More info about Rejuvelac, part 3 of 3

Robyn Openshaw - Oct 09, 2011 - This Post May Contain Affiliate Links

Question: You said to use quinoa or soft white wheat berries. Can I use hard red wheat? What about other grains?

Answer: At classes I taught in Washington and Oregon right after posting the original Rejuvelac video, I had a few readers tell me they’ve been making Rejuvelac for years, with hard red wheat, triticale, and even rye! One reader told me that Rye Rejuvelac is the best!

I love the idea of rotating our grains, for a variety of nutritional profiles and tastes, just like we rotate our greens.

One reader, Monika, who went to Hippocrates 16 years ago, said she likes Rye Rejuvelac the best as well, and she barely pulses the sprouted grains into the water (per Dr. Max Gerson’s instructions many years ago) to minimize damage and oxidation of the grains. She also uses the sprouted-grain bolus over and over for a week, after straining off the liquid, to drink, after the first 2 days. Then she adds more water, and covers it, and the fermented mass makes more Rejuvelac in 24 hours, over and over, for a whole week. This tip makes the whole process even easier, quicker (about 90 seconds a day!), and less expensive, and it keeps the habitual process going.

Question: I followed your directions, and this stuff smells like #&!$!! Should I still drink it?

Answer: I am cracking up at the thought of so many GSG readers, skirting their new, weird drinky-food, poking it, sniffing it. Like cats. Your anxiety is related to unfamiliarity. (If you hadn’t been raised with bacon cooking on weekend mornings, and hamburgers on the BBQ for dinner, those smells would be unpleasant to you. BTW, they don’t smell good to me.)

I had never sniffed my Rejuvelac, so because we got a handful of this question (I answered it but it’s buried in a couple hundred comments), I made a batch and smelled it. Just for you.

You’re right. IT SMELLS AWFUL. But I tasted it and it was just fine. Luckily, it doesn’t smell at all like it tastes. The predigested proteins and sugars may fizz, and you may smell that process, and the gases that occur, but it’s just a new smell. (Raw sauerkraut, another fermented food, smells bad, too. It tastes good, though.)

Just think, normally that digestion and fermentation has to take place inside you! (Think gas. Think alcohol. Many people have degenerative gut problems, most of them undiagnosed—and they do not digest many foods effectively.) Drinking a probiotic-rich food should quiet your digestion of other foods.

Question: Will my homemade Rejuvelac be alcoholic?

Answer: Only very small amounts of alcohol (like 10% or less of what there is in beer), is produced by the fermentation of grain in Rejuvelac—as is the case with many foods. Your gut produces alcohol as a byproduct of digestion, and if you have candida, or eat a lot of sugar, or both, you’re producing more alcohol in your gut than you’d get from a can of beer anyway. If you have a lot of undigested proteins in your small intestine, as many people on the modern diet do—causing a multitude of inflammatory responses—you will be tremendously benefited by probiotic-rich, fermented foods. So the small amount of alcohol produced naturally with homemade raw probiotic foods is a non-issue, health-wise. And it cannot make you inebriated. In fact, cultured foods will cause your body to produce LESS alcohol.

NOTE FROM ROBYN: Keep in mind that I am learning this new habit, myself. I have been making Rejuvelac only about 6 weeks. I may not have it completely figured out yet and there may be better ways of doing it. For instance, one batch I made, just this week, gave me some intestinal disturbance, even though I never had that at CHI with their Quinoa Rejuvelac. I have read and listened to, with great interest, the comments of those who have been making it for many years. Thank you for any information you have for me—usually I do something for a very long time before I start talking about it here. As I learn more (for instance, if I figure out why a batch had that reaction for me despite it tasting normal), I will share it here.

Posted in: Whole Food