Tomorrow the new way of eating around here begins. We’re not calling it a diet . . we’re calling it a new way of eating, and knowing our love of food and my love of cooking, we’re never going to be the healthiest eaters on the block . . unless we move farther out and we’re the ONLY people on our block! 🙂
For the next 16 weeks, everything we eat has to be reported to our diet coach. How’s that for accountability? Our scales . . every time we get on them . . BAM . . our diet coach gets a text or a note . . something electronic that we do not send . . and she knows our weight instantly.
When we report what we eat, she will analyze what we eat and help us see where we could adjust the recipe or make other choices so as to eat healthier.
The competitive side of me wants her to look at every recipe I make and say “Perfect! I see no way to change that to make it healthier!” so I keep thinking about everything I’m cooking to see what I can do better/differently.
Knowing that Dr. Pepper has been my diet downfall and having given up Dr. Pepper for kombucha, I want to be sure I’m not trading one vice for another.
I know that kombucha has no sodium and no caffeine but it’s the sugar I’m concerned about.
Dr. Pepper has 64 grams of sugar in one can.
To make kombucha, I use 1 cup of sugar per gallon, which is 200 grams. From that one gallon of tea, I get 5 bottles of kombucha, which, in theory, would be 40 grams of sugar per bottle. But, according to all that I read, the kombucha “eats” the sugar as part of the fermenting process. I have read and researched and read. There’s so much info out there but how do I know if even the “experts” are giving out the right info? I don’t!
Hygrometer
Because I have to prove it to myself, I’ve ordered a hygrometer to measure the amount of sugar in a finished, ready for drinking bottle of kombucha. It will be here Wednesday and I cannot wait to do my little experiment and prove to myself how much sugar is in there.
Tee says
I will be interested in your results also. I think my home brewed kombucha is similar to store bought and if you look on the label of store bought, it does not have a whole lot of sugar. I also wonder about the caffeine content. I use black tea and ‘they’ say the caffeine is eaten by the kombucha also. I am very sensitive to caffeine, so I won’t drink it after 4pm for sure, if I want to sleep that night.
Rebecca in SoCal says
Interesting you mention the caffeine; that is one of the things that has held me back from kombucha. If the sugar and caffeine are “eaten” by the kombucha, is it in the SCOBY? (Does it feed the SCOBY?) Because if it is IN the kombucha, then we’re still drinking it. Hmmm…..
Emma says
I’m very sensitive to caffeine and my homemade kombucha has never made me react. I usually do a mix of green and black tea and have never had an issue. I do let my first ferment go 10 days-2 weeks depending on how warm my house is, so maybe that helps?