Who doesn’t enjoy a warm drink in the morning?
The desire to have something warm in the belly first thing in the morning seems to be a universal human desire. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, starting our day with a warm drink supports a healthy stomach, spleen, and pancreas which gets the ball rolling for a healthy day… year… life!
The dilemma is that I don’t want to tweak my adrenals with coffee, dose myself with fluoride from tea, or spike my blood sugar with hot cocoa. So, what’s left???
I have a confession to make…
We are among the army of multiple generations we call the ‘Twinkie generation’. What we mean by the Twinkie generation is anyone who was raised as a child to think that Twinkies (or name your childhood favorite sickeningly sweet non-food) are a perfectly fine addition to a daily diet.
One of the results of regular sugar consumption is the desire to have something sweet in the morning. (After all, isn’t breakfast supposed to be sweet!?)
So, in our quest to reduce our sugar intake, our path has lead us in search of yummy, nutrient dense, non-sweet morning foods.
I’ve often looked with longing eyes at our stock pot simmering with delicious bone broth in our kitchen. After all, bone broth makes every meal more delicious and is the ‘secret ingredient’ behind any excellent soup or sauce (not to mention how incredibly awesome it is for our oral and whole body health!).
It’s true that I’ve even had a cup of it by itself when I just couldn’t resist. The problem is, by itself, bone broth isn’t a really tasty cup for me.
Necessity is the mother of invention…
Recently, while cleaning up after dinner, Susan sipped the last of the juice of our customary relish bowl of sauerkraut we have with dinner. Anyone who aspires to eat real food knows the delicious and very healthy tart flavor of kraut and its juice. Then the thought hit…
What about putting kraut juice in a cup of bone broth?
So, she immediately grabbed an empty mug, ladled half a mug of bone broth out of our stock pot and poured some juice from an almost empty jar of kraut into the mug.
It was delicious! The ‘warm your belly’ rich flavor of bone broth combined with the tart, gut-healing nature of sauerkraut.
Once we realized that even kids find it delicious, we knew we had found the perfect ‘warm the belly’ drink.
After a quick Google search, we found that the only reference to this combination is in Dr. McBride’s awesome GAPS diet book.
Truly, the combination is really stellar for our health if you take a moment to think about it…
Real food lovers, give it a try the next time you want a mug of something to warm your belly on a cold morning. No sugar to freak your blood sugar, no caffeine to tweak your adrenals. Just a yummy combination of bioavailable minerals and fats and an enzyme-rich, stomach and liver tonic. It just might be the Holy Grail of real food winter time drinks! 🙂
What are your thoughts? Have you tried this delicious, nutritious combination before? Please share your experience in the comments below. We love to hear what you have to say!
I haven’t tried this specific combination, but I use my kraut (and other ferment juices) as a seasoner for many, many things–anything that would usually require salt and/or an acidic flavor (lemon, lime, vinegar) is a good bet for subbing in kraut juice. Dressings, sprinkled over stir-fries (especially my carrot-ginger ferments), as a marinade for meat, fish, or even tofu if you eat that (I don’t so much anymore), subbing for salt and other seasonings in bean/grain dishes (which I also don’t eat much of anymore, but kraut juice sure did improve them when I did), a few drops on the yolk of a sliced boiled egg or in deviled egg filling, in many soups, sprinkled over salmon or liver instead of a squeeze of lemon…many delicious possibilities.
Excellent stuff here Jen! Thanks so much for sharing! You got me with the drops on the hard boiled egg yolk! I’ve never tried that one! 🙂
Thanks again for stopping by to share your gems!
I like to drink warm homemade coconut milk. That’s my go-to warm drink. This one sounds interesting. . . I may have to try it.
Just a curious question. If the soup is warm/hot–wouldn’t it harm the beneficial bacteria in the Kraut? Otherwise it sounds yummy!!
Yes, a bit. However, the broth quickly cools off from the kraut juice so it quickly comes under 112 degrees which is the high point for the enzymes. 🙂
🙂 makes perfect sense to me!!!
i need to make some more of both!
Enjoy!!
I think you did stumble on a great one. It reminds me of my Mom’s sauerkraut soup. Truly a lovely, favorite comfort food of mine. Her recipe included potatoes and four cups of water, dill weed, onion, garlic, caraway seeds, sour cream, sausage and (undrained)sauerkraut. Obviously it could quickly be improved by putting broth in place of the water.
Oh, this sounds fabulous to me!! I would absolutely substitute stock for water in this case! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!!
I like hot bone broth with my homemade beet kvass in the morning.
Wow, this sounds awesome! I’ll have to give this one a try too! Thank you!
Yes, I have definitely tried this when I was on GAPS for about a month. I didn’t keep it to just sauerkraut but fermented carrots or beets also. It’s really delicious.
Excellent ideas! Thanks for sharing Suzanne!