That neighbor in my building who said my kefir grains looked like science experiment refuse
I had a whole system going fermenting my own kefir for 6 months and then the guy from 3B said those grains look like something you'd scrape off a lab bench, which hit different because he was a retired chemist so maybe my fridge probiotic hobby is just cultured bacteria to him, but has anyone else had their weird food setup judged by someone outside the game?
That chemist had a point though - you're literally cultivating a live bacteria colony on your kitchen counter and calling it a beverage. People get weirdly defensive about their fermentation hobbies but if you saw someone keeping scraped-off lab cultures in their fridge you'd probably side eye them too. Maybe take the L and admit it looks questionable to anyone who isn't deep into the home microbiology scene.
Is it weird that this actually made me stop and think for a second? I used to be one of those people who got kind of defensive about my kombucha and sourdough starters, like they were special little pets or something. But @nathan_foster60, you kind of have a point when you put it that way with the lab culture comparison. I guess it does look a bit strange to someone who's not used to seeing jars of cloudy liquid sitting out on the counter, bubbling away. I mean I'm not giving up my fermented stuff anytime soon, but I can see why someone would side eye it.