Do any of you mess with kefir any more?

[Hinotori]

I do milk kefir. Dogs and chickens get a lot of it since hubby doesn't like the texture. I like some runny jam mixed in for flavor and I'm good.

 

[Homemaker]

I second the runny jam! I call them lazy smoothies
I still use keifer. My daughter and I drink it in smoothies or I use it in place of yogurt for homemade popsicles. It also makes a good dressing when strained through a coffee filter and mixed with herbs and such. We usually go through a pint size jar in a 24 hr. period. I also do homemade yogurt, what can I say we love dairy.

 

[Boogity]

Like ORChick, I DO believe it's really good for you, so I've been making it for about 9 months now. I HATE the taste, so use it in smoothies about 3 times/week. It has tons more probiotics than yogurt, so that's why I try to keep it in my diet. I also eat a lot of fermented food, and have just, in the last month or so, started making kombucha, with a second ferment to flavor it. - love it!

How much is enough? To me, more of anything ain't always better.

 

[ORChick]

Like ORChick, I DO believe it's really good for you, so I've been making it for about 9 months now. I HATE the taste, so use it in smoothies about 3 times/week. It has tons more probiotics than yogurt, so that's why I try to keep it in my diet. I also eat a lot of fermented food, and have just, in the last month or so, started making kombucha, with a second ferment to flavor it. - love it!

How much is enough? To me, more of anything ain't always better.

Quite true, more is not always better. That is what we at SS are proving everyday in our daily lives, isn't it? But, considering the *lifelessness* of the processed foods that most of America eats as standard fare (though not most of us here, I would wager) I think that returning good bacteria to our guts can only be a good idea. Also in light of the antibiotic use in both humans and in many of the meat animals in this country. Kefir, I have read, has many more different kinds of beneficial bacteria than yogurt. Also (I have read) some of these bacteria can actually take up residence in the gut, and continue their good work even if one doesn't consume kefir every day. Yogurt bacteria, on the other hand, tend to get excreted. Considering that our digestion and general health is so dependent on our gut flora and fauna I like to try to eat something fermented daily (though I am not so good at this as I'd like to be). I think that variety is good, in this as in many things, so have jars of fermented veggies (sauerkraut, fermented pickles, etc) to dip into as well as eating yogurt.
(And no, beer and wine do not count towards the daily fermented total , nor bread either. The bacteria need to be alive to be useful)

 

[moolie]

Regarding healthy flora in the gut, it is super important to eat local raw foods in as natural a state as possible--eat berries right off the bush, peas right out of the pods, carrots and beans fresh from the garden lightly scrubbed, apples and other fruit with their peels, and also to eat local honey. It's important to avoid processed sugars and refined flours, and heat/chemically extracted vegetable oils.

I'm not a "raw foods" junkie, but it's been proven that a diet of foods that are as close to their natural state as possible is best for the gut.

Probiotic foods are great, but they don't provide everything that the body needs. And kefir is a traditional food from the Caucasus Mountains, not necessarily something that is in everyone's family heritage--thus why some people (like my daughter) can't tolerate it well. If you find you have difficulty with certain ethnic foods, it may just be that your family history doesn't predispose you to digest that food well.

 

[KnittyGritty]

Dawn, if you go to the site - www.bonzaiaphrodite.com - she tells you step-by-step how to grow your own kombucha SCOBY. I tried it, and it worked, and that's what I've been using ever since.