Kefir.... what not to love!

[Arcturus]

yes i do agree that you will find a well known adherent either way. the reason i avoid fermented was because my calfs started to cramp up on them and i felt "acidic" like a battery. i do have leaky gut so would be more prone to this than others. what is true is that there are those that don't fare well on it but maybe some or or many can benefit too. i would say that less is definitely more. i also know that such foods can give you a "hit"...because you don't have to digest them (which takes a while) and so you get the immediate affect. but should foods do this? henry lindhlar suggests that you should not take the digesting away from the body as it, if healthy, does it a rate the body can thrive with. i have read many anecdotal reports of kombucha drinkers attaining excellent results but they generally revert if they stop and are generally fanatic in the meantime (not that you are stephen) and i question the validity of their apparent results too.

i know folks who love the vit c rush off juicing but i don't know if it's a good thing. i've had allsorts bubbling away in the past and nowadays just prefer to go for wholefoods that are organic and for me in particular, low g.i.. the only thing i still do is sprout lentils, mung and fenugreek but with them i only have a small handfull once a day. superfoods are very powerfull. i disagree that just eating whoilefood and attitude is enough to alkalise, especially if you have a chronic health complaint; which may require avoidance of what some coiuld thrive on.

i totally agree that intuition is the key...i found my diet by listening to my body tell me, yes, no, less, more...but the mind with its "great ideas" is a powerfull thing that needs sublimating. when and where is an individual thing i suppose although reading the experiences of others and experimentation also helps.

fibre in vegetables promotes good bacteria that are not necessarily acidic. also when foods leave the stomach the pancreas secretes a bicarbonate formula to alkalise the foods and they only become mildly acidic in the colon.

i used to ferment sprouted sunflower seeds in rejuvalec and i tell ya, one teaspoon of that used to give me an hour long energy rush. there's nothing youi can't do without them but then i wouldn't be averse to some...if i could tolerate it.

Originally Posted by Newfreedom9

I have been curious as how to make my own yogurt though. I get raw milk, and I just got an ice cream maker, so I was hoping to make some frozen yogurt.

Yogurt is quite interesting but requires a little more work. It's recommended that we heat the milk to 180F before cooling it down and adding the cultures... this seems to defeat the advantage of using raw milk as it kills off everything live in the milk. The milk then simply becomes a food source for the bacteria....

Before I shifted to Kefir I was using quart jars to make my own yogurt. I would first heat about three quarts of milk, cool it down to about 100F then stir-in a store bought 6oz container of yogurt as a starter. Pour this mix into the quart jars, then let it sit for about a day in a camping cooler alongside two gallon jugs filled with hot water from the tap. With it inside the cooler you only need to change the hot water once more during this process in order to keep the temperature yogurt-friendly.

Once you made one patch this way you can set aside about a cup or two of this batch and add this to the next batch you make.... you don't need to by store-bought yogurt for quite awhile again, since the live strains will transfer quite readily.

The nice thing about kefir is this elimination of the heating stage.... just sift the kefir grains from the newest batch and add it straight into the new milk as it comes from the fridg. Put that in the cooler the same way that's done with the yogurt and after 24 hours you're in business! The raw milk is still raw, with a big added bunch of happy goodies! :^)

Originally Posted by Newfreedom9

Anyway I'm curious as to the veggies that promote good bacteria. And apple cider vinegar.. I've been reading good things about it. Should you just do it for a while, and how much??

I haven't a clue as to how much ACV we should be using.. and I suspect if anyone thinks they know they probably don't really... not even the manufacture... I use about two cap fulls as part of my salad dressing, alongside Braggs amino acids and a good splash of olive oil... makes for a nice combination... couldn't really do the vinegar alone... a little bit pungent for my taste... :^)

Originally Posted by necta3

i do have leaky gut so would be more prone to this than others.

Have you checked into the GAP's diet yet? Natasha built her approach largely around addressing Leaky Gut.... It's among her first order of concerns... she cured her son of autism by building this process... and has expanded it's applications considerably since then...

The gaps diet is simply a transitional process, that she eventually weens the patient off of to participate in all foods that are healthy... individualized intuition plays a large role in formula!

Here's a great introduction to her work:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/07/31/dr-natasha-campbell-mcbride-on-gaps-nutritional-program.aspx

I've spent weeks going over her stuff and simply love her! She focuses strictly on the gut as a means of addressing all health issues... she's an absolute genius in a most humble way! :^)

[Arcturus]

thanks Stephen,
i agree that you can heal pretty much mpost things by healing your gut 100%. this is why i always recommend tai chi as it works on the dantien just below the navel and if you have this working well then your small intestine and colon are probably doing great. i see it's built around the specific carbohydrate diet which comes within what i presently do. i also have coeliac and crohns, which are both under control, but makes passing the finishing post very tricky. apparently 90% of folk with autism have some form of bowel disease so i totally agree that it can be put right, in some or many cases, perhaps even all but wouldn't say for sure, by specific dietary guidance, to the point where you can return to eating what is generally considered healthy food for a healthy person. n3

Thank you so much for the info! I make my salad dressing very similar to that. Kefir does sound easier.. how does it taste? I've never had it. Could you make it into frozen kefir and it'd be similar to ice cream? I would love to have something even my 8 year old son would eat.

Originally Posted by necta3

thanks Stephen,
. i see it's built around the specific carbohydrate diet which comes within what i presently do.

Not really much on carbs... she essentially tosses carbs aside, eliminating grains and sweeteners of all kinds, particularly in the early stages. Here's a couple links to her food does and don'ts

AT-A-GLANCE FOODS BY CATEGORY RECOMMENDED ON GAPS™ GUT AND PSYCHOLOGY SYNDROME NUTRITIONAL PROTOCOL
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/a233ec41348798f175e0176e9/files/GAPS_rec_foods_v1_1.pdf

WHAT CAN I EAT ON THE GAPS DIET?
http://www.scribd.com/doc/76884785/GAPS-Diet-Foods

and then a "very" detailed description of her introductory formula... designed to relax the stress on our digestive system in order to allow time for rebuilding and cleansing. The introductory approach is the most restrictive, being designed to accommodate the deep healing that's needed in chronic situations.


GAPS Introduction Diet - IMPLEMENTING THE DIET
Provided by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78872596/gaps-diet


She moves quite firmly into using animal products as a building/healing resource, and fruits and veggies as cleansers. She's not a big fan of vegetarianism and is absolutely appalled at the vegan approach. She sees vegan-ism as a purely cleansing process with a distinct need to end at some point... that our bodies are not designed to take vantage of all the nutrients available in veggies...

we humans don't have a rumen:

"The rumen is responsible for the first stage of break down of forages. Bacteria or microflora in the rumen aid in the digestion of fibre, cellulose and hemicellulose in the rumen. Partially digested material is burped up and chewed again as cud, with enzymes in the cow's saliva further breaking down carbohydrates and starches and chewing the fiber into finer pieces, then swallowed to continue digestion process before moving onwards to the Omasum."
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_the_rumen_of_a_cows_stomach_do

So trying to rely of veggies for all of our nutrition will essentially guarantee complications. The animal uniquely converts plant matter into bio-available sources of nutrition that our bodies can readily use.
She does insistently recommend organically/grass feed sources for these products. That commercial sources are loaded with toxins....

Originally Posted by Newfreedom9

Thank you so much for the info! I make my salad dressing very similar to that. Kefir does sound easier.. how does it taste? I've never had it. Could you make it into frozen kefir and it'd be similar to ice cream? I would love to have something even my 8 year old son would eat.

Kefir by itself has a bitter edge... which is easy to address! We use the liquid stevia products (the sweetleaf brand is the cleanest we've found so far... be really careful with a number of the brands out there, there's lots of fillers being used!)

My wife and I both favor the Chocolate/Raspberry option, you can then add a bit of vanilla, and/or add your favorite fruit... did so last night with pineapple... yummy! :^)

My wife asked me to gather a few links about kefir so she could pass them along to several of her nursing friends at work who were interested... She's been taking them homemade kefir for about a week or two and they've been liking the results!

They're pretty good links so I'll also post them here:


Kefir Grains: One of the best source of probiotics
http://www.squidoo.com/kefirgrains


How Do We Make Kefir?
http://www.squidoo.com/how-do-we-make-kefir


Home made Kefir video
http://www.squidoo.com/home-made-kefir#module147875241

general info on kefir
http://coproweb.free.fr/kefiranglais.htm


Probiotic Organisms
http://www.innvista.com/health/nutrition/biotics/proborg.htm


Rheumatoid Arthritis Treatment Non-Dairy Sources of Probiotics Supplements
http://www.squidoo.com/rheumatoid-arthritis-treatment-non-dairy-sources-of-probiotics-supplements

[Arcturus]

Originally Posted by StephenK

Not really much on carbs... she essentially tosses carbs aside, eliminating grains and sweeteners of all kinds, particularly in the early stages. .

thanks for the links Stephen. the diet i actualy do is a combination of the low g.i. anti candida diet (hardly any carbs, sweet potatoes and butternut squash), crohns diet and the hay diet. i recommend looking into the hay diet; its about fvood combining, i.e. not mixing carbs with proteins as they require different mediums for digestion. there is much on the gaps diet i can't tolerate but then there is much on the anti candida diet i can't either. i have managed through research and testing to find what i can not only stabilise on but improve. a meal should as closely as possible be like himan tissues though slightly more concentrated of course. the weaker your digestion the more "bland" your food should be...i say bland but simplest fare tastes orgasmic to a sensitive tongue. i also do whats known as the spiritual dieta...which is a shaman diet....no spices, no fermented foods, little salt...i have found this to be very herlpfull personally though i was doing it before i read of it.

i agree about vegetarianism and veganism on the whole. i do think some can and be healthy on it though. the brahmins have been vegtetarians for centuries and so one might think that their body would adjust. at present we are omnivores though. i would say that excluding meat during illness is a bad idea. one must be very healthy to be able extract the nutrition that is needed from purely non meat sources.

Originally Posted by necta3

i recommend looking into the hay diet; its about fvood combining, i.e. not mixing carbs with proteins as they require different mediums for digestion.

OMG! Okay, so I google the "hay diet" and found this one site that I find great resonance with upon first glance....
http://www.haydiet.co.uk/

...but at the top of the page there's an add for a Bariatric Center! It may be a rotating add, so is not affiliated with the site itself, but what a contrast of extremes! With the hay diet we have folks taking total responsibility for their eating habits, while the bariatric folks are pushing the "keep eating what you want, we'll fix it by cutting you up!"... truly creepy on so many levels!

As to the subject of combining I agree! I generally try and keep fruits with fruits, and mix some veggies with animal products... not long ago I ate veggies with chicken, then chased that with a big slice of pineapple, and paid for that with about an hour of stomach queasiness afterwards..

Food combining is a great thing to be aware of! good call necta!

Originally Posted by necta3

i agree about vegetarianism and veganism on the whole. i do think some can and be healthy on it though. the brahmins have been vegtetarians for centuries and so one might think that their body would adjust. at present we are omnivores though. i would say that excluding meat during illness is a bad idea. one must be very healthy to be able extract the nutrition that is needed from purely non meat sources.

It was fascinating to watch Dr Mercola shift from the 80% raw philosophy over to one with more cooked foods and animal products... Early-on he was teaming-up with folks like David Wolfe but shifted dramatically when he encountered Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride (GAPS). This shifted his philosophy on the subject about the same time that I was shifting mine as well... it was a most interesting ride to be on! :^)