Keeping Hydrated

Hot days, electrolyte discussion, refreshing Brine-ade recipe, and a completely unrelated adorable baby beaver video 🦫

When I started this a few days ago we were bracing for a heat wave in southern Oregon. Now it is upon us. It was already hot, dry and windy. Now it is hotter and drier. The wind is dill blowing in the afternoons which is both good and not great. It cools one off but also can exacerbate fire danger. A couple of weeks ago someone a few ridges over from where we live was mowing and a spark caused a fire that burned over 1000 acres and is still smoldering in the forest. The very next day, I was in town getting a windshield replaced, and Christopher called to say there was a fire at a place one mile upwind from us. Mowing. This fire, luckily, was extinguished quickly, by the time I got home in fact, but only after taking out their tractor. However, this was the moment when my brain shifted and I started to think in the way of preparedness as I do at some point every summer. It was just earlier this year. We understand and accept that this forest we love may burn and that fire may take our home, and its objects with it. Preparedness is planning for the safety of our family and the lives that depend on us—pets, rehabilitating beavers (there will be a complete update soon but know that Beverly is still healing and Elderberry is getting fat) and making sure the documents and go bags are at the ready.

First hours of wild fire in our region.

Fire danger is always in the wings but for now, I am thinking about hydration, again for ourselves and the lives around us. Our low a few night’s ago was 20° F cooler than tonight’s—the high today is nearly 50°F warmer than last night’s low.

The past week, and again this morning, I’ve spent the cooler hours at the edges of the day watering trees I planted last winter. They are conifers, the beginning of a building a forest project of mine. They are not ready to be on their own. I am also making sure the garden and landscape plants have a little extra in hopes that it makes the heat a bit more bearable for them. A few years ago I read how trees “drink” and the analogy was that it was like drinking from a straw. When they are drought-stressed it is like when we are trying to get the last slurps of something delicious and moist from the bottom of the glass. We increase the pressure of our sucking—trees do the same. In doing so the stream or column of water breaks producing air bubbles. These bubbles can block flow. Scientists are now able to capture this ultrasonic noise. Here is a great set of illustrations showing how trees are affected by drought.  

While I try to support our plants and trees Christopher is working to ensure the concert venue is safe for the concert that will be taking during the predicted highest degrees of this heat wave. This includes more water, misting stations, ice, giant fans, and so on.

While the temperatures in the 100s are not unheard of, or even unusual here, we are heading over 110°F. Again not so out of normal for July but it feels like we are all on edge with this extreme or that extreme and so it is the talk of the region. Conversations end with “stay cool” “stay hydrated” or “drink lots of water.” Somehow though it also feels like in these small conversations people are caring just a little bit more for each other.

Today when I was leaving a business someone said, after someone in the room said to drink lots of water, “Don’t forget the salt, everyone always forgets the salt.”

I heartily agreed and said something about the misconceptions about salt how too much water can also cause an over-hydration imbalance. And some more blah, blah, blah about how salt is a common topic when talking about fermented foods. But I didn’t finish, they blurted out, “Yeah, when I drink a glass of water, I get my big bag of chips. I love salt.”

By that time I was halfway out the door and I just laughed and smiled. By the time I was at the car, I thought maybe a little post about electrolytes. Those of us who teach fermentation toss around certain “these foods are good for you” sound bites. One that rolls off the tongue is that fermented vegetables and fermented drinks often contain many of our much-needed electrolytes. But what does that mean?

First, what are electrolytes?

Despite what product makers would like us to believe, electrolytes are not colored sports drinks or gels. They are minerals like sodium but also calcium, magnesium, bicarbonate, chloride, and potassium. These minerals have an electric charge when dissolved in liquid, in our body, this is blood, tissue, and all our other bodily fluids and are essential to many of the functions of our bodies. Sodium helps control the amount of fluid in the body and is key to muscle and nerve function. Chloride also helps regulate the amount of fluid in our body, part of which is maintaining a healthy blood volume and pressure. Magnesium is also one of the players is good blood pressure as well as blood sugar control and helping nerves and muscles, including the heart, function properly. Our muscles, heart, and cells need the potassium. Phosphate and calcium work together to build and maintain strong bones and teeth. Bicarbonate maintains the balance in our body’s pH and plays a part in moving carbon dioxide through our blood flow. This is one we don’t get by eating or drinking baking soda. Our body makes carbon dioxide but not all of it leaves on our out breath, some of it turns into the bicarbonate that we need for our blood pH balance. (If you want a deeper explanation of electrolytes and how the minerals, their electrical charges, and our body function together you can read more at this post.)

You may be wondering about sugar, given it is always in sports drinks and recipes for electrolyte drinks. Sugar isn’t an electrolyte, but a small amount of glucose helps your body reabsorb water and sodium when dehydrated. Unfortunately, some of these drinks have way too much glucose, not to mention dyes.

While all the hype is on drinking our electrolytes, we do get these minerals from what we drink and eat. I don’t know where your reading takes you, but I have been coming across the concept of the food matrix which is the chemical and physical components of the food and their molecular relationship with how food is digested and metabolized by the body. This is a much longer topic and conversation but in the simplest example, this might be the difference between how your body works with eating an orange whole versus drinking the fresh pressed juice of that same orange. In the whole orange, you get the whole structure of that fruit—fiber, nutrients, water, vitamins, minerals, and flavor. Right away your uptake is better because you must first chew the orange which gets your digestive system going and because there is fiber your stomach will work processing the orange giving your body time to uptake more nutrients. Swigging the juice is a straight shot to the stomach with no biological warning. In this same quick intensity, the juice becomes a quick hit of sugar but with the fiber and matrix of the whole orange, the sugar and other nutrients are released in a slow and sustained way.

We forget that fresh vegetables and fruit are 70 to 95% water and you can some percentage of your “water intake” from foods and this percentage is how we naturally get some of the electrolytes we need.  This brings us back to fermented vegetables. They are briny and loaded with minerals and vitamins. The vegetables have been broken down by microbes and are more digestible. Combine this with digestive enzymes and you get a food that is still whole (remember the matrix) yet extremely bio-available. Your body can easily absorb what it needs. Plus these foods are cool and refreshing during the hot seasons.

Add kraut, kimchi, or pickles to your salads, sandwiches, smoothies, or whatever you are having that could use a little tasty zing.  (For more ideas on making and using remember our book Fermented Vegetables.) And use that brine! I am sure somewhere in your wanderings you have heard to use pickle juice for electrolyte hydration or as a hangover cure. (It isn’t a myth, back to that in a moment.) We still need to get most of our hydration from water but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it more interesting and richer in electrolytes.

If you’d like explore some fermented options I’ve put a fermented sodas course I created with my friend Raquel on sale. Kombucha, Kefir, Soda and Fermented Beverages (taught in English y en español!) for 50% off!

Use the code REFRESH24 to get the course at half price. Offer valid only until July 10th at midnight.

Fermenting cucumber pickles, notice the brine is getting cloudy.

What about Pickle Juice?

At some point in your life you have likely heard someone tell you that pickle juice is an electrolyte drink, or it will cure cramping while doing sports, or it will cure a hangover. All of these claims are based in some truth—back to this in a moment. However, the important thing first is to distinguish what type of pickle juice we are talking about.

I am speaking of pickle brine (pickle juice) from lacto-fermented pickles. (Since it is cucumber season the next post for paid subscribers will be making lacto-fermented pickles with tips and tricks for success--as in not mushy or limp pickles.) For the purposes of our discussion when I say lacto-fermented pickles I mean any vegetable—carrot, asparagus, etc. The other vegetables will have different properties, but this type of brine is still great pickle juice. All lacto-fermentation of vegetables are pickled so your sauerkraut brine is also a pickle juice. But since pickling is defined as the act of acidifying something not all pickles are fermented. You will know it is the right kind if: You made it yourself with fermentation (not vinegar), you bought your pickles (or other fermented veggies) from the refrigerated section of the store and they are labeled as unpasteurized, and there are no additives like sugar, vinegar or dyes. Here is the biggest, easiest way to distinguish a brine-fermented pickle—shake the jar and the brine is cloudy.

Jarred pickles with vinegar and yellow dye is not the liquid I am talking about here.

Pickle juice as an electrolyte drink and pickle juice as a hangover cure go hand in hand. Alcohol disrupts the balance in the body and lacto-fermented pickle juice does contain minerals such as magnesium, potassium, and sodium. These minerals can come from the salt if naturally processed mineral-rich sea or earth salts are used. Minerals will also come from the vegetable itself. When a vegetable is fermented in a saltwater brine, an exchange (osmosis) occurs between the vegetable juices and the brine. That is why a pickle is nice and salty and the brine has hints of the vegetable’s flavor. Lacto-fermented brines are also rich in probiotics so it stands to reason giving your gut a little microbial boost is also helpful.

As far as pickle juice and curing cramps. I found this study which found some positive effects for alleviating cramps with ingesting pickle juice vs. deionized water. However, first of all, and this is a biggie for our discussion, they used vinegar-based pickle juice. The researchers note that they how of why pickle juice decreases cramps is unknown and feel it is unlikely due to changes in body chemistry. Instead, they suggest it is possible the vinegar triggers a reflex at the back of the throat. This reflex they think reduces neuron activity to cramping muscles.

I believe staying hydrated and balanced comes down to add variety to your meals and beverages, including plenty whole foods and fermented foods which are high in minerals. And of course make sure you are enjoying water.

I will leave you today with a recipe for Brine-ade.

Summer refreshment — Brine-ade

Brine-ade

• 3⁄4 cup unrefined sugar or honey

• 1 cup warm water

• 3–4 cups cold water

• 1 cup sauerkraut brine

• 1 whole lemon, thinly sliced

• Grated fresh ginger, to taste (optional)

1. Make a simple syrup by combining the sugar with the warm water. Mix until your sweetener is completely dissolved.

2. Place your syrup into a pitcher and add the cold water, sauerkraut brine, and lemon slices. Give the lemon slices a twist to release some of the lemon juice as you are putting them into the pitcher. Add ginger, if using.

3. Let this sit for about a half hour to allow the flavors to mingle.

4. Serve over ice for a refreshing summer beverage, or serve at room temperature for a cozy healing beverage.

Thanks for reading. Here is a little cuteness to brighten your day.