Earth Day Goals

Earth Day 2019 started something new for our family.  My husband and I had just finished Blue Planet II. And something about that show drives you to change.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.  The whole thing is beautiful and it's in the very last episode that they really talk about plastic and the ocean.  (I have not received any compensation and these opinions are all my own.)

So quick background - I grew up moderately environmentally aware, like we recycled and composted and my mom often hung our clothes to dry  Then I moved to go to college in Utah where there wasn't even an option to recycle. My heart hurt every time I had to throw paper away,  but eventually I got used to it. Then i got married moved to a house and we could recycle! So when Earth Day came around this last year I started to feel strongly that I should make a change.  Something not too stressful but that would make a difference. I decided on being more careful with recycling. When I brought my goal to my husband, and we decided on specifics together.

And as a small side note, let's talk about Target. They provide glass recycling! It's a small can in the store but coming from a state that doesn't offer glass recycling - it is awesome. In addition they recycle carseats at certain times and give coupons. Gotta love Target.

So you might ask how did it go? Over the last 5 months I feel we are doing so much better!  Even our young children sometimes realize certain things get thrown away in a different place.  Perfect? Definitely no, but that is totally ok. It's all about improvement. 

Why sourdough?

Ever since I first heard that sourdough improved your gut health,  raised your blood sugar less, and was easier to digest, I was intrigued. I have two tendencies that cause for an interesting reaction. First I am pretty quick to basically believe you. Second I also have a small voice in the back of my head that says, "what's your source? How do you know what you do?" So this combination often leads me to research and see if there is validity to the claim.

This sourdough craze is no different. Too many blogs talk about all this magic of sourdough bread and I needed proof.

A quick google led me to an article on Healthline that had sources from scientific journals and I was surprised how many of these things were hesitantly true!

I then looked at google scholar and found similar results.

So according to the Healthline article here are the benefits of sourdough bread:

1) Even though the nutrients present in sourdough bread is basically the same as similar regular bread, because of the lower phytate levels your body absorbs the nutrients easier. It also "contains higher levels of folate and antioxidants than other breads."

2) "Contains lower amounts of gluten and its prebiotic- and probiotic- like properties may help improve digestion."

3) "Sourdough fermentation produces changes in the bread that may allow for better blood sugar control and improved insulin sensitivity. "

Sourdough Starter

Today let's talk about sourdough. I am excited to start a sourdough starter! I've been researching sourdough and have found some interesting things.  Call me naive,  but I never even thought about what people used before the yeast you buy in the store.  I guess I thought it was how it was always done and yeast just came that way.  According to Wikipedia, yeast started much like how we do sourdough today.  That it likely was discovered by accidentally leaving the flour and water too long. Fascinating.

So here I am on day 3 of creating my starter and it is full of air holes. I'm excited! Keeping it between 70 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. I keep a little thermometer next to it so I can check the temperature.  Before I had it in the basement but it was more like 70 and it just didn't grow much, now in the kitchen its more like 75 to 80 and it is much more successful.

I used America's Test Kitchen recipe for the sourdough starter. It has part wheat and part white flour.  (I couldn't find a link to the recipe, but cooks illustrated had the same one, since they are connected it makes sense.  Here it is. )

What is your favorite sourdough starter recipe?