Last night we had our Juice Fast information and Restoring Digestive Health workshop. Here is the link to the presentation slides if anyone needed them. You will probably need to open them as a google document. At the end of the slides is the resources page. Each of the supplements listed are linked, so you can click on them to see more information.

Juice Fast Information:

We will be doing a juice fast from March 20th-30th. Those interested in healing their digestive systems and thus the entire body are welcome to join! We will be juicing (or using a Blendtec/Vitamix) only fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Anytime there is hunger, JUICE! No need to be hungry on this fast; you can juice as much as you’d like. The ratio of vegetables to fruits should be about 3:1 as a general rule. (For more information on a juice fast, check out the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix or http://www.hacres.com/ has some good recipes and ideas – please note I DO NOT support a lifestyle of raw food or veganism, but I do believe it is helpful while cleansing and detoxing as we will be doing.)

We will also be taking a probiotc 3 times a day (morning, noon and night). Since probiotics are so expensive, we decided to do a bulk buy and get the mother culture from this company, from which we will ferment our own probiotics (and save a ton of money). We will also be taking fermented cod liver oil/butter oil from Green Pastures – the only company whose CLO I trust, because they use the traditional methods of fermenting the oil instead of heating. Those not in possession of the CLO will use flax oil (Barlean’s is a good brand).

Here are the directions to making the probiotic we talked about (or you can view them from the original website here):

Fermenting SCD’s Mother Culture Food Grade Probiotic

makes about 1 gallon

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon filtered water minus 1 1/2 cups
• a little less than 3/4 cup unsulphered molasses
• a little less than 3/4 cup probiotic mother culture (NOTE: the recipe calls for 3/4 cup culture to 20 cups water; since a gallon is 16 cups, that’s why we use just a little less than 3/4 cup.)

Tools Needed:

• Large stock pot
• candy thermometer
• wooden spoon
• heating pad or ceramic crock pot whose lowest temperature will go down to 100 degrees
• thick towel
• glass gallon jar or 2 half gallon jars
• Test strips

Method:

1. Pour water and molasses into the pot.
2. Warm the water and mix molasses until thoroughly infused.
3. Heat water to between 95-110 degrees.
4. Pour mixture into your clean glass gallon jar.
5. Add mother culture and stir.
6. Either put the glass jar on the heating pad or in a crockpot, on the lowest setting, checking through out the day that the temperature does not go over 110 or below 95.
7. If putting in the crockpot, place jar on a thick towel in the crockpot and fill the crockpot with warm water (between 95 and 110 degree F).
8. If using the heating pad, simply cover the jar and keep an eye on the temperature.
9. After covering the jar (s), keep in a darker place on the counter where it can ferment undisturbed for about 5 days.
10. On the 5th day, use a tablespoon to scoop out a sampling of the probiotic and test its ph with the test strips.
11. When the reading of the test strips is under 3.7, your probiotic is ready. If it is still around 3.8, give it another 12-24 hours and check again.
12. Store your fermented probiotic in clean quart jars. Keep in a cool dark place, or in the back of the fridge.

I am unsure as to how long this “lasts”. It is a fermented food, so technically it should be good for many months; but I would say for best effectiveness to try to use it up within a couple months.

Serving size for this probiotic: Healing mode serving – 1 Tablespoon 3 times a day; Adult regular – 1-2 Tablespoons daily; Children – 1 Tablespoon a day.

I will be editing the video we made and hopefully get that posted here as well. In the next few days, I will also map out the dietary guidelines we will be following after the fast to continue our healing and restoration. Stay tuned!