Beer Bread Experiment

The other day I decided to try a little short cut/experiment in making a loaf of bread. I wanted a sour dough flavour but I didn't want to make a standard starter, which is a fair bit of work. So instead I mixed one bottle of home made extra pale ale with as much whole wheat flour as it took to make it some what doughey; I left it more watery than I would have if making an actual loaf ready to knead. From there I put it in a covered glass bowl and left it in the oven with the light on (a trick I learned from Mattias, thanks!) for one day. The next day I took it out and kneaded it with some more flour so that it didn't stick to the table and also to give it a more doughey texture, from there I let it sit in the same bowl for another day.

Now the yeast had really had a hay day with it and there were lots of bubbles, so in the afternoon I took it out kneaded it some more with flour then placed in on a floured paper towel with another heavily floured paper town on top this time I put it on the pan I would be baking it in so it could form a nice shape out of the bowl. That evening I took it out formed it a little and heated up the oven to 350 Celsius and cooked it until it was firm and good, probably around 45 mins - 1 hr, should have kept track of the time but was doing a lot of other things as well.

The result was probably the best tasting sour dough I have had in memory, a very nice sour flavour with a distinct after taste of malty sweetness (possibly from the beer) and some notable hope taste and aroma as well. I highly recommend it if you like making bread, and especially if you make beer as it still has the yeast in the bottle, presuming you bottle and don't keg.

Enjoy!

Beer Explosions!

The other day I made an extra special pale ale from a recipe I found at Dans Home Brew. After fermenting it for a few days it was fermenting very actively; we were just about to leave the house when we heard a huge pop in the back room. We rushed into the room to see the air lock and the bung lying a few feet away and foam everywhere around the carboy. While looking down at the foam a huge clump of something fell in between Landon and I so we looked up; hops and yesty foam covered the ceiling, what a mess! It was pretty funny though and the beer still seems to be coming along quite nicely.

Right now I am making a version I found of a Dark Chocolate Stout, the other day I tried Brooklyn Breweries DCS and oohhh was it good. This is a very expensive beer to make though as it has about twice as much of everything.

Sprouting

Recently I have become very engrossed I guess you could say in the world of sprouting.  Sprouting being putting a seed or legume in the right conditions for it to germinate and become a living organism and begin its growth towards being a plant, at which point it is edible.  Anything you sprout be it celery seed, rye or anything in between has several times the nutrients as would be found in its unsprouted brother or sister, this is because the enzymes are activated within the dormant seed in preparation for growth.  One study compared radish sprouts to mature radish and found that in all vitamin categories except that of potassium and sodium the sprout far surpassed the mature plant, noticeably in areas such as Vitamin A where it was nearly 300x the amount.

The raw vitamin data is not even the full picture, on top of being in essence a vitamin supplement and whole food at the same time they are bio available.  This is very important as our bodies do not absorb many of the nutrients we consume in the way of vitamin supplements as they are not bio available.  One will quickly discover this if they take a first year biology course.  During our lab we did a urine analysis where we all peed in a cup and the performed several experiments on it.  It was apparent from simply looking through the microscope who took vitamin supplements as there was heavy debris in the urine, our biology instructor quickly informed us of how the vitamin market is some what of a scam as our bodies cannot absorb synthetically produced vitamins.  As sprouts are biogenic (alive) our bodies use the vitamins and other substances like proteins and fibers and carbs with little work and more importantly actually reaps the benefits.  

This is just a little introduction into the world of sprouting, I will be posting more information soon as to why you should sprout and how you can.

Bi-Partisan Canada?

Living in Canada I have routinely heard the United States Government Criticized for a wide spectrum of things.  One thing I hear often from my fellow Canadians, and even some Americans is the fact that they are only bi-partisan with neither party being that different than the other.  What comes to mind is a Simpson’s episode where two aliens have captured the bodies of both running mates for president; upon discovering this Homer yells out “We can vote for a third party!!”  One of the aliens steps up to the podium and says “Yes but you would be throwing your vote away.”  In utter defeat everyone becomes quiet and Homer says in despair “awww he’s right.”  Thus they willing elect a President who enslaves them and rules with an iron fist.  It is intended to be a commentary on how the American people really have no choice and Democratic or Republican are electing an evil party. 

       In Canada we in theory have it better, with our multitude of parties to vote for.  However after attending recent local debates and watching the federal election debate it just seems like we have less effective form of their government.  Especially with regards to the debate I recently viewed at Langara, no party particularly stood for anything above the other parties with the exception of the Conservative Party.  Of course the green party didn’t really have much to say about social issues, but that’s beside the point.  Every party’s speech was directed at debunking the Conservative candidate, as well as all the questions asked by the audience.  There was nothing that came up that the Green, NDP or Liberal party disagreed on, other than they each thought they should be elected.  I realize that each party does have their differences, sometimes even vast, but they don’t seem to be anything that couldn’t be worked around any less effectively than they do now battling it out in the House of Commons.  The English debate between the Federal Candidates just seemed to prove the anti conservative movement even more, while making most of the other party leaders look like and angry mob.  What has basically happened is we have two sides against each other: the pro Conservative and the anti Conservative. The pro Conservatives are in the minority at around 35% of the popular vote.  The only problem is the anti Conservatives seem to have divided themselves up amongst 3 smaller groups, and thus cannot win even a minority government with any one of the parties.  So this division of the anti Conservative side has actually disenfranchised 65% of the people in our country who wish for our policies to be parallel to those of George W. Bush. 

       Should we merge into one?  Would that be even worse by limiting the specifics of various groups of people’s voices?  Its hard to say for sure, as it is more a matter of opinion, but I for one have seen enough Anything But Conservative posters to think not.

 

Medecins Sans Frontieres

This past weekend (Oct. 5th - 7th) there was a large exhibit out side of the Vancouver Public Library.  I originally found out about it while coincidentally trying to take out a movie from the Library and saw them setting up several large white tents inside of a temporary fence.  Reading the signs I realized it was and event for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) a humanitarian organization formed in France.  The event was set up to increase awareness of their organization, what they do, and the tragedy they experience all over the world everyday.  The organization (MSF) sounded familiar but I really knew nothing about what they actually did so I found this display incredibly informative and eye opening.

The display its self was designed to be a mock refugee camp, where someone like my self could enter one end, let by a volunteer for MSF and get an explanatory tour of the various aspects of living in a refugee camp.  Our tour guide was a man named Patrick, a water engineer from Montreal who had just been on a mission in an African region.  One of the first things he explained to us is that while they refer to it as a refugee camp the people MSF deals with are not actually refugees as are classified by the UN.  A refugee is someone displaced out of his/her country by war or other reasons and is in turn recognized and aided by the UN; MSF works with internally displaced peoples, which are people uprooted from their home by war or other reasons who remain in their country of origin.   The UN does not recognize people in this situation.  By current estimates there are currently 42 million people displaced within their own country, all lacking basic needs such as food, medicine and education.  MSF seeks to provide for these people when their local government is unable, and the UN does not have the resources or ability due to bureaucratic barriers.

As we are just starting to learn from our mistakes and ignorance of the recent path (eg Rwanda, Cambodia etc) there are new tragedies occurring everyday, violations of human rights on a massive scale.  In several places like Sudan, Darfur, and Columbia, governments do not have the political will or resources to look after their own people so MSF takes this responsibility.   It is incredible the difference in living styles from our homes to theirs, I think one way in which this is really demonstrated is Patrick told of how each family in the camp was allocated 10-20 liters of water per day.  Then he asked us how much water we thought we each consumed in a day, the general answer in our group was 30 to 50 liters.  So it came as quite a shock when he told us the average person in the western world can use from 250 to 300 liters per day.  Water how ever is one of several problems the people organizing and living in these camps face everyday; other struggles include all the health risks, food, fire wood, tensions between inside and out the camps, medicine and the various diseases which can spread so easily in a crowed unclean environment to name a few.  Among all of this however I think one of my biggest shocks came from finding out how the organization is funded, almost entirely from private donation.

One of the reasons MSF can be so quick to respond and aid peoples is that they receive limited funding from government bodies.  For instance in 2005 MSF worldwide received just 13.9% of its income from Government and institutions.  This enables them to move with greater freedom not hindered by inter-government friction between donor and receiving bodies.  Speaking with people at the event and reading their fiscal summary it is clear that there current ration of private funding to government funding is of deep importance to them and something they will continue to strive for.

All in all, this event was very effective at educating and raising awareness.  This is the kind of organization needed more often in order to engage the general public; it is becoming increasingly difficult to pry people from their everyday lives and see what is going on in the world around them.  Hands on experience and intense visuals like the kind seen at “A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City” are powerful tools against apathy, though I hope if you were not able to make it to this event you can still realize the close interconnectedness we share with all human beings, and that some of those people are not fairing nearly as well as we in the west are. 

Check out their web site at www.doctorswithoutborders.org

See what you can do to contribute.

 

 

No need to stand for, stand against.

Yesterday I was riding my bike home and I saw a poster that in big letters said "ABC" as I rode closer I realized it was in fact an acronym standing for Anything But Conservative.  I thought this was an interesting voting strategy, and certainly a sign of desperation on the writers part.  It shows true frustration when people will give up standing for something, only to stand against something as long as others will join them.  I don't disagree either, with the Conservative party taking us more the way of the Americans as far as being involved with armed conflict, and environmental issues; as the Conservatives seem to be the only party not making a plan to reach the Kyoto protocol and want to "reduce this into a simple conversation about carbon tax" says Mark Winfield a political scientist and professor at York University.  As well as Stephen Harper is the only Federal Candidate yet to release and on the record statement of what his party would do to tackle global, domestic and Aboriginal poverty, according to Gerry Barr chair of Make Poverty History.

So in light of that I have a hard time disagreeing with the sign, I miss the Canada I used to hear about, the one that helped peace keeping missions, and contributed to aiding developing nations and protected its citizens.  The Conservative party doesn't seem to be in support of anything related to these, although they may have done other positive things, do they represent what we as Canadians stand for?  And if not then who does represent what it means to be Canadian?  

(Canada in recent years has dropped its contribution considerably in UN peacekeeping missions, ranked roughly 53rd in the world with only 168 troops this year.  Also Canada is 15th on the list of aid donors when looking at % of GNI donated, giving only .28 percent of its gross national income.  Also we pay taxes but we still have to pay health care every month! What's up with that?)  

Coalition of Terror

It seems common among people who are some what left wing (especially notable in the young adult demographic) who are against American, or more specifically anti-Bush as it is kind of a pop culture phenomena right now.  However the majority of these people probably don’t have specific reasons why they take this side.  There are many different reasons for this, all individually important (political apathy, and a feeling of disconectedness from the “real world” for a few) however I don’t mean to address those here, I just intend to give reasons to those people.

America as a nation has always put its self on a pedestal of fighting for the just and right cause, more often than not using deceit if not out right lies to motivate its people and gain support.  Take for example the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam where the opening attack by the Vietcong was fabricated, since than not much has changed.  Although I don’t believe we know or are willing accept just how big a deception they present.  For example they currently want us to support their attack on a group of rogue nations, the so called “axis of evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.  According to the 2002 address to congress, by George W. Bush these are three “rogue states” which need to be taken down by the American Army for the good of the free world.  This use of language is incredibly effective at gaining the support of the American public, especially when coupled with a catch fraise like “lets roll!” to turn the emotion into one similar to playing a heroic video game.  Just as it was an effective rally point for Regans administration for gathering the American people together, united to fight the “Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union.  However people are beginning to grow tired of this talk and see it for what it generally really is; a war waged for money and power, with nothing more than controlling motives.  This is shown by a large Washington based survey on 17000 people in 15 countries.  The basis of the study found that despite “growing concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the US presence in Iraq is cited at least as often as Iran - and in many countries much more often - as a danger to world peace.”  From 1999 to 2006 several European countries dropped well below a 50% favorable rating towards the US, with the acception of the UK which only dropped to 56%.  As well several Muslim countries which the US had in the past held a strong relationship with slumped incredibly low, countries such as Indonesia falling from 75% to 30%, and Turkey from 52% to 12%.  This is in no small part due to Iraq and the worlds opposition to the US lead invasion, however there are several other examples, which have been showing a trend in the policies of the US and which the general public seems to be unaware of.  Several instances of the US acting in the face of the world, as a “rogue state”  Here are just a few examples I took from an article by Richard Du Boff:

In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement- the frist time in the nuclear era that the US renounced a major arms control accord.

In 1972 the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention was ratified by 144 nations, including the United States.  In July 2001, the US walked out of a London Conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the convention by providing for on-site inspections.  At Geneva in November 2001 US Undersecretary of State John Bolton Stated that “the protocol is dead,” at the same time accusing Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Sudan and Syria of violating the convention, but offering no specific allegations or supporting evidence.

The UN Agreement to curb the International flow of Illicit Small Arms was passed in July 2001, with the US the only nation to oppose it.

The US still has not ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the economic and social rights of children.  The only other country not to ratify it is Somalia, which has no functioning government.

In July 2001, the US was the only nation among the G8 group of industrial nations to refuse to support the proposed International Plan for Cleaner Energy.

The US refused in February 2001 to join 123 other nations pledged to ban the use and production of anti personnel bombs and mines,  In September 2001, the US withdrew from the International Conference on Racism, which brought together 163 countries in durban, South Africa.

The land Mine Treaty, banning land mines, was signed in Ottawa in December 1997 by 122 nations.  The United States refused to sign, along with Russia, China, India Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey.  President Clinton rejected the Treaty, claiming the mines were needed to protect south Korea against North Korea’s “overwhelming military advantage.”  He stated that the US would “eventually” comply in 2006, but his promise was disavowed by President George W Bush in August 2001.

There are several more examples of how the US has blatantly acted as a rogue state in the face of multinational organizations such as the UN, and basically all others trying to achieve stability, or peace.  Not that countries the US has invaded (e.g.. Iraq) don’t need stability or help, but bombs are never an answer, especially when America does not have stability or self sufficiency in mind for any of them Iraq included.

So as we move into a millennium of greater interconnectedness and shared information we see ethics, public importance and truth maintain a back seat.  And what are we going to do about it?

Information taken from

 Richard Du Boff’s If you still don't see the US as a rouge nation, read this.  (The Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives) 

and Ewen MacAskill’s  US viewed as bigger threat to peace that Iran, worldwide poll finds. (Guardian Weekly 06)