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Gardening: Starting Seeds on Coffee Filters
Sat, 03/27/2010 - 3:55pm
It was with great delight that I opened my little bag of treasures this morning. No, not silver, not gold, stocks or bonds, precious gemstones, or cash. My treasure is the little seeds sprouting on coffee filters.
Three days ago I put some herb and pepper seeds on damp coffee filters. I opened them this morning to see precious little sprouts emerging from the sweet basil and the parsley seeds. I once used paper towels for this process but the coffee filters are much more durable and easier to work with.
Okay, I know, you want instructions, so here goes.
MATERIALS NEEDED:
Coffee filters
Plastic Bags
Permanent marker or ball point pen
Shoe box or other container for seedlings
Knife
Foam cups, egg cartons, seed starting tray or other container to transfer the sprouted seeds
Potting soil
First decide what plants you would like to grow in containers, on a window sill, under a grow light or in the garden. Purchase good quality seeds packaged for this year. Old seeds will sprout better on coffee filters than in soil, so if you have some old ones, try them. However, you will have a greater assurance of success with new seeds.
Mark your coffee filters with a permanent marker or ball point pen with the name of the seeds. Dampen the coffee filter by spritzing or sprinkling but do not leave it sopping wet. If you get the filter too wet place it on a paper towel to absorb some of the water. Place the seeds on one half of the filter then fold it in half and put it in a plastic bag. Leave the top of the plastic bag open. Place your bags in a shoebox or other container and place in a warm place. Check your seed package for temperature requirements for sprouting. I have had good luck at room temperature. Some tropical plants may need warmer temperatures to sprout. In this case you can put them near a light or on top of the refrigerator. Other seeds may need cold storage (inside the refrigerator), before sprouting, check your package.
After preparing the seeds for sprouting, wait three days, but be sure the coffee filters stay damp. Sprinkle or spritz with water as needed to keep the filters damp. After three days check the filters daily for sprouted seeds. When you see sprouts emerging, transfer the sprouted seeds to containers prepared with a good potting soil by very gently lifting them from the filter with the blade of a knife.
My advice to you is to buy a good quality potting soil, don't skimp on this item.
Prepare pots or trays for transferring your seeds by wetting potting soil or seed starter mix before putting it into the container. I put some potting soil in a bucket and add hot water just enough to wet the desired medium. Hot water makes dampening the potting soil easier than using cold water. Be sure to let the mixture cool before placing the sprouted seed in the soil.
Now is a good time to recycle those plastic containers that everyone has. Yogurt cups, sour cream, cottage cheese tubs or any plastic tub can be used. The plastic containers like the ones for strawberries can be used by lining them with coffee filters. Foam egg cartons can be used by cutting the top from the bottom at the fold, making a hole for drainage in each cup with a knife and placing the top under it to act as a drip tray. Be sure to mark your container with a permanent marker with the variety of seed planted. If you don't have any of empty food containers, foam coffee cups are inexpensive and also make good substitutes for plastic flower pots, just make a hole in the bottom for drainage. Use your imagination, just remember to make sure you have holes in the containers for drainage. One year I bought spray paint for plastics and painted the outside of large yogurt cups with beige paint prior to preparing them for planting. This was simply for aesthetics and is not needed if the labels on the containers do not bother you. The lids can be used for drip trays. Once painted, they looked like flower pots.
Place the sprouted seed on potting soil in the pots, cups or trays you have prepared. Cover with potting soil according to the size of the seed. Tiny seeds can be placed on top of the potting soil without covering. Small seeds need just a slight covering of soil and larger seeds need to be placed a little deeper into the soil If your seeds already have leaves, make sure the leaves are above the soil.
Your containers can be placed under a florescence light in a garage or a spare room or on a kitchen counter under an under cabinet light. You can also place them in South facing window sill, just turn them ¼ way around each day. In a warm climate the little seedlings may be placed outside. When big enough they can be transplanted into flower beds, the garden, five gallon buckets, or flower pots for the spring and summer growing period. You may also grow them on window sills or under grow lights. Container plants can be brought indoors during next winter, put near a South facing window and will be ready to go back outside next year.
Herbs are so nice to have growing at home for tasty meals. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash do well in containers if you don't have a garden or can no longer plant a full garden.
Try this method of starting seeds for cost savings and for varieties that may not be available to you as plants in your area. You can choose certified organic seed, or heirloom seeds and have plants you cannot find in stores.
There are many good seed sources available on the web. Here are two that I have used with great success.
http://www.gourmetseed.com/c=7gVsPw9UDU8J3ybiknymMeAK0/
It is important to have hobbies that you enjoy and that enhance your spirit. Always plan to be involved in things that you enjoy and things that enrich your life. Gardening is one of my passions. If it is not one of yours, maybe it could be. Life is Good!
To read my other posts follow this link to: "LIFE IS GOOD WITH ALICE".
__________________
Alice Franklin was raised on a sandy beach in Point Clear, AL and lived along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Alabama in her youth, graduating from Fairhope High School on Mobile Bay. Prior to becoming disabled due to severe spine problems, she worked her way into management and purchasing positions in industrial manufacturing and art industries. She worked her way into Lumigrate unknowingly by impressively writing at Lent 2010 about utilizing her religious and spiritual beliefs with chronic pain/disease management (she has had fibromyalgia and chronic myofascial pain for decades); it turns out she holds the priesthood office of elder in her church and became active again in this office in May 2010 and has been pastor or copastor in previous churches. We are so very proud to have her words and thoughts gracing our 'pages' of this website and look forward to what the future holds for her.
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In 2014, I encountered a man named Steve Beddingfield via a Facebook group about chronic illness. Does it matter which one? Cancer, fibromyalgia, Lyme, this, that, the other -- take your pick. I make this point 'at the top' and frequently now, because it turns out whether our symptoms are this or that, the underlying cause .... root cause ... is something it seems he has figured out and connected the dots about.
His work lead him to believe and start teaching others in a little group he created where he'd been filtering people to some degree, that we all have one thing -- 'our disease' some might say, depending upon how you feel about the word 'dis-ease'. The same cause / the same antidote, via a simple protocol which includes recommendations to prevent further getting 'loaded' with enough 'stuff' that a person will have symptoms. Symptoms are so many little things, too --- it's amazing how many things on the outside (skin) and inside of us were symptoms of unwellness which people were thinking was just part of life!
And the Earth, which we are one with, has the same thing too. "Giant Sulphur Bacteria, GSB for short, is able to parasitize algae that it comes in contact with, much like it does with mold, so a new problem maker arises, moss is now invasive." People in his group end up reporting that they've noticed, or start noticing, moss in places there didn't used to be, in quantities beyond what occurred in the past. "Look up at the tree canope and then we'll talk" he'd said to me at one point. When I told him I'm in the desert, technically, I was aware that we all have such different points of reference. But I have tried to 'notice' in the desert, on the rocks, in the trees, and everywhere, what might indicate what he's talking about. And I eventually could see things that perhaps wouldn't have been there in the past. In more humid places of the world, they're having more examples ... and problems.
Meeting Steve Beddingfield on Facebook was similar to how I met Alice in 2009 on Facebook, who I eventually came to call "Amazing Alice" as she had such grace, and was amazing, with all she went through and continued to go through. Early in the days of Lumigrate, after our information helped open her eyes to a whole different way of looking at health, problems, and reversal of symptoms, she creating several wonderful topics that embelished Lumigrate and brought a new dimension of readers to our pages.
Today, 2015, I've not registered anyone new to write in two years and I was able to get really crackin' on creating more content and getting Lumigrate 'flush' with information about things I foresaw the mainstream media playing up, such as Lyme disease. Steve is wishing the information to get to people, and he wants to continue his work in his 'hillbilly laboratory', so I'm continuing to sprinkle information on Lumigrate in order to help catch people and 'intervene' so they might learn of this very cutting edge but important information.
Below is the photo that started the conversation shortly after "May Day" 2015, posted by someone in his group who has been studying and then doing the things that he outlines in his protocol. The group has been kept at under 1,800 people so far and they are trying to get a bulk of people 'up to speed' on the information enough to help others. They hope some will start their own groups eventually as well.
One of the women in the group posted the picture of a pickle after someone in her family had taken the first bite and then before the second bite saw what we see here. I've gotten permission to include here (thank you!, you know who you are, "PickleGal", I'll call ya). It was a commercially produced pickle, and one that is a highly known brand in the USA.
It is in our best interests to realize how 'messed up' the soils are overall, this can happen to any brand, to any home gardener or small food creat-or. This is massive, from what I have learned and in my opinion (and others'), what is going on with our soils (and water and air) that gets into our foods and then into our guts and throughout our bodies, including into the brain. (The superhighway is the vagus nerve). There are things we can do to rid some of the things we are ingesting of these 'interlopers'. So please be proactive about learning and then consider what action you're going to take, or not.
PickleGal mentioned that she'd been trying to talk her family system into growing food, to have better control over what's in your food, and this perhaps was going to put them more in congruence with her. She mentioned 'the stubborn one' was finally agreeing to start the protocol after this pickle incident.
September 3, 2015: 1022 reads of this topic had occurred when I came to add in my input about making your own pickles or fermented cucumbers. I've made both this week, and had some cukes that were of good quality for feeding to chickens that were not going to make quality / good pickles. One bad apple can spoil the whole barrel AND one bad cucumber, I learned online researching how I wanted to go about making my own quality controlled produce to enjoy in the near or distant future, can spoil the whole container of fermenting or pickling cucumbers.
I did not use this recipe aside from reading it over and gleaning some nice points I wanted to pass on here to reinforce:
You can re-use your pickle juice.
If you're going to use ACV with 'the mother' in it, that is affected by heat. I'd just put up pickled beets using a recipe that called for ACV and then it was one you heated in the water bath to pickle and preserve, and it had not worked that information in. So this 'nickle pinching' recipe points out some things that I think are worth reading and you might want to know of the overall resource / website www.rodalesorganiclife.com/food/refrigerator-pickles
Primarily, I followed this information from the fermented foods topic/link, above, from PaleoLeap (I included their beautiful picture too and trust they'll see I'm definitely suggesting YOUsers of Lumigrate GO to THEIR WEBSITE to learn more). I did not soak the cukes in cold water for several hours, I used the Parcell's oxygen bath recipe topic from Lumigrate (topmost link, above in the grey box) and got ready to go for my evening walk while the bath water was doing it's thing, then drained and went to fresh water and instead of letting that sit the recommended 'timed time', I went out and got my evening walk done -- I also had the salt / brine stuff for not just fermenting but pickling of another batch sitting so it could be as dissolved and the proper temperature (some recipes were wanting cold that you'd put on the refrigerator pickles):
Sour pickles
These are a favorite of many and a lot of people miss them when going on a Paleo diet, but the naturally lacto-fermented kind is perfectly healthy, crunchy and sour. This version is flavored with garlic and dill. Your garlic, too, will lacto-ferment and can be enjoyed afterwards as it will be packed with flavor.
Ingredients
Preparation
From pick your own (dot org), link above in the grey box, this is a highlight message I wanted to have for YOUsers.....
Using the "Old-Fashioned Barrel Pickle" method
Yield: 7 to 9 pint jars
Click here for a PDF print version (coming soon!)
Making and canning your own dill pickles the old-fashioned way, with all natural ingredients has never been easier!! Here's how to do it, in easy steps and completely illustrated. But this is NOT a recipe for a beginners. Scrupulopus attention to cleanliness and diligence in each step is required.
And I found the information and background / overview that is provided at Food Safety News (link above in the grey box) to be extremely helpful. I'm providing it here for YOUsers to read and see easily without taking a link to go see their site but you'll see I leave off with the getting started, so if you're going to take action and DO THIS, or want to learn more, then you'll find the link in the grey box above with the others:
Fermenting Veggies at Home: Follow Food Safety ABCs
BY COOKSON BEECHER | MARCH 11, 2014And for good reason, said Breidt, who specializes in the safety of fermented and acidic foods. Referring to home preparers, small producers and restaurant owners, he said that “they like being able to pick up these nice flavors (from fermentation) and making new ones.”
Sandor Katz, author of “Wild Fermentation” and “The Art of Fermentation,” refers to this “food movement” as a “fermentation revival.”
Considered to be “live foods, fermented foods have a natural tart flavor because the sugars and carbohydrates have been broken down and used up during fermentation.” Katz said that, in the case of vegetables, they’re more digestible than raw ones. And, because they contain “living bacteria,” they help digest other foods in the digestive tract.
Fermentation has long been part of human history. In fact, food scientists say that it played a vital role in human survival in the days before stoves and refrigerators simply because it allowed people to preserve food in a nutritional and safe way. Think foods such as cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchee, olives, salami, jerky and even bread. And think beverages such as wine and beer, not to mention coffee and hot chocolate. All of these — and many more — are examples of fermented foods.
Although we eat one form of fermented food every day, the idea of fermenting our own food conjures up images of strange, iffy, and perhaps dangerous dishes. Surely it would be best to leave it to the experts.
Not so, say food scientists, microbiologists and fermentation advocates — especially in the case of fermented raw vegetables. They point out that just about any raw vegetable can be safely fermented at home, if done properly.
Breidt has often been quoted as saying that the scientific literature has never recorded a case of food poisoning involving raw vegetables that have been fermented properly. But he emphasized that the key word here is “properly,” which some people who quote him fail to include in that sentence.
How does it work?
Simply put, fermentation of vegetables happens when the natural bacteria in the vegetables break down the components of the vegetables into forms easier to digest and often more nutritious than the raw vegetable itself.
For those who have apprehensions about food safety, Breidt said that fermented vegetables can be safer than raw vegetables, thanks to the ability of lactic acid, which forms during fermentation, to hunt down and kill any harmful bacteria that might be present.
“It’s almost bulletproof,” he said, referring to fermentation of vegetables, which almost always includes adding salt to shredded, chopped or grated raw vegetables.
Breidt refers to lactic acid bacteria as the “world champions for consuming sugars and converting them to lactic acid.” From there, the lactic acid gets to work overpowering any pathogens on hand.
Fermentation was probably one of the first technologies adopted by humans, Breidt said, noting that it likely developed about the same time as pots in which to hold food. “Vegetables and salt got together,” he said, conjecturing about how this happy “food marriage” began.
Humans probably adopted fermentation about 12,000 years ago — at the dawn of civilization — and Breidt said the technology rapidly spread from region to region.
“We still do it the same way today,” he said. “Why? Because it works. It’s hard to mess it up. Things can go wrong, but it’s rare.”
Author Sandor Katz echoed this, telling Food Safety News that home fermentation of raw vegetables is intrinsically safe. He listed cabbage, daikon radishes, turnips, parsnips, cucumbers, okra, string beans and green tomatoes as good candidates for fermentation.
“There’s no vegetable you can’t ferment,” he said, but added that leafy greens such as kale — because of their chlorophyll content — aren’t to most people’s liking.
During an NPR interview, Katz explained that pickling and fermentation are not the same, although they are “overlapping” categories. A cucumber, for example, can be pickled with vinegar or fermented without vinegar, using a salty brine instead. During fermentation, however, vinegar and other acids are produced, which is why fermented sauerkraut and pickles taste “vinegary.”
When looking at fermented foods collectively, Katz said they’re a big part of the food industry, which means that a lot of research has been done, and is being done, on fermentation. Even now, he said, the traditional methods of fermentation continue to work well.
He pointed out that, until a few generations ago, fermentation was a common way to process foods.
“Historically, it was a way for people to preserve the harvest for the winter,” he said.
But now that it isn’t commonly done at home or in the community, people tend not to ferment foods at home because of their fear of bacteria, viewing fermentation as some sort of “mystique.”
Breidt said that, in Germany, sauerkraut was an important way to stay healthy during the winter, thanks to its nutritional value, which includes healthy amounts of Vitamin C. He also said that sailors, including those on Captain Cook’s crew, ate sauerkraut as a way to get enough Vitamin C.
“A large chunk of human history relied on fermentation as a way to preserve vegetables and help keep people healthy,” he said.
Today, fermentation continues to be widespread and practiced in all parts of the world, with regions and nations having their own special favorite fermented foods — kimchee in Korea, for example, and sauerkraut in Germany.
What about food safety?
While fermented vegetables can be safer than raw vegetables, primarily because the fermentation process kills harmful bacteria, basic food-safety practices need to be followed.
Both Breidt and Katz said that it’s important to start out with vegetables that have been grown using good food-safety practices. This includes making sure the vegetables didn’t come into contact with manure or compost that still has some pathogens such as E. coli or Salmonella in it.
“You don’t want to use vegetables that have been contaminated when they’re raw,” Katz said.
“Just normal fermentation will kill the organisms,” said Breidt. “But you don’t want to ignore good handling and good sanitary practices.”
These include washing the produce, your hands, any cutting or preparation utensils, surfaces where the food will be cut or chopped, and any containers you use for the food.
As for quality, both agree that the fresher the veggies, the better.
University of Idaho food scientist Gulhan Unlu, who focuses on food microbiology and bacteriology, told Food Safety News that the biggest concern with fermented vegetables is contamination after the foods have been fermented. This includes handling them with unclean hands, or letting them come into contact with contaminated meat or fish or with surfaces that haven’t been adequately cleaned. But overall, she agreed that, from a food-safety standpoint, fermented vegetables can be safer than raw vegetables.
A World Health Organization report, which focused on the value of fermentation for people in developing nations who don’t have refrigeration — or enough fuel to thoroughly cook their food, or to store it at high enough temperatures, or to reheat it — shared some similar thoughts about food safety.
“From the food safety point of view, the benefits of fermentation include the inhibition of the growth of most pathogenic bacteria and the formation of bacterial toxins,” states the report.
The report also made it clear that basic food-safety guidelines must be followed and states that “there is considerable evidence that lactic acid fermentation inhibits the survival and multiplication of a number of bacterial pathogens.”
However, the report adds, the potential of lactic acid fermentation to control the harmful effects of food contamination depends on factors difficult to quantify, such as the initial level of contamination, which, in turn, depends on local conditions, levels of hygiene and sanitation, and the resulting degree of acidity.
“On its own, fermentation cannot eliminate all food-related health risks, and it should not be seen as a replacement for observing the principles of food hygiene,” reads the report.
Proper temperature is important. According to USDA, at temperatures between 70-75 degrees F, kraut will be fully fermented in about three to four weeks; at 60-65 degrees F, fermentation may take five to six weeks. At temperatures lower than 60 degrees F, kraut may not ferment, and, above 75 degrees F, kraut may become soft.
The take-home message: Proper fermentation temperature allows for problem pathogens to be “selected” and destroyed, while it also inhibits the growth of organisms that can spoil the food.
Salt is an essential ingredient, and since consumers don’t usually have a good way to measure salt concentration in the finished product, they need to be sure they measure the salt carefully and follow a tested recipe. Types of salt to use are canning and pickling salt, since table salt, kosher salt, or other types of salt cannot be interchanged with canning and pickling salt. Also, salt with iodine added shouldn’t be used since iodine can inhibit fermentation.
The correct level of salt to use varies with the food being fermented. It ranges from 2.25 percent (by volume) for sauerkraut to more than 13 percent for other food items. Again, tested recipes should be followed when it comes to the proper amount of salt to use.
Salt affects the type and extent of microbial activity and helps keep vegetables from becoming soft.
Storage time also affects the texture. The shorter the time, the firmer the vegetables. Storing food that has already been fermented in the refrigerator or a root cellar significantly slows down the rate of fermentation. That’s why fermented foods can be stored for up to three months, or longer, without losing their quality and good taste.
Fermented food needs to reach a pH level of 4.6 or lower (which indicates it is acidic enough to be safe). Fermentation, if done properly, will bring food to the “safe” acid level.
In a case of botulism poisoning in fermented tofu in 2012 in New York City, the city’s health department informed the manager of the grocery store where the tofu was purchased that the tofu needed to be stored below 41 degrees F. in closed containers. The people who fell ill bought from the store’s bulk tofu, which had been kept unrefrigerated, uncovered, and in water-filled bins.
Botulism is an extremely dangerous and often deadly foodborne pathogen.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, only one similar botulism poisoning in the U.S. has been recorded. Yet home-fermented tofu and other fermented bean products are the leading cause of botulism poisoning in China. Again, the proper food-safety precautions, chief among them sanitation, but also temperature controls, need to be taken.
Sauerkraut it is
Making sauerkraut is a good way to get started on the road to fermentation. It’s simple to do but also involves a basic procedure that can be used with other vegetables, although the amount of salt and fermenting time can vary.
Breidt advises beginners to grate, chop or shred the vegetables they plan to ferment because vegetables such as carrots and beets are dense enough that it’s difficult for the lactic acid to get inside of them if they’re in big chunks. The more surface area, the better — and the safer.
However, he said that’s not the case with cucumbers, primarily because they’re about 90 percent water, which makes it easier for the lactic acid to penetrate them.
Getting started
Note from Mardy: ...... as I said, please GO to the Food Safety News website, link's above in the grey box with the others.
THIS bit of information I gleaned from within the pickling information at Gardeners dot com (I liked the coriander addition, and the 1or 2 inches tip relative to how far to submerge things in the brine:
Pick through the cucumbers and discard any that are bruised or have soft spots. Rinse well under cold water.
In a small bowl, combine peppercorns, peppers, coriander, fresh dill, dill seeds and garlic
Place half of the herb/spice/garlic mixture at the bottom of the crock. And the cucumbers and top with the remaining mixture. Pour the brine over the cucumbers and place the weights on top so that all the ingredients are submerged under an inch or two of brine.
Variations
Relish: If you remove the center seeds and pulp from cucumbers and dice them up with onion and a small red bell pepper, and substitute a pinch of ground cloves for the whole cloves in the sweet pickle recipe you'll get a tasty relish. And you can make all sorts of relishes by dicing vegetables (just one type, or a mixture) to use in either of the basic recipes.
I used the refrigerator pickles recipe from Instructables.com but have to remark about the quality of these ingredients -- there's MUCH that can be said from this photo. For starters, my mom had that same bowl, or a different shape but same colors and pattern. She'd have had this type of white wine vinegar on the shelves (read the ingredients, it's an area for improvement in my opinion), and sugar (again, an area for learning more about what goes into and comes with the ingredients you puchase and consume). Good, better, best ... not so good, worse, terrible ...... it's a continuum. When people have to stretch budgets as most people do, or they have limited availability where they are at the time of putting up food or making something, you can concentrate on what's going to be the better places to focus on the 'ideals' for quality. (I had a pepper grinder or two like that too, I'm still in search of the perfect pepper grinder, grins.
)
All you need is:
Cucumber spears, I use either 1 English cucumber or about 6 pickling cucs.
2 cups cold water.
1/3 cup white wine vinegar - you can change this to suit your taste, but I wouldn't use balsamic. believe it or not, the cheaper vinegars give me the best pickling flavor.
1 tablespoon salt. Table salt or sea salt. I've never tried pickling salt.
2 teaspoons sugar.
5 whole peppercorns - fresh.
fresh ground pepper (from a grinder is best).
1-2 cloves garlic.
optional flavor additions: fresh dill, jalapeno pepper, onion, habanero pepper, etc.
and a container to put them in. A mason type jar works best, but I usually take the easy route and use a ziplock freezer bag. Don't use a metal container.
Step 1: Sizing the cucumbers
For this batch I'm using an English cucumber. That's what they're called here, anyway. I prefer these over regular garden variety cucumbers because they're longer, and they're generally a bit more crisp.
I usually cut the cucumber into thirds.
First, though, cut off the ends. These are typically bitter. You might want to slice a bit off the end you plan to use and taste to make sure you've removed all of the bitterness.
Step 2: Slicing the cucumbers
Half the round, then half that, then half once again
Step 3: The garlic..
The easiest way to do this is to cut off the ends and then smack the clove with the flat of your knife blade. A french chef knife works best because there's so much flat area.
The peel will usually fall right off just like in the picture.
Then you want to cut the clove up into about 8 pieces. Personally i use 2 cloves
Step 4: The Liquid..
Step 5: Bag it (the flavor step)
All that garlic you cut up? Put it in now.
Got some dill? Go ahead and put a sprig in there.
Jalapenos or habaneros? Throw them in. Be careful here, you only want maybe 2 slices. Trust me on this, at least the first time you try it.
More garlic? Green onions? sure.. the choice in this step is all yours.
Step 6: Stick it in the fridge
2 days is when the flavors have really worked their way into the cucumbers, but they start to taste pickly after leaving them overnight
Okay, this is my first time trying an instructables thing, so I really hope it all makes sense :)
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
I learned only recently about Bulletproof by a friend telling me about putting butter and coconut oil into coffee and then you use some sort of emulsifier. So I was curious when someone in a group I've posted about, above, had a link to a video at bulletproof's website, when the discussion was about mold. She said he'd talked about how we messed up our soil. So I wanted to check him out. I'm glad I did. Besides, everyone's going to be talking about the film Moldy, which he's involved with..
After this video was done the website automatically took me to something where he/Dave Asprey was showing how to make coffee which he said takes four minutes no matter what method is used for getting the ground roasted beans steeped with the water. I make coffee the same two ways he shows, french press or pouring through a metal filter. Except I don't spend four minutes pouring the water, nor letting it steep in a French press. Now I know.
Really, it seems plenty strong right off the bat, then I add more water, and more, and then I can have my 4 cups of coffee I desire, but only 'getting' one cup's worth of caffeine. And mycotoxins, apparently. I have the feeling we're on the cusp of a new era in how we prepare foods and drinks, clean our houses and cars, do our laundry. Yardwork. On and on. Starting with what we drink first thing in the morning, and also last thing at night. I've been working a lot recently on water information at Lumigrate, so please check that out as well; the focus seemed to be on the coffee product and not the water and I'd say they're both suspect and needing to have our attention. Here's the link, please be sure to see the comment underneath which is an extensive transcription/overview of 3 hours or more of interview of a water expert I found who seems to me to really know his stuff and he's thinking very holistically about water, Joseph Bender's his name. www.lumigrate.com/forum/water-key-environmental-wellness-or-illness-more-important-today-ever-many-aspects-consider
I want to say up front, there's something very 'commercial' about Dave Asprey's Bulletproof brand website. Maybe that's not the right word -- I feel like something's very intentional about things and we're not supposed to figure it out. I feel 'handled'. Groomed in some way. I think there's not transparency, my radar just 'went off' is all I can say. It doesn't mean it's evil-doers behind it, it may be benevolent people wanting people to learn about mold in a creative way so they figured what we all figured out on Facebook if we're marketing ourselves --- talk about coffee!
He certainly has a good idea, or someone did, focusing about coffee because of my time on Facebook, you can always count on people to commiserate and be interested if you Share about coffee.
I eventually saw that they've already transcribed the video, which you can also get as a podcast if you prefer. They're doing a lot at this webiste that I think is 'ideal' for getting information to people. Expensive and time consuming it is, though. Here's what's said, from the transcription they provide (which is great, thank you!). I've bolded a few things to make them easier to view by Lumigrate's YOUsers.
So this is really very interesting information they're presenting at this website, I just caution people about getting swept up in things that are being sold along with it without doing your homework to see if it's 1) legitimate and 2) going to be relevant for YOU. It seems to me from what I know that he has a lot of interesting, cutting edge information and products. I'd not be linking to someone I thought was not in the norms of ethics and all. Whether it's the easiest, cheapest, etc way to accomplish things, what could be adapted, etc., I would suggest everyone think about.
I encourage people to check it out and recognize that everyone has to make enough money off of their endeavors to support their overhead. So if they are selling products and services, that's a business model, and obviously a common one. Nothing wrong with people getting paid for expertise and products, that's how you get the roof over your head. However, the health bandwagon and massive monies to be made have encouraged a lot of people of various reasons to get in the mix.
I like where he talks about how you're lucky if you are one that sees someone nearby who gets ill, as they're the 'canary in the cage'. How many times have I said that, just at Lumigrate topics, alone. Lots. So I hope people are going to be interested and proactivate about this information.
The link about this short video:
www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-radio-short-report-moldy-221/
Live and learn. Learn and live better! ~ Mardy
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!
In looking into the links and topics about the new documentary out titled Moldy, which were being shared around Facebook by a large number of my Facebook friends due to the sheer number who have followed the path of information to eventually find out about mold as a contributor or cause of environmental, complex, chronic illness, I found this from Dave Asprey. He's responding to a question inquiring as to how a person would know if they are one of the 28% he refers to, above, with more sensitivity to mold and hence more likelihood of having complex chronic illness / environmental illness. His response:
Live and Learn. Learn and Live Better! is my motto. I'm Mardy Ross, and I founded Lumigrate in 2008 after a career as an occupational therapist with a background in health education and environmental research program administration. Today I function as the desk clerk for short questions people have, as well as 'concierge' services offered for those who want a thorough exploration of their health history and direction to resources likely to progress their health according to their goals. Contact Us comes to me, so please do if you have questions or comments. Lumigrate is "Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" for increasing numbers of people. Follow us on social networking sites such as: Twitter: http://twitter.com/lumigrate and Facebook. (There is my personal page and several Lumigrate pages. For those interested in "groovy" local education and networking for those uniquely talented LumiGRATE experts located in my own back yard, "LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley" is a Facebook page to join. (Many who have joined are beyond our area but like to see the Groovy information! We not only have FUN, we are learning about other providers we can be referring patients to and 'wearing a groove' to each other's doors -- or websites/home offices!) By covering some of the things we do, including case examples, it reinforces the concepts at Lumigrate.com as well as making YOU feel that you're part of a community. Which you ARE at Lumigrate!