets from the dollar store. Cut it up and secure it over the top of your jar.
4. The following morning put the stuff you want to sprout into the jar and give it a rinse with cold water, let most of it drip out, then let it rest at a 45 degree angle to fully drain during the day.
5. Rinse with cold water and let it drain every day until the sprouts have grown to a size that makes you happy.

This is some lentils I did a few days ago. They were so crunchy and tasty and full of life that I ate them by the handful with my cousin Celia. Now she`s a fanatic.

*What's Kombucha? It’s strong, sweet tea that is fermented using a big mushroom (solid mass of microorganisms?). It’s supposed to help with digestion and mostly just keep you super healthy. A friend gave me a “kombucha baby” while telling me it should never be sold, you have to pass it along. It doubles every time you make a batch, and then you can give one to one of your fellow crunchy hippies who enjoy drinking things that taste vaguely vinegar-y and they don’t know what exactly is in it. No, no alcohol. And don’t even try fermenting beer with it.