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Ethan Archer – Page 2 – Homesteader Depot

Homesteader Depot

Author: Ethan Archer

8 Health Benefits of Green Tea

Green tea is much more than the complimentary beverage offered at Chinese food restaurants! Whether you love or hate the taste, it’s worth knowing about its amazing health benefits.

Green tea has been used for centuries in China and throughout Asia to treat a number of maladies and diseases, everything from regulating blood pressure to killing cancer cells.

It is a wonderful natural supplement to take because it’s list of benefits is long, but it’s also quite affordable. You can get a month’s worth of green tea for a few dollars! That sure beats a lot of other expensive herbal supplements.

If you don’t like the taste of green tea, there are many ways you can take it. Its taste is certainly not sweet on its own, but it’s easy to mask by infusing with sweet fruit flavors or simply squeezing some lemon juice in it. Iced green tea has a considerably more muted flavor than hot green tea, so keeping a pitcher iced in your fridge with some lemons cut up in it can be a much more tasty drink that a hot cup of green tea.

If you’re still not sold, consider these health benefits before dismissing the idea entirely:

Increased Metabolism

Green tea is a wonderful and natural weight loss supplement, and far better for you than the unnatural, unhealthy, synthetic products on the market. It contains valuable polyphenol, which intensifies levels of fat oxidation and can help boost the rate at which your body burns calories. Not to mention, it’s a zero-calorie drink, making it a great replacement for diet sodas or coffee.

Regulate Blood Sugar

Green tea has been shown to regulate glucose levels in your blood, which helps regulate overall blood sugar. This makes it a great option for diabetics and again, assist with weight loss.

Heart Health

Some scientists believe that green tea assists in the healthy function of blood vessels, keeping them relaxed and better prepared to handle changing blood pressure. This means a healthier heart. Green tea can also prevent the formation of blood clots, which are the main cause of sudden heart attack.

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Lowered Cholesterol

You may be aware by now that there is “good” and “bad” cholesterol in the body, and that it is important to have a proper ratio between the two. Well, you guessed it, green tea can help with this! It helps reduce the bad stuff and keep good cholesterol in proper balance.

Dental Health

Some studies have shown that “catchin”, a property in green tea, actually kills the bacteria that contributes to tooth decay and poor gum health.

Blood Pressure

Frequent consumption of green tea has long been linked to regulated, healthy blood pressure.

Anti-Viral/Anti-Bacterial/Anti-Fungal

On top of all these great benefits, green tea can also actually kill harmful viruses, bacteria, and fungi in your system. This mean it can help with everything from the common cold, to candida yeast overgrowth, to cancer. Many studies have shown it essentially stops cancer or disease dead in its tracks. If you’re not convinced that you should regularly consume green tea already, I don’t know what will!

Beauty

OK, so maybe your vanity is my last chance to convince you how great green tea is. If all the health benefits don’t phase you, perhaps green tea’s amazing ability to ease wrinkles and slow aging will. Green tea is incredibly antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, and studies consistently show it improves skin, reduces the effects of sun damage, and tones and clears complexion.

May 28, 2017
How to Flavor Milk Kefir

A few months ago, we shared an article on how to make milk kefir, a cultured dairy product that’s packed with nutrition and beneficial probiotic bacteria.

If you’ve ever bought kefir in the store and enjoyed it, that could be due to the fact that it tends to be flavored when packaged and sold. So, if you make your own milk kefir and dislike it compared to something you’ve bought from the store, this could easily be why.

Flavored kefir is delicious and just as healthy, and relies entirely on the sweetness of the cultured dairy and the fruit added to it for its sweetness, as opposed to other sugary flavored drinks or yogurts that are full of artificial coloring or way too much refined sugar.

Fortunately for you, it’s easy to flavor your milk kefir at home! Cultures for Health is a fantastic resource for all things relating to cultured food, and this video shows some very simple and easy-to-follow instructions for how to flavor your milk kefir at home. Enjoy!

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May 26, 2017
What’s Edible in Your Area?

If you had to rely on the land around you to sustain and nourish you during a disaster or a crisis, would you know what to look for?

If you own your own property, from a small home in the suburbs to a sprawling homestead in the country, it’s very important to know what grows and lives on this land. Even if you live in an apartment in the city, odds are there’s some wildlife around that you should get to know.

The thing is, no matter how much homesteading–meaning growing, processing, and preserving food, raising livestock, and investing in renewable, off-grid energy sources–we do in our own homes, there’s always the possibility that we can be cut off from our food supply. Even if that food supply is our own. Crops fail, money runs out, grids go down, grocery stores get cleared out and looted, etc.

So if you were faced with a threat to your food supply, would you know where to look to supplement or replace it?

Here are some tips on how to get to know the wild food sources on your homestead or in your area:

Foraging

Foraging for wild food has gained some popularity in the last decade, as people get more and more interested in where their food comes from and keeping it local. And it, obviously, is one of the best ways to get to know edible plants in your area.

If you have a homestead, purchase a book of local wild edibles and walk the whole span of your property to see what you can find. Make this a regular habit, so you can learn to recognize the food sources. Bonus: you’ll probably get some free food out of this!

Hunting, Trapping, and Fishing

If you’re lucky enough to be able to hunt, trap, or fish on your own property, you are truly blessed, and you should take advantage of this now so you can get to know what lives on your property and the best methods to catch them. If you don’t homestead, try to find out what people hunt in your area as well, and–you guessed it–start hunting or laying traps! Again, there’s probably some free food in it, not to mention the development of priceless skills.

Birdwatching

Birdwatching is a popular pastime for many nature lovers. If you are someone who does not normally pay much attention to the avian wildlife around you, however, it’s time to start. If you’re desperate for food, birds will start to look like tiny flying steaks, so pay attention now to get to know what’s available in your area, and again, learn to hunt or trap for these species. You might not want to actually do it, as local laws might prevent the hunting of certain species, but simply getting familiar with what’s local and the methods commonly used for hunting or trapping them will still be a big help.

Wherever you live, it’s vital to know what’s edible all around you. Take some time to familiarize yourself with these food sources so you won’t have to learn the hard way further down the road!

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May 26, 2017
Cooking Skills Every Homesteader Should Cultivate

One of the primary reasons many people homestead is to have a closer relationship with the source of their food. You yearn to grow your own vegetables, raise your own meat and dairy, forage, and hunt; essentially, to be independent of the increasingly complicated globalized food system.

These are certainly noble aspirations, and we share them here. Going back to a simpler time, to our roots, is something many of us are striving for in this modern world. Only a few generations ago, many people lived much more self-reliant and independent lives, and with the precarious situation our whole planet seems to be in so many ways, it’s very tempting, and quite prudent, to try to return to these traditions.

There is, however, much more to going back to our roots than simply gardening and raising livestock. As we explained in a recent post on reading antique cookbooks, cooking was very different a century ago and much more centered around the kind of food systems many homesteaders desire to return to.

If you want to be more independent, there are a number of cooking skills that can help. Whether you are homesteading out in the country or simply trying to live a more wholesome life in the suburbs or a city, these are skills that are invaluable to cultivate and can have a great positive influence on your cooking and health.

1. Cooking over an open fire

This is bare bones basic cooking, and everyone should (but most likely won’t) know how to do this. If you ever go camping or have bonfires, you should be working on cooking over an open fire. There are many methods of how to do this, and yes, bar-b-que (sort of) counts. The thing is, we just get so used to our gas or electric ranges we never learn the art of controlling the heat ourselves, other than turning a knob, and this takes a huge aspect of cooking out of the equation. If you work on only one basic cooking skill, this should be it.

2. Cooking in a wood oven

This is very similar to cooking over an open fire in that we have become spoiled by modern ranges and can greatly benefit from learning this art. Wood ovens are great staples to have on a homestead anyway, for many reasons, and odds are if you plan to go off-grid or are caught in a grid-down situation, you might need to rely on a wood stove and oven to prepare your food.

3. Butcher whole animals

This is a big one, especially if you want to raise your own meat. If you live in a community, you probably have a butcher you can bring your animals to once you’ve slaughtered them, and this is definitely a great resource to have. The thing is, as great as it is to support your local butcher and we’d highly encourage you to keep him in business, you should also be learning to do it yourself when you can. Because let’s be real: it’s not entirely self-reliant if you have to rely on someone else to do the really hard part.

Try to find ways to integrate butchering into your cooking life. Even if you don’t raise animals, simply buying a whole chicken and learning to properly section it off not only saves money but is good experience. If you do raise animals, take some time to learn to butcher them yourself. It’s hard work and you don’t want to get stuck having to learn how to do it when your life depends on it.

4. Curing Meat

Curing meat is a very underrated method of food preservation. We constantly advocate for learning to preserve your own food, such as canning or lacto-fermenting, or culturing of any kind, and these methods of food preservation is all the rage these days. Less popular but equally important is learning to cure meat. If you are raising your own meat, this is essential. Curing can help preserve meat for a very long time, and of course, make it absolutely delicious as well. This age-old method of curing meat has been used for centuries, since long before refrigeration, and shouldn’t be underestimated.

5. Cooking with cast iron

You may already be familiar with cooking with cast iron, but if you’re not, you should seriously consider investing in a skillet or dutch oven. No cookware lasts as long or endures as much wear and tear. There’s a reason it has been a staple in Western kitchens for years. It’s the original non-stick skillet, and you can easily clean and maintain it using some oil or lard (how old-fashioned is that?), making it a great option for off-grid kitchens without running water as well. Where all other pots or pans will eventually deteriorate or break, cast iron will last forever.

It’s great to start homesteading and create a more empowering relationship with your food, but don’t forget to learn how to cook it in a more traditional way!

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May 25, 2017
How to Groom Horses (Video)

Horses and ponies are wonderful additions to any homestead, especially if you are long-term survival oriented. They can provide live power, meaning, they can help you perform many farming tasks you might otherwise use a tractor or a truck for.

Of course, while they’re fueled by food rather than gasoline, they still need lots of attention and maintenance. And just like we can be refreshed by a clean shower and some self-pampering, horses love, and need, regular grooming for their health happiness.

In this very helpful video from Becky’s Homestead, she shares how to groom a horse for beginners, a requested video from some of her viewers.

Enjoy!

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May 25, 2017
The Health Benefits of Flaxseeds
Flax seeds are a pretty popular health item as of late. They can be bought either ground, in seed form, or in a highly nutritious oil.

As the healthy fat craze continues, flax seed has proved itself to be a desirable form of healthy omegas-3s. I have always enjoyed it ground on top of yogurt or in multigrain bread, while I enjoy the oil in salad dressings.

However, what I did not learn until recently is that flax seed oil is also used as a natural remedy. While it’s great for day-to-day health maintenance, it’s also a great natural health first aid item too, and I’m always looking for ways to diversify my healthy medicine chest.

Of course, health and diet are so interrelated, that it should come as no surprise that something that is amazingly healthy for you is also effective at alleviating and even curing many maladies. Here are some of the wonderful health benefits of flax seed and flax seed oil:

Assist Healthy Digestion

First of all, besides the beneficial omega-3s, flax seed is also very high in fiber, which is an essential nutrient for many bodily functions. For this reason, it can promote digestive regularity, and help to detoxify the body. This is due to its high level of mucilage gum content. Mucilage is a type of fiber that forms as a gel, and because it is water soluble, it is incredibly beneficial to the intestinal tract. It helps regulate digestion as well as maximize nutrient absorption.

If you are struggling with any digestive health issues, flax seed can be very helpful.

Anti-Inflammatory

Flax seeds are also very anti-inflammatory and are often used as a natural remedy for arthritis. The beneficial omega-3s in flax seeds, which make up 50% of the fat content of flax seeds is a natural enemy of pro-inflammatory compounds. Ground flax seed is a great source for these healthy omega-3s, but flax seed oil is even better. Ground flax also contains lignans, a certain kind of plant chemical which can also combat inflammation of the joints.

Cancer-Fighting

Lignans are also well-known for fighting cancer. In tests, flax seed containing high amounts of lignans have shown to considerably reduce cancerous tumors on mice as well as significantly help men with prostate cancer see a reduction in symptoms.

Ease Symptoms of Menopause

These amazing plant chemical lignans you now know so much about also help to ease the symptoms of menopause. Once absorbed, the lignans convert to plant estrogen in the body, which can help reduce hot flashes. For this reason, they are also linked to lower rates of breast cancer as well as reduction of breast cancer tumors.

Lower Cholesterol

The high fiber content of flax seeds, along with the powerful flavonoids they contain, all contribute to lowering “bad” cholesterol in the body.

How to “Use” Flax Seeds

At this point you’re probably wondering, well, how do you I use this amazing nutrient to gain these health benefits?

If you’re not used to consuming flax seed as part of your regular diet, don’t worry! It’s very easy to integrate into a normal diet, and it’s relatively neutral, nutty flavor doesn’t need much getting used to, it’s quite subtle.

First of all, it’s worth nothing that if you are struggling with any of these issues, from poor digestion to cancer, that simply introducing flax seed to your diet might not be enough. No matter what you’re dealing with, nothing is worth more than an all-around healthy diet, one that is balanced, full of plant-based nutrients, healthy fats, and lots of whole foods, preferably organic and antibiotic-free. Lots of naturally fermented foods and raw dairy are excellent as well. If you do have any health issues, you might be avoiding anything from dairy to meat to carbs, not everyone has the same dietary needs or desires, but anything that contains reasonable portions of whole foods with enough vegetables tends to work for almost everyone. Read our Ultimate Guide to Health Diets for more.

Integrating flax seeds into your diet can be a great way to transition to healthier foods, though. Here are some ideas for how to eat it on a daily basis. Keep in mind that the best forms of flax seeds are either freshly ground or in oil form; pre-ground flax doesn’t have as many of the benefits as freshly ground.

Ways to use flax oil:

For the most part, you can use flax oil as you would any other oil. But since it can be rather expensive and you are going to health benefits, you’ll probably want to eat it straight, added to dishes by the teaspoon or tablespoon. Here are some ideas:
- in salad dressings
- drizzled over toast or on sandwiches
- in bulletproof coffee
- stirred into or drizzled over yogurt
- as a marinade or cooking oil for meat
- stirred into hot cereal
- by the spoonful
Ways to use ground flax:

If you are serious about regularly consuming ground flax, buying a small coffee grider and the whole seeds is the easiest way to do this. That way, you can grind them up as needed and reap all the benefits! Here are some ways to use them:
- sprinkled over yogurt
- in a smoothie
- in muffins or breads
- as a coating for lightly fried chicken
- stirred into pancake batter
- in meatloaf (in place of breadcrumbs)
- in cold or hot cereal
Hope this has given you some great ideas for how to use this amazing super food! Start boosting your health easily and naturally by incorporating flax seed into your diet today.

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May 24, 2017
Off-Grid Outdoor Kitchen Tour (Video)

If you’re an aspiring homesteader, this will be better than anything on HGTV to you. This amazing outdoor kitchen is any homesteader’s dream summer kitchen and I was super excited to see this video appear on one of my favorite homesteading YouTube channels.

Summer kitchens are so essential to the homestead. Cooking can get incredibly hot as the weather gets warm, and having the option to cook outside can greatly reduce the temperature of your home, helping to keep it as a cool haven from the oppressive summer heat.

Also, as you begin to harvest both from your garden and your flocks or herds, it is great to have all the space to process lots of produce or butcher animals. I have major homesteading envy watching the tour of this awesome kitchen!

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May 22, 2017
How to Read Antique Cookbooks

Antique cookbooks are a wonderful relic of the past, and yet, if you’ve ever tried to make any of the recipes contained within, you might find yourself scratching your head.

Just as lifestyles have changed drastically in the last half, even quarter century, so have the way we cook, talk about, and interact with food, and the cookbooks of yesteryear might be a bit cryptic to today’s modern cook.

However, if you are a homesteader, these antique cookbooks might be very appealing to you. They are written for people who had access to the kinds of things homesteads produce, and deal with ingredients like whole animals, natural leavening agents, and tools wood fire stoves or ovens.

To help you decipher the archaic language of antique cookbooks, we’ve put together a little guide.

Leavening

The way we leaven our baked goods these days is very different from the way people did a century ago. While there is a big movement to return to natural leavening agents, you either might not be familiar with this technique yet, or simply don’t understand what the cookbook is calling for.

You might find yeast being called for by the cup or “teacup” in your antique cookbook, and this means an active starter like sourdough or a homemade yeast. You can also use dry yeast here (a relatively recent invention), but use 1 tbs for less than 6 cups flour, 2 tbs for 6-11 cups, or 3 tbs for 11-26 cups.

There have also been many changes in agents like baking soda and baking powder. If baking soda is called for, you’ll want to reduce the amount you use, as the baking soda we have today is double-acting, meaning it rises twice as fast. If the recipe calls for soda, 1/2 a tsp per cup of milk, sour milk, buttermilk, etc., or every teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice.

Temperature

Most old cookbooks assumed that the reader already knew how to operate their oven and range, so most of the time, ingredients, and steps for preparing the dish are given, but with only a few vague instructions for baking at best. Since gas ranges and ovens weren’t common until well into the 20th Century, anything written before that wouldn’t assume you were using one.

In many cases, you’re simply going to have to use common sense. Odds are if you’re brave enough to dive into an antique cookbook, you are probably pretty comfortable in the kitchen, and know that, for the most part, certain baked goods tend to be baked around the same temperature. If you’re confident baking on a regular basis, you should be fine. If you’re confused, reference the temperature used in a contemporary version of a similar recipe, and just watch your dish carefully as it bakes.

Measurements

Old-fashioned cookbooks have some odd standards of measurements. For instance, “teaspoons” are the same word, but the measurement has changed. It used to be 4 tsp per 1 tbs, while our present measurement is 3 tsp per 1 tbs. Also, when teaspoons or tablespoons are indicated in old cookbooks, they might have meant rounded, while today we typically refer to these measurements as the flattened-off version. These rounded, or “heaping” measurements, means that there could be nearly double the amount in one measurement!

You also might find some unusual words you don’t recognize. A “dessertspoon” is half a tablespoon, meaning that, when a tsp equaled 1 tbs, a dessertspoon would be 2 tsp (today you might simply have a half-tablespoon measuring spoon on your personal set, I do).

Other measurements that might be unfamiliar are a “salt-spoon”, which is is 1/8 of a tsp, a “dash” (still used today in many cookbooks) is one shake of a shaker.

A “cup” in an old-fashioned cookbook might mean about 1/5 less than our modern 8 oz cup. “Teacup”, a phrase you won’t see anymore, is simply half a cup. “Wineglass” is the equivalent of our current 1/4 a cup. Sometimes, you might see a recipe call for a “bowl”, use your best judgment using one of your own bowls, based on the other proportions in the recipe.

While some old-fashioned recipes from antique cookbooks might be a bit daunting at first, never fear. While cooking language and techniques have changed, for the most part, it’s all still food. If you’re confident cooking on a daily basis, you can probably use your best judgment to make the recipe work for you. These old cookbooks can contain timeless wisdom when it comes to food, and since homesteading is all about getting back to our roots, its important to take advantage of these antique resources.

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May 22, 2017