Blackouts and Fermented Tea: energy poverty threatens the food and medicine of millions.
Kombucha mother, photo by Steven Casanova.
As we are all acutely aware, rising global temperatures comes with more frequent and stronger storms. Storms are the biggest cause of blackouts in the states. In the last three months of 2022, over 26 million people across the U.S. were affected by storms that knocked out electricity for at least a four days. From the evidence collected by PowerOutage.us, a project that monitors outage information from over 800 utilities across the nation, at any given moment, between 30,000-100,000 households are experiencing a blackout. They seem to surge just after sunrise, as the electricity load starts climbing. This number doesn’t include people who have had their electricity cut because they did not, or could not, pay their bill, which remains high with or without storms to blame. It’s estimated that roughly ten percent of U.S. households, around 17 million, received an energy disconnect/delivery stop notice in 2015, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and in the same year 25 million households went without food and/or medicine to pay energy bills. These households are considered energy poor. Energy poverty describes anyone without secure access to electricity and fuel, and specifically includes people who have an income lower than average and are affected by fuel prices that are higher than average. While storms do not immediately cause energy poverty, they exacerbate the issue, along with unjust energy transitions that allow wealthy people to access green energy while distorting the costs for people without such privileges. A recent article from the University of Michigan reviewing the U.S. federal response to energy poverty explains that “Low income households spend roughly three times as much of their income on energy cost as compared to non-low-income households…Yet, for the United States Government, energy insecurity and energy poverty are nebulous terms that do not exist in any statutory capacity. In other words, the federal government has not formally recognized energy poverty as a distinct problem.” This dramatically limits how affective responses are. There are two different programs to support paying energy bills and/or updating infrastructure to deal with the affects of energy poverty, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). Neither are appropriately funded and as a result, an estimated 40 million households remain income-eligible for energy efficiency assistance yet unable to receive it. As a result people lose food, income, time, necessary medicines, and if they rely on life saving electric devices, could die from even a short time disconnected.
Fortunately, yet not by sheer coincidence, the long serving methods of preserving foods are incredibly healthy for us. They have gotten humanity through winters, storms, and famines, yet another reminder to listen to the elders. And as we have collectively developed them, they have collectively developed us, becoming sources of life that cannot be found in other places. For example, sauerkraut, the result of salt preserving cabbage, produces vitamin B-12, a necessary vitamin that is otherwise only naturally available in meat. The cellulose mushroom, the “mother”, that makes kombucha preserves fresh tea by turning the liquid into a living ecosystem. And fermented wheat flour, “starter”, cultivated in place of instant yeast, makes our sourdough bread more digestible than modern loafs.
This is part of a three part series on energy poverty and practical food preservation methods that can keep us healthy when the lights go out. See the entire article and list of fridge-free food preparations at stevencasanova.substack.com
Kombucha
Another fermented probiotic that we keep in our daily diet is fermented tea, or kombucha. Puerto Rico has its own tradition of a very similar drink, mavi, which is made in a similar way with tree bark of the Mavi tree, but kombucha is lighter in taste and more easily able to be made. First off, tea refers to green tea, black tea, oolong tea, and white tea, which are all the same leaf from the same tree, just picked and stored in different ways for different flavors. However, you can use any of the above. Kombucha is regular brewed tea, with all its anti inflammatory benefits, mixed with sugar to encourage fermentation. The end result harbors millions of strains of healthy yeast and bacteria that can improve the environment in the gut. These living organisms consume the sugar, and by the time the drink is fermented, the sugar content is nearly zero.
The process is much faster if you start with someone else’s fully formed mother, or at least some of their raw kombucha. We purchased a bottle of raw kombucha to start ours. Now, for the $5 price tag of a single bottle of kombucha, we are able to make 30 ourselves.
Prep: Mother
The living microorganisms form a mass of floating cellulose nicknamed the “mother”. A healthy mother easily ferments fresh tea into kombucha in a few days. To quickly develop your own, start with a few cups of raw kombucha, mixed with twice the amount of fresh tea and sugar. For every gallon of tea, use a half cup of sugar. Let sit for 2-3 weeks until a healthy mother emerges and becomes at least 1/4 inch thick.
Prep: Brew
We use gallon and half gallon sized glass jars with paper towels and rubber bands as breathing lids. Empty the kombucha vessel of all but a cup or two of liquid plus the mother. Everything you took out is drinkable kombucha. Now brew fresh tea with the same sugar ratio, let it cool, and add it to the vessel. Cover the top with a cloth or paper towel to keep out bugs but let in air. In a week the fresh tea will be transformed into kombucha. Move kombucha into sealed bottles to slow fermentation. The bottles can be kept for two weeks without a fridge. The mother can be kept for months or years as long as it is kept hydrated with fresh tea and sugar and occasionally used for brewing. We make 2 gallons of kombucha weekly, enough for ourselves and to share with a bunch of neighbors and their parents.
Notes Without a Fridge:
After fermentation is complete and the kombucha has been bottled, it is on its way to being vinegar. Fill bottles as much as possible to keep out air.
We only do a first fermentation, which is described above. Second fermentation is the step of making the brew flavored and fizzy. After first fermentation is complete, juice, sweetened tea, or sugar water can be added, the brew left in a sealed bottle, and gases will build up, making it bubbly. This can be done without refrigeration, but it’s much harder to store this way, as the cold temp of the fridge is what slows fermentation and prevents the bottles from exploding under pressure.