Debunking Pine Needle Soda, a Medical SCAM & flat cookie hacks | How To Cook That Ann Reardon

Ann, thanks so much for the shout-out, and I'm glad you liked the Niceta (woman who faked a brain tumor) video. Your channel rocks! (Though I personally remain a mess in the kitchen.)

Hey canadian here, the indigenous people of my area (ojibwe) have been making pine needle soda with white pine for thousands of years! The yeasts on the pine needles depend on the type of pine as well. Because of the different reactions we only used white pine in this area, and because we know the yeast on them is harmless. Please do research before trying this recipe and foraging in your area though! Maybe the folks in your area have their own history with pine needle soda too :)) Edit: I'd like to acknowledge that Ann, as a scientist and content creator with a large platform did not do her due diligence with her experiment or research. Intentions aside, there's a long history which continues to this day that vilinizes indigenous culture including their foods and drinks. I don't believe this was intentional on Ann's part but it's just another way that culture becomes stigmatized.

Fermentation enthusiast here! The pine needle drink is a kind of wild fermentation. The fact that there are wild yeasts and bacteria in the drink does not necessarily indicate that they are unsafe for consumption. Wild fermentation can be tricky because the results are unpredictable. For anyone who wants to try this at home, here's a couple of tips from someone with several years of homebrewing experience: 1. Don't add too much sugar. There are lots of resources online to figure out how much to add, but as a reference, when I prime a 10 liter batch of beer, I only use about 50-55 grams of sugar which is not a lot. Try a homebrew priming calculator to get the right amount of sugar you need. 2. Try fermenting in a plastic bottle instead of glass. You can squeeze the bottle to feel for the amount of Co2 that has been released. If the bottle is hard, you're in for a fizzy drink. 3. Put the bottle in the fridge about 24 hrs before drinking. One of the reasons the people in the video got these huge geysers of carbonation but then the liquid itself wasn't fizzy at all, is because they didn't chill the drink properly. Chilling the drink makes the liquid re-absorb the Co2 that has been released. This results in a nice overall fizz. It also makes the yeasts and bacteria go dormant and settle at the bottom of the bottle. 4. Don't fill the bottle up all the way! Leave a gap of about 2-3 cm under the cap. If you fill it up all the way, say goodbye to your nice clean kitchen. 5. TRUST YOUR NOSE AND TONGUE. If it smells bad, dump it. If it tastes bad, dump it. If it smells and tastes good, you're probably ok. Our senses are really good at sniffing out bad fermentations. If you get some bad yeast and bacteria in the bottle, you'll know straight away when you smell it. I hope these tips help anyone who wants to try this, or is interested in any sort of homebrewing or fermentation project. Good luck!

About the pine needle drink... It's not a new concept 😛 here in Finland they sell a drink extract made from conifer trees. You can taste the forest! Also tea. 😊

The pine needle soda is using wild fermentation, and results can very depending on several factors including the naturally occurring organisms in the air and the temperature at which you fermented. More organisms or higher temperature= more fizz. Fermentation is safe and very healthy when done correctly.

As someone in Korea, we also drink pine needle soda. It is not a health drink, but a cultural food that is part of Korean heritage.

Gross Food that must be tasted => "Here you go Dave!" Tons of delicious cookies => Dave is nowhere to be found.

I'm Canadian, and the pine needle "soda" is what we call "spruce beer" here. It's based in Indigenous knowledge and was drunk often in winter because spruce is very high in vitamin C. Basically it use to save colonizers from scurvy. Contemporary spruce beer/soda tend to add varying amounts of sugar, and imho are very yummy. But lots of people don't like the taste of spruce. It's also sold commercially, so I'd imagine those versions are safe.

I think Ann's conclusion on the pine needle soda was way too conservative. The Co2 bubble explosion, alcohol reading, and petri dish tests showed a remarkably clean beverage containing just wild yeast. Wild yeast fermentation is a common cultural practice all over the world, and when the results are clean like hers, it's remarkably safe. I don't mind that she chose not to drink it, that's fine. But as an educator and someone people look to as an authority on food, it would have been nice to give viewers a little more context about how common these beverages are and for how long people have been drinking them.

Kudos to that doctor for not giving up when everyone else just believed the lies! It's amazing that no one else has picked up on this Ann. Well done for digging up a real medical hero

So much respect for changing only one variable during experiments, and your commitment to that. I'm married to a secondary school science teacher and he is in furious agreement! But I'm very sorry for your walls 😂

Hello fresh is a bit scammy. They make it really hard to discontinue their service, I had to actually speak to an associate to do that, and then they phone you and email you a bunch to ask you why you left. I don’t like any subscription that hides the unsubscribe button, meanwhile you can sign up in a matter of minutes.

pine needles are high in vitamin c. fermenting pine needles is just like making your own kombucha, or kimchi, sauerkraut, yogurt, cheese, etc. there are always risks with home fermentation if you do it improperly.

My grandpa used to ask people if they wanted a "Pine Float". If you answered yes, you would get a toothpick floating on the top of a glass of water. Hilarious, grandpa.

Back when I was starting out as a ghostwriter, I wrote a bunch of cookbooks for clients. I can absolutely confirm that SO many cookbooks and articles out there use stock images rather than actually making and photographing their food. Worse, I can also attest to the fact that in some of these books, the recipes themselves weren't even tested before making it to the page. Now this is mostly for cookbooks self-published on sites like Amazon with minimal quality review, and probably not for a cookbook you would buy in a real bookstore or from a trusted seller. But it's definitely happening with online articles, so for those who tend to browse online for dinner ideas like I do, know that it might not be an error in your cooking; it could just be the product of an overworked and underpaid content writer

14:40 keep in mind some species of pine have needles that are poisonous so check what type of pine you're getting the needles from and if its poisonous.

My mind immediately went to 'Sima' after seeing the pine needle sprite. Sima is a Finnish mead made in the springtime for Vappu (a celebration of Finnish university students and Labour Day). But sima is typically made with lemon, brown sugar, raisins and baker's yeast although there are many different variations to this recipe nowadays with other fruit and berries also being used. The baker's yeast starts the fermentation process to make the drink fizzy like lemonade. After the mixture is left to ferment at room temperature for about a day in a bucket it's bottled and put in the fridge for a week or left at room temperature for a few days if you're in a hurry. I remember the popping of the bottles always spooking me as a kid when the rubber corks flew off of the bottles when we didn't remember to release the pressure ourselves, but luckily there was never any mess! :) And due to the very low level of alcohol content this is a drink enjoyed by all ages and is really delicious too. I wonder if making 'sima' from pine needles or other conifer needles would be possible as young spruce buds or 'kuusenkerkkä' in Finnish can be eaten as is. And even young pine cones can be used in cooking. They can both be boiled with sugar to make syrup or just be left in a jar with brown sugar (more water content in brown sugar which helps with the process) in equal amounts by weight to spruce buds or pine cones. I believe that the latter of the two methods to making syrup is called Cheong in Korea and has been used for centuries. The syrup can be then used for all kinds of desserts, on top of ice cream and to make different drinks such as tea or fizzy drinks paired with sparkling water. The flavor is said to be fruity and floral with citrus and even cola-like flavor depending on the tree, species and season of collection. A more traditional Finnish way of consuming spruce buds is to brew a sort of tea by boiling them in some water. It was important back in the day to treat scurvy as spruce needles contain high amounts of vitamin C. It was a great source of vitamin during long, harsh and cold winters with access only to little amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables. It was also used to treat colds and other ailments and it contains antibacterial properties and antioxidants. But one thing to note is that not all evergreens are safe to ingest as some are toxic to humans. But worry not there are commercially made pine and spruce products like conifer extract drink and pine cone jam if you're interested in trying them out but are worried about choosing the wrong tree or the cleanliness of it. I unfortunately need to be careful not mix pine with spruce as I'm allergic to pine trees. Which sucks because that means I'm also allergic to pine nuts and I can't have pesto.

The pine needle "sprite" harks back to what used to be called a spruce beer. Pine needles and spruce are actually fairly high in vitamin C, and yes, are edible - if not exactly tasty. While heating them removes the vitamin C, this was more just a way to prevent scurvy. Townsends has a great video on it.

Ann, I love you, but you're gonna have to leave Ms Shi alone. She is a treasure and home fermentation is not necessarily dangerous unless you use the wrong ingredients or process.

The pine needle sprite made sense to me when I saw the sugar and when you mentioned yeast in the pine needles. Yeast makes things expand, to start with. But yeast is also used in CO2 generators for planted aquariums. Sugar is sometimes used in CO2 generators as well. By having yeast and sugar in the bottle together and fermenting it for 3 to 4 days, you're basically creating gas build up, which is why there's fizzing and a little bit of carbonation. This is basic nature-made chemistry.