Fermented foods

Over a year ago, ever since I had an operation and had to spend a couple of weeks in hospital, I have had stomach and alimentary canal (gut) problems. I had stomach aches after eating, gas problems, general malaise and sometimes vomiting.  I lost about 20% of my body weight, I was down to skin and bones, and my doctor prescribed a laxative to at least keep my sluggish system working.  

Since it was my hospital stay that marked the beginning of my problems, I assumed that it probably was the antibiotics I had been given intravenously in hospital that had killed off some of the ‘good’ bacteria in my system. I started drinking a little kefir daily and I was mostly eating healthy, home cooked. vegetables that I could tolerate. 
Nothing seemed to help until one day while shopping at my favourite health food store, I overheard its owner talking to an older customer about how beneficial it was for elderly people to eat fermented foods.

Recorded history reveals that people began fermenting foods and drinks as long ago as 3000 BC to keep them from ‘going bad’ and the practice probably goes back much longer than that. Up until I started looking into fermented foods, I thought the process was only used  to make drinks like wine or beer but of course wild yeast is what is used to make sourdough bread.  What I have just learned is that when you use salt to preserve legumes – if you don’t overdo the salt – they too will ferment. 

That’s how vegetables were always 'pickled' before vinegar made it more convenient.  To give an example, the video on sauerkraut gives the idea [the caraway seeds are optional]. The amount of salt to keep the bad bacteria from growing is not crucial but should be between 1 to 2 tablespoons per pound.  All pickles including olives were once fermented this way.

Besides making the foods easier to digest fermenting foods introduces friendly bacteria [or probiotics] into your digestive system. What they do in food, they also do in the gut - they repel disease causing bacteria and help break down nutrients so you can absorb them more easily. I’ve been eating lost of fermented foods like non-processed aged cheeses, sauerdough bread, beer and wine, sauerkraut, yoghurt, kefir and etc.  And it's working! They have given me a whole new lease on life! I'm starting to eat normally and gaining weight!          

If its hard to get fermented foods or you don’t particularly like them – the best supplement is lactobacillus sporogenes - it's  a probiotic you can take as a pill and most people tolerate it well.  Next week I’ll tackle the big subject of the 4 or 5 pounds of friendly bacteria in our gut whose function and power are increasingly amazing scientists who study them.  Rie

Kefir

I remember when I was growing up being intrigued by news stories of the discovery of some shepards in the Caucasus Mountains in Bulgaria who lived to very old ages – healthy lifespans of over 100 years were not out of the ordinary. Their vigour and health were attributed to some special kind of yogurt-like drink they concocted.

It has taken decades for research to be done on the special fermented drink they consumed and now it is available in the health sections of supermarkets. It is called Kefir and no one knows how it originated but apparently it has been around since time immemorial. It is composed of a complex structure of bacteria and yeasts with proteins, lipids and sugars. To make kefir you must have a source of kefir grains (see picture). They may be obtained from a health food store or anyone you know who makes kefir. The grains increase in the process of making a batch of the kefir drink. The video shows how simple it can be to make kefir which is much more healthful than yogurt and temperature control is not critical as it is with making yogurt.

‘Kefir contains different types of beneficial bacteria than yoghurt and many many more of them. Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match.’

The health advantages of kefir are endless and it is one of the most affordable drink there is! Some of the known kefir health benefits are: strongest natural remedy against any allergy; strongest natural antibiotic without side effects; treats liver disease; cleans the body of perscribed antibiotics; cleans the gastrointestinal tract; treats ulcers; improves the human immune system; cures Candida; stops growth of cancer cells; reduces size of tumors; reverses calcination of blood vessels; boosts the body's energy; has anti-oxidant and anti-aging properties; replenishes body of good bacteria after antibiotic; balances the microflora of the body’s digestive system; and on and on the almost unbelievable list goes – click on kefir benefits.

Even if you don't think you want to live to the really old age of 100, with kefir so readily available, you should at least give it a try just to see how good it makes you feel! Rie

Probiotics

My children were born in the early 1950’s and, since my husband’s career was in a city that had no place where I could further my scientific career, the focus of most of my reading was on books about how to give my young ones the best start in life that I could.

It included reading books by nutritionist Adell Davis that were then just being published. I found them very readable and informative and was so convinced by her that I started following her recommendations at a time when paying attention to what you ate was scoffed at. My faith in her advice on healthy eating back then was not misplaced. Research today vindicates her science and I felt great satisfaction when in 2000 she placed sixth among her century’s notables - that included scientists like Edison and Einstein!

For one thing, Adelle advocated eating yoghurt long before it became the highly advertised popular health food it has become in recent years. Back then it was sometimes hard to get yogurt, so I made it myself in an inexpensive temperature regulator and found it simple, inexpensive and fool proof.

I was curious as to why yogurt was so healthful and found out that it’s all about the bacteria it contains. I also learned that these single celled organisms were among the earliest forms of life that evolved on Earth 4 billion years ago. It took 3 billion years for them to diversify and learn to communicate before they finally got together to form the first multicellular creatures that we have evolved from. And they are still everywhere – so small they are invisible - in the air, in the soil, in us and on us.

Actually, amazingly, there are 3 or 4 lbs. of bacteria in our intestinal tract and we couldn’t live without them. They play a large part in the digestion of food, making vitamins and generally assisting in keeping our body working well. Tampering with their well being as we do when we take antibiotics or are under unusual stress, can cause serious illnesses like persistent diarrhea and throat and genital infections for example.

In contrast to ‘antibiotics’ that kill bacteria, ‘probiotics’ promote the health of our trillions and trillions of intestinal bacterial. Yogurt, properly made, contains mainly probiotic good kinds of bacteria. Unfortunately, to preserve their shelf life, most commercial yogurts have been heated and contain only dead bacteria. I learned recently that to be sure you are getting the good live bacteria in the yogurt you buy, it has to be tested in human clinical trials. The only yogurt I know of that has been tested in Canada and has good live bacteria is Danone Activia.

As I mentioned, making it yourself with milk is not difficult. You can also get probiotics in pill form but they are dormant in that state and not as effective in adapting to handle sudden changes that affect your bacterial health. We take them when we travel to foreign countries and are encountering new kinds of bacteria that are sometimes toxic.

Here’s to a good healthy gut and long life. Rie