Rainbow Pepper Ferment

Maw-Maw Kelli, Herbalist

We all know we need to ‘Eat the Rainbow’.  The Creator has set for us different vitamins and minerals (and other chemical compounds of long names of things I can't pronounce like carotenoids and anthocyanins ) in each of the colors of the rainbow in our food.  I am not going into a great deal on this information, but it is well documented and certainly well known by traditional herbalist long before science could even confirm.  I AM however going to give you an easy Rainbow recipe. 

I love peppers, and I love the different colors of peppers.  So I am sharing with you my favorite pepper ferment.  You can make this HOT with a small amount habanero and or jalapeno pepper BUT WEAR GLOVES!!!  Or you can leave those out and make it a more mild pepper ferment.   This is your choice, do what you will!

Gather and chop peppers from each of the color of the rainbow.  Add a pinch of mustard seed in the bottom if you like (will make it hotter so you can leave out if you want)

ALSO: Add a red Onion in with your colors and layer them according to the rainbow (or not I’m not the boss of you).

Make a salt brine and cover the ferment and allow it to ferment for the desired amount of time that you like.  If you have not fermented before you need to research this or even better Get Sandor Katz book on Wild Fermentation and or the Art of Fermentation.  

Uses:  Use this in cooking, to make salad dressing, or add to salads etc.  Have fun with it! 

Can an Herbalist See a Doctor or is that Cheating?

Can a Doctor or Nurse see an Herbalist or is that Cheating?

Ok I wanted to just cost this on my FB page as a status. But FB sucks so I shall do a blog instead. 

Let food be our medicine.  Yes we should be looking at food, sleep and vitalism type therapies (which are not really therapies in my mind but common sense) for basic health and sustainment. But that said…sometimes we NEED herbs, hydrotherapy, aromatherapy (in safe applications) and other natural therapeutics to help with our health issues.   Maybe food allergy elimination and challenge is all we would need. Maybe we need more than that, too.  That’s all ok.  BUT SOMETIMES we need conventional medicine.  Yes I said it.  Sometimes you just need to get your ass to the doctor.  There is nothing wrong with that.   You are not ‘cheating’ you are not a bad herbalist if you go to the doctor.  It doesn’t mean natural therapeutics don’t work (but hell you need the damn arm set and in a cast). Big deal!!!   Just deal with it.  Don’t let dogma get you in a bind where you can’t be healthy.  I like what Paul Bergner says on that, ‘My Karma ran over my Dogma…”

NOW that said, sometimes conventional medicine can fails us and we need to back to natural therapeutics.  So that means you went to the doctor and it just didn’t happened for you.  The meds caused you more issues that you started with or the MD told you to just have saltines and water (I was told that once and to just eat more toast).   So you are not a bad conventional medicine person (nurse, doctor, etc) if you see an herbalist or other CAM professional.  Its fine we are not going to judge you (even though the judgment is often returned to us).

And we often can work together and that is ok too….. 

The point to this blog is, IT’S OK!!!  Don’t get excited, there is a place in this world for all of us and we both have a reason to be here and there is no reason our paths can’t cross.  There is no line in the sand that you can’t cross ‘or you are a bad person.’

Remain calm, do what you need to do for you.  

Green Blessings

Maw-Maw Kelli