NuGenesis: Beacon of Hope in a Nutritional Wasteland

You are what you eat.  That old adage gets a lot of press these days, as a new generation discovers the truth of the statement.   Every morsel we eat truly is assimilated into our bodies and helps to determine our level of health or disease.  Take trans fats as one example.  Famous for their presence in most fast foods, trans fats are those bad fats that are formed when otherwise good fats are heated excessively or are hydrogenated and changed on a molecular level.  When we eat these trans fats, our bodies, trusting as they are, believe that they are food and use them to build our cell membranes, the outer covering present on each of our cells. 

Black raspberries, a local superfood,
growing at Morning Star Family Farm

Cell membranes are a very important part of our cells, because it is through the cell membrane that nutrients enter the cell and waste products are removed.  Replacing good, functional cell membranes with ones made from trans fats is a little like replacing our city garbage men with crash dummies.  They might look a little like the real thing, but there won’t be any garbage removed any time soon.  Can you imagine the pile of trash that would pile up if the garbage men stopped coming around?  It wouldn’t take long before all of garbage would build up and lead to the spread of disease.  This concept works in a similar fashion at the cellular level; leave waste products inside of cells and people start feeling sluggish and become more prone to autoimmune diseases and cancer. 

Educating the next generation of
eaters is one of NuGenesis' objectives.

If just one aspect of our standard American diets, trans fats, is so bad for us, what else lurks out there that we need to avoid?  More importantly, what superfoods can we eat in order to help reverse the effects of the junk we may have taken into our bodies leading up to this point?  Enter NuGenesis, a non-profit organization based in Oconomowoc dedicated to educating the public on how to choose, grow, and cook whole foods.  From their website: “Founded in 2010 by three-time cancer survivor Kathy Bero, NuGenesis helps you prevent disease, support your body through a chronic illness and prevent recurrence through the food you choose to eat.”  At Morning Star Family Farm, we are proud to have been a part of the 2014 NuGenesis Harvest for Your Health.  We encourage you to learn more about NuGenesis and consider supporting their mission of education about superfoods that come from our farm to your table.

Read more at: www.nugenesis.com and www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-skinny-on-fats/

Discovering Kombucha

There is a refreshing drink out there that has been enjoying a surge of popularity among the health-conscious crowd.  It is kombucha.  A fermented, non-alcoholic tea, kombucha provides detoxifying benefits while quenching thirst. However, the drink hasn't always been well known.

As the story goes, there were two industrial towns in Russia on opposite sides of the same polluted river.  One town had a cancer rate significantly higher than the general population, while the other town did not.  Medical researchers were sent to interview residents of the two towns in an attempt to identify what lifestyle or diet choices may have caused such a variance.  

When the researchers entered the homes on the low-cancer side of the river, they often saw multiple odd-looking jars in the kitchen.  Upon inquiry, they learned that these jars were filled with kombucha, a drink which had been passed down by their ancestors and which was drunk on a daily basis by the residents of the town.

Rich in probiotics and enzymes,
our Kombucha is also
a delicious, refreshing drink

After hearing this story, our family began brewing kombucha for our own consumption.  Imagine our surprise that something with health benefits actually tastes good!  That was over a decade ago.   Now we produce kombucha for sale to our customers.  

Kombucha Soda is a healthy alternative
to regular soda.  Try Root Beer,
Ginger Beer, or Rye Kvass Kombucha Soda

We begin our kombucha with filtered water, organic tea, and organic cane sugar; then we add kombucha from a previous batch and a ‘scoby’, a patty of good bacteria and yeasts that will culture the tea.  When the fermentation is complete, most of the sugar and tea components, including caffeine, will have been consumed by the culture, leaving behind what is now called kombucha tea.  In the case of our flavored kombucha drinks, it is at this point that we add ingredients like organic ginger and strawberries, plus a touch of raw local honey, creating a taste sensation worth exploring.

Visit us at the market or at the farm
to give our kombucha drinks a try.

Our kombucha is available in several flavors at our farm, Good Harvest Market in Waukesha, and Health Hut in Brookfield, as well as at several local farmers’ markets.  Give it a try.  We think you’ll be as happy to discover kombucha as we were.