Fruit vinegar

Most of the vinegar we get is from grains, primarily corn. And while it can be used for many things (being distilled and essentially colorless) it also has most of the nutrients and yumminess taken out of it.

And since I crave vinegar anyway (see my post about vinegar craving here) I use a lot of it.

A while back I was speaking to a friend on Modern Survival Blog and he started talking about creating his own vinegar. While I'd been vaguely aware that this kind of thing is done "by others," up to that point I hadn't connected the possibility to myself. It was the middle of apple season and I decided to try it.

I took the peels and the cores that didn't have worm yuck, and put them in a wide mouthed gallon jar covered with water.

And I waited. And waited. Two months later they still smelled like apples and there was no sign of fermentation. I was told the temperature in the house was too low and I started consciously trying to keep the bottle warmer and a few weeks later I started seeing bubbles. Then more bubbles!

The vinegar smell when it began was quite distinctive. It still smelled like apples, but also like vinegar. When I got around to testing it, the baking soda bubbled just like it did for the distilled corn vinegar. So the acid level is high.

And I've caught the bug.

I now have apple cider vinegar and apricot vinegar sitting on the kitchen counter, and pear vinegar in the big pickle bottle fermenting.

Yum!

Pear Vinegar Video

Vinegar Craving

Most of my life I've craved vinegar. I love pickles, pasta fazul with lots of vinegar, and vinegar in water. Salt and vinegar potato chips. During the summer we make sweet pickles--one cup water, one cup sugar, one cup vinegar and fresh cucumbers.

Heaven! We just finished up a batch (the last of the season, *sigh*) and then I drank the juice, although it's too sweet for me.

Out of curiosity I looked up vinegar cravings. A lot of women (it is apparently mostly women) get this craving at puberty. Those men who crave vinegar this way it's a lifelong thing.

The information was quite interesting, and absolutely anecdotal. For most of the women who had this craving, it's strongest the week before their period starts. A lot of them craved vinegar (or pickles) during pregnancy and then the craving went away. Several mentioned the fact that they don't like sweet foods (which applies in my case as well) and many were also lactose intolerant.

I know that people low on potassium (which is found in vinegar) get a lot of cramps. That was another similarity I noticed--many of these people exercise a great deal, and get cramps when they do. Several were marathon runners. When you exercise a lot, potassium and calcium are leached from the muscles if there's not enough in the system, which results in cramps.

Giving blood does the same, for some people (it does for me), but only if the nutrient levels in the blood were too low to start with. Vinegar might balance that. Vinegar also increases the absorption of calcium as well as a number of other essential nutrients.

Another possibility mentioned was an acid/base imbalance. Someone also mentioned the ability of vinegar to balance insulin levels (due to its ability to prevent the absorption of sugars).

Doctors say there's no physiological reason for the craving since vinegar is so low in nutrients, but it's important to remember that many people who crave vinegar aren't just taking a tablespoon (the dose the RDA values are calculated on) but drinking the stuff. Vinegar contains trace amounts of calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and iron. So if someone drinks a cup of vinegar they're getting significant amounts of these nutrients. I'm guessing that in most cases when people crave vinegar it's providing missing nutrients and trace minerals, but there are lots of possibilities here.

Whatever the reason, I try to listen to what my body tells me--if it says it wants vinegar and vinegar is available, that's what it will get!


2019 update: I've started making my own fruit vinegars and it's amazing! I started with apple cider vinegar, then apricot, and now pear.

Food sensitivities

Last week I discovered that one of my sisters is lactose intolerant. She hadn't told any of us, so of course Thanksgiving was heavy with cheese and cream and butter.

Food sensitivities are rampant, especially as people get older. Stomacheaches, heartburn, etc, are pretty much ignored except to pump pharmaceuticals and other chemicals into an already overstressed system.

If you have food alergies or sensitivities, the best thing you can do is tell other people about it. Other people can help you (or snipe and warn) and adjust their foods to accomodate. Mashed potatoes may not taste the same with margarine, or without the heavy cream, but they're still good.

Avoidance may be the best option, but some people lack self control and sometimes you simply don't know what is in the food you're eating. Once in a while you may slip and unknowingly eat something you shouldn't simply because it's related to something you're sensitive to.

If you do slip up there are a number of herbs that will help with digestive problems (many of the mints, dill (carrot familly) as well as turmeric and ginger). But herbs, by their nature, are related to other herbs and people will often have the same sensitivities to their relatives (rather like your sister-in-law's mother).

That being the case, I'm going through all the old posts here and putting up plant family information. I've started but not finished, so look back later for additional information.