Welcome to Peppers4Parkinson’s!

Hello, allow me to introduce myself! My name is Jim. I am currently a coder and do some graphic design as you will see here. I have always been in electronics but, thirty five years ago I had a great run as a chef at a small restaurant for a couple of years. I used locally sourced ingredients and I have never lost the passion. I enjoy watching people enjoy my creations. I have been cooking since I was a child thanks to my very talented mother and international chef step dad. I was also an electronic circuit designer, builder, troubleshooter, production line manager then a tool maker. Enough about me!

This website is about my very unique “hot” pepper sauces & seasonings. Hopefully raising some donations to help my wife.

Here you will find the ingredients, utensils, experiences, inspiration and ideas that brought me to creating all of this. NOT TO MENTION the recipes! I provide affiliate links and donation portals here. When you click on a link, if you purchase the item, it helps. We need to raise money for medications and neurologist visits for a very special person who is unable to afford medical insurance. The DBS operation that will help her costs over 100k. So, yeah… Donate Here . My book with all my recipes, (and more) will be available for purchase as soon as I finish putting it together.

Not so hot man, not so hot.

My sauces are what I like to call, “Zippy” but, mostly very flavorful with a kick. Not a lingering burn or intense heat. I may consider creating a mouth-a-blaze sauce in the future but the consensus so far is, “man this stuff is great!”. Even then, some do tell me a couple of my sauces are too hot for them. To me, this means I have covered a good spectrum of flavors and intensities without going over the top on heat. Anyone can blend up hot peppers in vinegar and call it a sauce but, I honestly feel that I have succeeded creating great flavorful, fermented sauces that can be savored and enjoyed. Kind of like a good bourbon versus moonshine. Hot Peppers on Amazon

My sauces can contain up to 30 different ingredients!

I choose the ingredients very carefully and my recipes are within half a gram. I may go a little overboard when it comes to the quality of my ingredients, recipes and processes but, I take pride in the results!

My recipes use organic ingredients combined in precise quantities. Low and slow heated, fermented and filtered. This is a three week process using the many of the same techniques as when making wine. Fresh Peppers on Amazon

Some peppers and ingredients I smoke. They’re embraced in apple, cherry, pecan and bourbon barrel chip smoke for several hours. This brings out very unique characteristics like sweetness & caramel notes while reducing bitterness. Honestly, the smoking process can transform an ingredients flavor from just good to OMG! Pears on Amazon

Utilizing ingredients that you normally would not think exist in a pepper sauce recipe, I absolutely LOVE to play flavors off of each other and use natural sweetness from caramelization instead of just tossing in some sugar. Fresh Garlic Cloves

My primary focus is to bring a VERY HIGH QUALITY EXPERIENCE when you taste my recipes. Your return donations are key to my helping my wife and the continuation of my saucy innovations!

The assorted peppers you see on these racks are half way through the smoking process. I put the Habanero peppers inside of a larger pepper so they do not fall through the rack.

I smoke them between the temperature of 175f and 185f which is the temperature swing of my GREAT small smoker. I use a small smoker just for herbs, fruits and veggies. I use a large smoker for meats.

I thank you for reading this far now, lets get down to the what, why, where and when!

My wife has Parkinson’s disease. It is a progressive non curable brain disorder that affects the nervous system. The loss of midbrain dopamine in Parkinson’s disease is accompanied by a matching loss in the dopamine transporter and a rise in the D1 and D2 receptor densities. You can read about it here: https://www.michaeljfox.org/parkinsons-101.

“So” you ask, why Peppers4Parkinson’s? My wife has been running the gauntlet of medications to help alleviate the completely debilitating effects of this disease. She endured “off” periods in where she cannot walk, form a sentence or even get to sleep. This happens when the medications start to wear off. She cannot take more meds because of dyskinesia (involuntary movements) caused by too many meds. Here is a very good book on living with Parkinson’s. So, my research has been endless in trying to help combat these effects to no avail… Until recently.

A COMPLETE ACCIDENT!

I have been making many types of sauces and seasoning blends for over 40 years. I know healthy food contributes greatly to healthy body and mind. I have been drinking an apple cider vinegar, honey, lemon, cayenne, ginger, turmeric & aloe blend for a long time. I call mine “Parkinson’s Punch”! Similar to the ancient Oxymel which has been widely recognized for the health benefits since mid 1500’s but, is also mentioned in Renaissance (and later) in pharmacopoeiae. You can buy a Homoeopathic Pharmacopoeia Book here.

ANYHOW, My wife does not like spicy.

Barring Antonio Banderas naturally, she does not like spicy. That said, when I read the studies that indicated peppers can actually prevent Parkinson’s ( https://www.michaeljfox.org/news/study-pop-pepper-prevent-parkinsons ) I started diving into megabytes of reading. So, “why not try my drink” I asked her. She did! Her first impression was wow, that’s not bad but then, the pepper made itself known! “Wooohoo” was her response. Was not debilitating, just a li’l kick at the end. So I modified the recipe adding 400 grams of cranberry juice. THAT WAS IT, hey Mikey, she likes it! Parkinson’s Punch was born!

Peppers4Parkinsons

The proof is in the pudding.

She drank my 8 oz of concoction twice daily religiously, one after breakfast and one before dinner. One day, about three weeks later she mentioned; “You know, I have not had an off period since I have been drinking your drink”. Hmmm, come to think of it, I noticed that as well. I mentioned; “You have not had to stop and sit in the middle of the road when we walk the dog in the morning for about three weeks!” (Yeah, we walk him at 7:15am and her meds are not totally kicked in yet. Causing her feet to curl up and her muscles to lock.) WOW!!! This is real folks. We don’t know why the drink works, it just does! Does it extend the meds somehow? Does it spark up those dopamine thingies in her brain? WHO CARES, it’s like Posi-Track, it just works! UPDATE: It works because it allows for better absorption of her medications! Her neurologist did not say it outright naturally but, concurred that this could help in that manner. I know my aloe juice routine keeps me feeling better, less hungry and I eat less at a meal. This is because I absorb the nutrients more efficiently. That is a well known benefit. The other ingredients are known to help in that area as well. Why? Basically, it unclogs or cleans out your intestinal villi so you absorb what you ingest far better! The ingredients in my Parkinson’s Punch do that plus, it provides a little energy boost.

Want more “proof”?

One day, we ran out. I just pulled an 16 hour shift and did not make any. She had two days of “off” periods. When she got back on my “Parkinson’s Punch”, her “off” periods subsided. I am now sure to make this two days before we run out. Ask my wife!

Necessity is my Mother.

How do I get my wife to consume more peppers? Well, unless we are at out on our once a month “getting the heck outta here date night” at our favorite live music pub, I do all the cooking, every meal. So, I started revisiting my pepper sauce recipes from days of old! Yeah kids, the 70’s! I began incorporating them into pretty much whatever we eat. Hence the need for quite a variety of flavors and recipes. No complaints so far! (Funny picture on right and you can buy one of these at Amazon!) Another way to get more peppers in you is to add Mixed Dried Bell Peppers to your favorite instant oriental noodle soup (or ANYTHING!). IT IS REALLY, REALLY good! I actually exclude the seasoning packet to reduce salt and the peppers do the rest. Seriously, tastes great for instant soup and far less sodium. I do sometimes use a little Sempio 701 Soy Sauce. (The only one I will use.)

Another observation I should share.

The supplements and other mass produced “clinically proven” capsules have proven to do nothing for my wife or myself. No matter the claims, fresh is best. You want ginger, turmeric, garlic or whatever… buy fresh, dry it and grind. Food dehydrators and cheap coffee grinders are your friends! The difference in taste, effect and solubility is insurmountable. The health benefits will follow suit. Keep in mind, if you eat fast food, you’ll need to stop. This highly processed food is VERY BAD for you AND the environment. Hey folks, when the garbage produced physically outweighs the “food product” three to one well, you have to take notice and take action. Not to mention all the rain forests being cleared (~10,000 acres a day) to raise sub standard animals specifically for fast food chains. Many vitamins and supplements just cannot be absorbed because the villi in your small intestine are “clogged” with highly processed food. Another benefit of my “Parkinson’s Punch” is to help clean that stuff out. You will feel much, much better!

Enter the Elephant.

Wow, you are still reading.. THANK YOU! Peppers4Parkinsons! The name was my wifes idea. WHAT AN APROPOS NAME! I had some ideas: Jims Jam, Pepper Jims and more… The thought was that if I could actually sell my sauces, it would help pay for her meds and neurologist appointments. Fact is, we cannot afford ANY KIND of health insurance. When my wife turns 65, in a decade (sorry dear), we can most likely get Medicare. Until then, it’s all out of pocket. So to help further, I decided to create the highest quality sauces and recipes possible in attempt to provide the people I meet with an alternative to mass produced corporately owned sauces.

Taking a day to prepare the ingredients by cleaning, chopping, blending, some ingredients smoked then heating it all to 180f. I then PH balance and place into a Star-San sterilized glass fermenter, it is a labor of love. You can plainly see why it takes three weeks or more to make a 35oz batch.

It really is a tricky process and with the spectrum of ingredients I use, a costly one too. However, my recipes and processes make it much easier to make these sauces and allows for consistency too! I did the trial and error, you can enjoy my success!

Bottles, labels and ingredients are expensive and the many hours of labor during the creation process is well, a passion. A donation can also get you some of my powdered seasoning which is the actual filtered ingredients, dried then ground with a good grinder right from result of the fermented batch. A donation can also you get a 5oz bottle of sauce for free! (+shipping if you are not local). You can also just purchase my recipes and all proceeds go towards medical bills and prescriptions. AND MY BOOK WILL BE COMING THIS YEAR! Thank you!