“A Jewitch Natural: Mystical Reflections on Meals, Nature and City Farming” is a daily column by Devorah Brous charting the methods we will use mystical Jewish knowledge, earth-based practices and natural wellness to reconnect with ourselves in concord with nature. Brous is an city homesteader, lifecycle ritualist, and inexperienced marketing consultant in Los Angeles. Discover her on-line choices for the traditional Sabbatical yr @Dev.Brous
Juniper berries
How wonderful is juniper?
The juniper tree produces berries with medicinal and culinary properties which can be broadly used to taste meals, flush the urinary tract, clear lungs—and clear surfaces.
Except for an 850 year-old juniper tree rising in northern Sinai, there are 4 species of juniper that develop in Israel and the West Financial institution. Three of the uncultivated varieties seem on completely different ranges of Israel’s endangered listing in accordance with the Pink Knowledge E book.
Israel is just not alone – the truth is a current examine carried out by the International Tree Evaluation discovered that 30% of the world’s timber are endangered. With #COP26 simply behind us, now could be the time to ponder regeneration and discover methods to deliver this and different native timber again to diversify our landscapes, akin to Israel’s pine-dominant lands.
This Hebrew yr is a sabbatical yr, or shmita, a time when the land of Israel is left fallow to replenish the vitamins and regenerate.
The Torah of Shmita invitations us to forage in an effort to depart the land fallow. We’re instructed to solely forage solely what we will carry. The Torah is in keeping with the most recent in regenerative agroecology: for regeneration we apply steadiness and moderation, it’s an opportunity to reset after pandemic-hoarding.
So right here within the Diaspora, you’ll be able to undertake shmita practices with regards to junipers: Go forth and forage some juniper berries to toss into your meals.
Be sure to solely collect Juniper species which can be edible and native to your microclimate—at the least one species I do know of is just not edible. Ethically harvest a small quantity of juniper berries from a tree that’s thriving. Whereas the timber usually are not endangered right here, I all the time like to deliver one thing to present again to the tree (water, or a jarful of compost, and many others.) after harvesting.
Juniper berries might be infused as an natural tea. Or you’ll be able to burn a small sprig of juniper leaf to clear the air—as a substitute for burning the overly-harvested white sage that’s sacred to indigenous peoples. Juniper can be a conventional Native American medicinal plant and meals supply.
Some juniper advantages embody:
•A strong diuretic, and a supply of pure yeast.
•A superb supply of vitamin C, excessive in antioxidants.
•An anti-inflammatory, antifungal and antibacterial.
We’ll discover ways to infuse juniper berries into do-it-yourself vinegar to wash your private home, or toss into your greens.
Vinegar’s advantages have stood the check of time. In response to the Jewish Encyclopedia, manner again when, vinegar was known as “the son of wine,” demoted from middle stage as a taste, and truly prohibited from being on the altar. Early accounts point out vinegar was made by including barley to both wine or cider. I visited a biodynamic apple orchard to study that uncooked apple cider vinegar in the present day is made after permitting laborious cider to ferment. I make mine from kombucha.
In a while, throughout Talmudic occasions, a typical apply was taking vinegar each day with water. We all know that as a result of its calming impact, (and maybe it’s effectiveness at curbing urge for food) vinegar was forbidden on the Day of Atonement in Tractates Pesahim and Yoma within the Talmud. Vinegar truly grew to become the topic of Rabbinic debate regarding the guidelines of fasting when R’ Giddal ben Menasseh introduced it isn’t prohibited to drink a small quantity of vinegar and water on the Day of Atonement. When this grew to become a widespread apply, it was frowned upon but permitted solely with uncooked vinegar.
In different cultures, apple cider vinegar has been used since way back to 5000 B.C. by the Babylonians for pickling, and has a protracted recorded historical past in Egypt and China. It seems to have been used as a condiment, a preservative, for dressing wounds, and as a gargle for toothaches.
Right this moment’s science is bearing out this lengthy cross-cultural appreciation. There’s a rising physique of promising evidence-based research suggesting apple cider vinegar will help scale back ldl cholesterol, decrease blood sugar ranges, and enhance signs of each diabetes and coronary heart illness whereas regenerating the probiotics within the intestine biome.
The malic acid and tartaric acid assist steadiness the acid ranges within the digestive tract and make vitamins out there so your physique can extra simply take in them. There isn’t a scarcity of writing about apple cider vinegar for detox, weight reduction, and anti-aging, so I’m targeted right here on the best way to make your individual vinegar with homegrown fruit.
Collectively, apple cider vinegar and juniper berries supply a motherload of helpful causes to swap out for the dangerous chemical compounds present in family cleansing merchandise and pesticides. The truth is, it’s so wholesome you’ll be able to drink it or toss it on a salad—however we’re making an all-purpose cleaner as a substitute.
The principle ingredient in apple cider vinegar that gives essentially the most potent well being advantages is acetic acid. The acetic acid in vinegar kills dangerous micro organism, but not like bleach, this occurs with out being corrosive to the pores and skin, lungs, and eyes or burning physique tissue.
A magical, regenerative host that lives within the apple cider vinegar, known as “the mom,” is an amoeba-like starter additionally present in kombucha that comprises strands of all the great things: wholesome proteins, enzymes, polyphenols, and probiotics (helpful micro organism) to assist with digestion and metabolizing of proteins, fat and minerals – so it’s teeming with causes so that you can strive it whereas detoxing the physique, cleansing the pores and skin and scalp, in addition to cleansing and disinfecting surfaces in your house.
Whilst you may be inclined to assume that micro organism is soiled and never what you wish to clear your counter tops, the truth is, villages of micro organism, in any other case often known as mom cultures, are what makes dwelling meals alive. Moms are all about procreating wholesome micro organism. Do you know that there are 10 occasions extra micro organism than human cells in our physique, and that they carry out important help capabilities for our immunity? We would like extra helpful micro organism in our guts, and in our soils – why not additionally on pure wood furnishings?
The traditional Sabbatical yr is a superb time to learn the elements labeled in your family merchandise and discover merchandise or recipes to swap out the sulfates, parabens, formaldehyde, phthalates, perfumes, preservatives, dyes, and chemical foaming brokers for a homegrown and do-it-yourself product with apple cider vinegar and juniper that’s good for you and good for the planet. Give it a try to let me know what you assume. @dev.brous
A jar of Jew-witch natural juniper vinegar.
The Treatment
Gadgets / Components to Make Your Apple Cider Vinegar:
1/2 cup unpasteurized ACV or when you’ve made Kombucha that has sat for too lengthy and smells tart, use this to kickstart the fruit fermentation
a pound of fruit – apples, apricots, plums, and many others. (Take out the core and seeds – compost or regrow!)
One lemon
Non-obligatory: Lemon Balm / Lemongrass / Lemon Verbena / Lavender + Citrus
Important Oil
Quart-Sized or Half Gallon Mason Jar
Espresso Filter (skinny towel, or muslin material)
Rubber Band
An open thoughts! You’ll get to see the method of regeneration unfold earlier than your eyes, within the type of a murky wanting layer that rises to the highest of the jar. It’s a pleasant colony of helpful micro organism which can be fermenting the sugar and creating the acetic acid! (Discard if it has mould.)
Directions to Make Vinegar
Give the fruit a tough minimize, nothing fancy.
Put the fruit in a quart-sized or half gallon jar and fill with water till the fruit is roofed. -Add 1/3 cup of unbleached sugar and stir.
Cowl with a muslin material and a rubber band.
Label/date and put aside in a darkish cupboard.
After two weeks to a month, the brew will odor like vinegar.
By now, you would possibly have the ability to catch a glimpse of the regenerative mom tradition rising on the floor! You possibly can gently rinse the mom if there’s chunks of fruit on it, and put it again within the jar with the pressed out liquid.
Pressure out the fruit utilizing a muslin material tied over a sieve.
Hold the muslin material and rubber band on the highest, and put the jar in a cool darkish place to proceed fermenting for a month, possibly extra. Check your vinegar periodically, if it’s nonetheless candy, it nonetheless wants extra time to ferment. You select when it has reached the specified steadiness of sweetness and acidity. (Extra acidity will imply higher preservation down the highway if you wish to infuse herbs into the vinegar, extra sweetness could also be tastier and extra palatable for cooking, and many others.)
When the vinegar is fermented to your liking, switch the mom and a small quantity of vinegar, sufficient to cowl the mom, into one other jar for safekeeping for one month. Put a lid on the remainder of the vinegar, or chances are you’ll wish to switch it to a different sort of bottle that’s extra suited to cooking / serving.
Infuse Juniper in Vinegar (+ Non-obligatory Herbs and Spices)
Harvest a couple of handfuls of Juniper berries and leaves (I work with Juniperus californica). *You should definitely accurately establish your native species as not all Juniper is edible.
Unfold the berries out to dry on a rack or a tray for a day or two, out of the direct daylight.
Use a mortar and pestle to crush the berries and break open their cell partitions. You too can use a blender to totally pulverize the berries.
Add the crushed Juniper berries to a pint-sized mason jar.
Add a handful of lemon balm chopped up together with the stem and leaves.
Take off the rind of a lemon and chop into bits. Add the rind.
Cowl the berries and lemon rind together with your do-it-yourself Vinegar. (or supply Braggs at any well being meals retailer)
Seal, label and retailer for one-three months in a darkish cupboard.
Pressure the liquid and switch its contents to a labeled spray bottle to wash up this planet, one floor at a time.
Compost the berries and rind.
Add any 15 drops of important oil of your liking to the spray bottle. (Tangerine is gorgeous!)
*Disclaimer: This info is just not meant to diagnose, deal with, remedy or stop any illness. I’m not offering medical recommendation, prognosis or remedy. Content material right here is just not meant for use for medical prognosis or remedy. The knowledge offered right here is meant for common understanding and consciousness solely.
