Ryan Mercer's thoughts, mostly random musings, spanning form 2001 to present. Freemason, geek, nutter, Whovian, 8-bit Atari enthusiast, SciFi fan.
Testing my new green screen, and my new key lights, this started out with the intention of making a 5-10 minute video… it became a 56 minute video after I got in to actually going through the TV Guide and I had the footage so why not…
In this video I check out the EcoFlow RIVER Max Portable Power Station and the EcoFlow 60W Solar Panel. I then use the EcoFlow battery to cook with my Instant Pot and then use the PV panel to recharge 10% of the battery. Overall I am very satisfied with his unit but watch the video!
I bought a DataVac Computer Cleaner for cleaning out things like my keyboards. Man, this thing is friggin’ sweet!
I recently purchased a Lietheli Cordless Chainsaw. Do I love it or hate it? I bought it for $158.40 during an Easter sale. One thing to keep in mind, it came with no bar and chain oil.
Check out the Litheli 40V 14" Cordless Chainsaw with Brushless Motor.
We have 8 Birdies raised beds that I’ve purchased over the past year for this season, in this video I showed a bit of my process for making soil to fill them with.
Hey YouTube, what's going on today we have another one of these Steve's Paleo, uh, probiotic gut power pure goodness greens, um, you may have seen the video where I tried one of these previously it was very potent um that one was beet-based this one is distilled water, cabbage, chard, kale, fennel, ginger, spinach, lemon, I don't like lemon, dandelion, parsley, watercress, chlorella, which is like pond scum basically, spirulina which is basically pond scum, Celtic sea salt, and a live active culture. If you did catch the last video when I had that last one I looked like I was possessed by a demon, uh, it was uh you'll pardon the sinuses it's winter and it's very dry, um, I look like I was possessed by demons
So you know it was pretty horrific, hopefully, this one's a little better because it's not beet-based, I'm not really a fan of beets, uh the lemon as long as it's, it's, subdued it shouldn't be too bad, the rest of the stuff's just gonna taste green, is the best way to describe it so yeah, you're supposed to keep these refrigerated once you get them. The serving size is one bottle, of course, the uh bottle has 10 calories, zero grams of fat, 70 milligrams of sodium, zero milligrams cholesterol, three grams of carbohydrates, zero sugars, one gram of protein that's probably from the chlorella, chlorella and the spirulina they're actually pretty high in protein for a for what are basically single-cell organisms, um vitamin a is 30 percent of your daily value, vitamin c is 25, calcium's at 2 percent, iron is it two percent again that iron's probably coming from the like spirulina, not a significant source of calories from fat, saturated fat, trans fat, daily value based on a 2000 calorie diet like it always is. Raw, never pasteurized, uh paleo, keto, vegan, and gluten-free, traditionally fermented, um, proudly handcrafted by Steve's Paleo Goods in Pensacon, New Jersey. Um, certified organic by PCO. I, I've said this in the other video if you watched it, that I like Steve's Paleo because they have a really good buffalo, uh, chicken jerky. He also uses a significant percentage, to me anyway, percentage of his, uh, income to support a youth program that he's developed and I've always thought that was kind of cool. I've been buying from them on and off for oh, I don't know, five, ten years, somewhere in there I'm not sure exactly and you know for jerky it's, it's, fairly priced but jerky is expensive, but I like to get some once in a while for a treat, and they had these and some other things and as I said in previous videos I've had a pretty lousy diet so I'm trying to heal my gut microbiome if you will, and I thought I'd give these a try. They're a little pricey but just having one a week just to try the different flavors so yeah, let's give this thing a couple of shakes because it does settle not, as bad as the last one I did but it had settled appreciably, go ahead and get this plastic off here. I hope you guys are doing well, it is what February, it's the day before Valentine's day as I record this video, um it's a Saturday and on Monday we're expecting five to ten inches of snow. Fun I guess. That's the benefit of being work from home right now, I'm sorry to tell you that have to actually still go to work during this past year, but I've been fortunate enough to be able to work from home and I'm very happy about it come Monday, when we get all that snow. So since the last one was pretty nasty I've got my handy dandy Nalgene bottle here, go ahead and unscrew the cap in case it's so horrific that I have to guzzle the entirety of the contents. Uh, we're not going to use Mr. Moose since it's just a little tiny shot in a glass bottle.
You can go on the website and see the pictures or you know at the beginning of the video I got a photo of it it's just green bile looking water yeah.
Oh.
I'm gonna try not to wretch and gag but from the smell of this is not going to be pleasant,t so uh, bottoms up. Oh I don't want to do this I'm doing this for you people I hope you appreciate this, this is going to be horrible, I um, hold on just the smell of it's turning my stomach. All right oh it's not going to drink itself, I do this for you people, I'm gonna double fist it here because I'm probably gonna need this water, uh yeah, bottoms up.
That's horrible.
You can definitely taste the culture.
The like, caustic vinegary, um the aftertaste isn't as bad as the last one you can definitely taste that it's got you know fermentedness in it. Ugh, oh, I only drink half of it. Good grief, it is making me snot up a little, um I found that just pretty much anything that's fermented does that to me, ugh oh, all right I'll finish it just for you guys, as you can see there's maybe uh, you know we're about halfway left, I don't know if you can see that the camera's pretty far away and it's just my phone so it's not the best but.
Oh, the burps for it are...
I'm gonna have to cheat and have a little bit of diet coke after this, okay let's get it done.
No, you know what it tastes like.
Oh, I need a minute.
Serenity now, serenity now, yeah it's got this whole nostril stopped up. Okay, what it kind of reminds me of is, um, I used to drink heavily, I've said this in other videos, I am sober now, um personal choice, that's I think sobriety has its benefits. I'm not going to harp on that but, it reminds me of some just like really horrid, uh, horrible, horrible beers I have had in the past, that probably weren't fit for human consumption at like brew fests and stuff because people were trying to be you know, uh, novel. It actually reminds me of one, I forget the name that had, uh, cayenne or something in it and it had just this caustic, it's definitely a lot better than the last one I had, I forget the name of it but I'll make sure I link the video either, you know, in a box, or a title card thing, or in the, in the comments. It's not as bad as that one, I feel like my reaction might have been worse because it's just the taste, there are things in here that I just don't like. I'm not fond of the taste of kale, I will eat it in a smoothie with a lot of oats or something. I'm not a fan of lemon actually, I think the lemon might be what's making me get a little snotty here, and I don't like parsley, and parsley in it but the fennel was real subdued in it even though it's towards the top of the ingredients. It's definitely not as strong as you would get fennel in something like absinthe when they have fennel in them. It's, see, it's, it's making my sinuses. Uh yeah, not bad if, if this was something I had to do once a week, and it had like appreciable health benefits, I'd probably consider it. Um, you know the taste is already mostly gone, I can taste it a little on my tongue but it's mostly just that fermented taste, so like you had pickled onions, or, or something it's just got that without the really salty overtones. So yeah, maybe try these out if you're interested, um, they're four or five dollars a bottle or something you get a little sampler pack I, I don't know that I'd buy them regularly, but it was interesting to experience it. Um, I still have one more left, I tasted one off-camera when they first came, and uh, it was kind of like the one I did on video, the next one is a recovery whereas this one is greens and I think the one I did on camera was immune.
The one in the refrigerator that I'll try in another video looks a lot like the one I had last time. Yeah, that was Steve's Paleo, uh, probiotic gut power pure goodness greens. Thanks for stopping by, I'll have more videos coming soon go check out some old videos. Like, comment, subscribe, Patreon in the doobly-doo, um you know, I know I'm getting a little bit of glare sometimes off my lights, I'm working on it. I gotta figure out where to position them, microphone's not the best, I'm gonna get a little lapel mic eventually, we're using that rode mic, gonna upgrade the camera when I can afford to - using my iPhone 2020 SE so not the greatest camera, um yeah, I'm gonna wash this down with a little more water and I'll see you guys next time!
Video subtitles:
Hey YouTube, we're back here today in the drink series, um, in another video I tried, uh, a Hansen's Soda or, well, not their soda but one of the Hansen's drinks. This is Hansen's cane soda original cola made with real cane sugar caffeine-free, gluten-free, sodium-free, 160 calories per can, zero grams of total fat, zero milligrams of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates which includes 40 grams of added sugar, good night that's a lot of sugar, that's a lot added sugar so we know it's going to be sweet, not a significant source of yada yada, carbonated filtered water, cane sugar, caramel color, citric acid, natural flavors, and tartaric acid. That almost sounds like, uh, some science fiction name, oh Tatarik come here, come hither Tartark we must defeat the evil Growbonds. Anyway, let's read here for more information they got a QR code because I don't think anyone actually scans QR codes but everyone puts them on things whatever "at Hansen's we're all about crafting remarkable flavors from simple ingredients real cane sugar, of course," that's what it says that's not me "hey we began in California so for us nothing is too bold or unconventional always free from artificial flavors sodium caffeine this is what original tastes like", non-GMO project verified, naturally flavored, and other natural flavors.
So yeah, let's get Mr. Moose over here, and get our little can crack, just like a normal cam get some in the Moose3
That's good, I'm gonna slurp the can sorry, it just bothers me when there's like a bead of liquid on a can. So it, it looks like most colas, um, I know you guys can't see this very well but you know just your normal weird brown that you get with Pepsi or Coke or RC Cola or whatever.
It smells like a soda, it smells like just a generic store brand soda. Let's try it.
Yeah, oh yeah, you can taste the sweetness in that wow wow woooowww you know who is that, Owen Wilson? Wowwww.
So aside from being extremely sweet, I don't really have a lot of added sugar so these sweet sodas might skew my perception a little, it, uh yeah, it just tastes like a generic cola. Doesn't taste like Pepsi, doesn't taste like Coke, it doesn't really taste like RC maybe, like uh, I've had generic soda and so on, I know there's like Sam's Cola or something and then like K's Cola whatever, I think Kroger had a house brand, it kind of tastes like those but uh I am tasting like a cheap vitamin C tablet kind of flavor and no, no, no, no I know, it reminds me of, I was going to say that it's probably the citric acid but what it reminds me of, is uh, they're candies they're called Bottle Caps they, they kind of changed over the years but they used to just be like chalky looking wafer discs that looked like a bottle cap and now, I think like Nestle bought Wonka or whatever years ago, and they're kind of like these little domed, I don't know they still taste the same but they look different, but that's what it tastes like. It has that, that flavor, and I'm betting that they're using citric acid in that candy or something as a binder just as a cheap, cheap binder and there's definitely that citric acid taste there like cheap vitamin C.
Yeah, yeah, that's way too much sugar for my liking. Um, but no, I, I would drink that if, if I wasn't too worried about consuming sugar. You know, I'm not the optimum specimen of human health. I do have a gut as I'm sure you can see with my shirt all folded up, and I dress in layers to hide this, and you know I've got male side-bosom so you know, I am trying to be mindful of the sugar and stuff so I can lose some weight and not die before I turn 40. If they made a diet version of this which, I know I did see diet versions of their sodas at Fresh Thyme when I purchased this a little six-pack or whatever, I would probably give it a try, I might try to find some when I go to the grocery later today
I would be interested to see if they had a diet cola and if it did taste like anything remotely in the universe of Diet Coke. I'm a hardcore fan of Diet Coke. Last year I was drinking two or three of them a day, the not the 20-ounce bottles but the other plastic bottles, I think they're 16 ounces maybe 14, 16, something like that, and then I've, I've mostly quit aside from this drink review series. I've had I think three diet cokes and it's February 13th as I record this so yeah, trying to cut those out just like of course sugar soda, but I, I would be curious if they had a diet version of this and I would love to try it. Um, I'll keep an eye out for that and you may see that in the channel soon. Again, we just talked about Hansen's cane soda original cola, um, I'm gonna have another little drink of it here.
It really does have like a, it reminds me of the bottle caps, of the just cola flavored bottle caps. I mean they had other flavors in there but that's that's, that's what it reminds me of, and now I kind of really want some of those, those candies, but the, the old ones and not the weird little domed ones. Yeah, yeah check it out, um, it seems like they're in a lot of groceries. I got this one Fresh Thyme, as I said, you might have a Fresh Thyme where you are, you might not just look about Hansen's cane soda. Yeah, I'm gonna wrap it up there. Like, comment, subscribe, check out some other videos, I believe there's another one of these somewhere in the channel, I'll try to remember to link it when I'm editing this. Patreon down below too. You know, have fun, try some sodas, try some foods, uh enjoy life a little bit, do it in moderation. I'll see you guys next time!