Changing and simplifying my skincare routine one year ago has changed my entire life. For the first time in my life my skin is glowing, I feel beautiful, and my eyelids are not swollen and scaly! 🙌🏼 Check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this eczema blog series for before pictures, with my face covered in eczema. 😆 I don’t have eczema at all now, and I haven’t going on 8 months. It’s such a wonderful feeling, and I’m sharing my story in the hopes you can feel just as wonderful one day!

Learn how to make probiotic, creamy, thick plant based yogurt! It’s easy, delicious and a fun fermentation project. All you need is a yogurt maker, some plant based milk of your choice, agar and a starter culture.

Why do we ferment in oak barrels? This blog has everything I can (and cannot) tell you about our Cultured Guru American white oak barrels!

One of my favorite budget friendly meals that results in enough servings for lunch the next day (score!) is red beans and rice with sautéed southern greens and kimchi. YUM!

This meal is my absolute favorite when we can get all the ingredients from our local farmers market, because everything is just so fresh and local. I love adding some of our Cultured Guru Kimchi to the sautéed southern greens side, because I find that I digest beans much easier when I eat fermented veggies with them.

Rest not only revitalizes you physically, but also mentally. We always feel refreshed and ready to conquer our goals when we return from a vacation. This is especially true for the vacation we just took, and we are so excited to get back to work doing what we love!

Having a balanced and thriving gut microbiome can translate to having clearer skin, a healthier weight, healthier bowel movements… and a healthier microbiome is a key factor in the prevention and control of common ailments like allergies, eczema, anxiety, depression, cancer and diabetes. Basically, multitudes of research shows that the microbiome should be factored into treatment plans for any and every type of ailment, disease and condition.

Let me start off by saying that my journey to fully healed skin was a long one. Great strides have been made with lots of effort, patience and perseverance. I've gone from having eczema 24/7 on my face, elbows, knees, arms and hands...to only having small flareups only around my eyes about twice a week... to having no eczema at all!

You used your fermentation kit for the first time. You followed all the directions and you made delicious, probiotic, fermented vegetables! Now what? Learn how to reuse your kit and kit guide time and time again!

Learning how to brew water kefir is easy and fun! Water kefir is a sweet, probiotic drink made using water kefir grains (or Tibicos), purified water and organic sugar. Our water kefir recipe also incorporates a small about of unrefined salt and maple syrup. Once you culture up some water kefir, you can bottle it for a second round of fermentation that results in a probiotic, flavorful, fizzy drink. It is similar to the popular drink kombucha, but we prefer the microbial make up of water kefir.

Since summer time, aka grilling season, is right around the corner we've been recipe developing to create a gut-heathy & grillable veggie burger. I know I'm not the only one whose veggie burgers usually fall apart on the grill... Sandwich like foods are notorious for being ugly in photographs, so in order for these blog pictures to be colorful and beautiful, we added shredded beets! These turned out to be the best veggie burgers we've ever made! Scotty even want's tore-make a bunch of them for quick lunches. Obviously we used our Fermented Dill Pickles as a topping, adding billions of gut healthy probiotic bacteria!  

Homemade Sauerkraut... definitely the best place to start when learning how to ferment at home. Sauerkraut is particularly easy for a first fermentation project because cabbage ferments extremely well. The water content along with the microbial species richness of cabbage make it optimal for wild fermentation! With this recipe you'll learn how to make the best, most probiotic homemade sauerkraut in a mason jar. If you're a visual learner there is also a picture guide below the recipe!

We've really been enjoying rephotographing our blogs since we redesigned our website. I particularly enjoyed redoing this Thai Curry Soup Recipe, because I wasn't feeling very well (period problems). I take this approach of listening to my body, and I knew I needed something warm and nourishing with anti-inflammatory turmeric and our Fermented Kimchi. After all, food is medicine. Scott was of course on board because soup is his favorite food!

The health benefits of oats is based around their ability to help lower bad cholesterol and the fiber they add to meals. Lower cholesterol + beta glucan fiber = SUPER heart healthy. Plus all that beta glucan from oats is perfect to feed the gut microbiome, keeping your microbes thriving and at their fullest protection potential. You microbiome helps to protect you from disease and helps you to derive the most nutrients from your food, so you always want to make sure it's nourished and ready to do work by supplying many prebiotic foods... like oats.