Probiotics and Probiotic Foods

Probiotics and Probiotic Foods

Though we think of ourselves as single organisms, we are really walking superstructures housing trillions of organisms which need to exist in ecological balance.  Our flora protects our skin and helps manufacture vitamin D, lines our guts with a living wallpaper that extracts nutrients, protects against heavy metals, attacks pathogens, outcompetes pathogenic viruses, and makes enzymes.  The flora consists of thousands of different types of organisms, making up 3% of our body weight, 90% of our cells and 99% of the DNA in our bodies.  The appendix stores them in biofilms to repopulate the gut and adjust the mix as it samples digestive juices. Without the bacteria we would not live.

Antibiotics, low quality food, candida overgrowth from high sugar diets, medications and electronic stress all impair the health of our gut ecology.  To re-establish our flora we need:

1. Sources of probiotics including Lactobacilli like acidophilous, Bacteroides, Bifidobacterium, Eubacterium, Saccharomyces boulardii and Peptostreptococcus  but providing a wide variety or different organisms..
2. Inulin or fructoligosaccharides (FOS) in Jerusalem artichokes, chicory root, dandelion root, burdock, bananas and garlic, and beta glucans in oatmeal.
3. Bitters before meals which help keep the acid/base environment favorable.
4. Real fresh food (the kind without writing on it, that your great grandmother would recognize) which contains enzymes, nutrients and often its own probiotic bacteria.

Although you can purchase probiotic pills, they are notoriously difficult to keep alive and should always be found refrigerated.  The amount of live culture is often overstated because storage in route may not be cold or they die off in the jar. Parmax human lactobacillis HLC probiotics puts half again as many organisms as they state on the package, have been tested for travel and are quite effective:  their Synbiotics is good for an intensive bowel treatment and their High Intensity is good for maintenance.  Florastor helps round out the organisms. Otherwise look for a good, broad spectrum probiotic with FOS from a store with high turnover.  Shelf stabilized probiotics probably are not that stable.

Better yet, go pull up a dandelion before dinner, give it a quick rinse and eat the whole thing:  bitters, inulin and some of those expensive soil based bacteria for free.

Probiotic foods include:

1,  Plain yogurt- get the full fat version, without sugar, as the fat protects the flora from stomach acids.  I usually get one of each brand in the health food store, including those from different types of milk (goat, ewe, biodynamic cow, etc.)

2.  Unpasteurized blue cheese is my first line of defense after antibiotics.  Get one with lots of blue lines, preferably from a store that knows how to store cheese.  If you don’t normally eat milk or dislike it, just take a medicinal dose, say one teaspoon.

3.  Miso- make sure it is a live, refrigerated miso

4.  Kefir, buttermilk, cultured sour cream or other fermented foods.

5.  Lactic acid fermented foods like sauerkraut, grated carrots and ginger (Hawthorne Valley), kimchee, unpasturized pickles, real sushi ginger.

How To Culture Probiotic Foods:

Kefir, Yogurt and Buttermilk

Milk can be cultured by putting a live culture into milk warmed to around 90 degrees.  Cover loosely and keep in a warm place overnight.  Whole milk will hold together as yogurt better than skim milk, although skim milk boosted up with dry milk will be thicker.  In general however raw, grass-fed milk is what you want to find.  If you have access to a farm store (like the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store in Ghent, NY) where raw milk can legally be sold, get extra and culture it into kefir, yogurt or buttermilk.  To make yogurt, kefir or buttermilk, you can use a quarter cup of a pre-made substance (make sure it has live cultures and no stabilizers) to a quart of milk.  You can generally keep it going at least six or seven times if you are careful to keep it clean and not exhaust the starter.  If any off smells or flavors develop, discard and buy a new starter.

Coconut Kefir

The milk from raw young coconuts can be made into kefir.  These usually come in their husks, often with a pointed top or aseptically packaged.  Saw off the pointed top with a serrated knife or pull saw until you find the coconut, then punch a hole with a hammer and large nail or awl.  Enlarge the hole and pour out the water to ferment.  You can either use a few tablespoons of kefir from a dairy source or purchase cultures from BodyEcology.com or some health food stores.  Leave overnight in a warm place and the milk will turn into a tangy bubbling liquid which can be drunk straight or mixed with juice.  The meat can be removed, put in a blender and fermented with the culture to make a tangy coconut cream.

Vinegar and Kombucha

Apple cider can be fermented into live vinegar with a mother of vinegar culture.  You can try using raw Braggs vinegar or purchase a mother culture on the web.  Add the mother (which is a jelly-like mass) to the cider, loosely cover and place in a cool dark place.  Kombucha is basically a vinegar, fermented from a mother of vinegar (the “shroom”) in a sugar-sweetened black tea base.  For that get a piece from someone else’s mother or use a vinegar mother.  Kombucha must be kept uncontaminated- discard if strange colors, smells or tastes present.

Fermented Vegetables

Cultures from German to Japanese have made fermented vegetables, which usually have  lactic acid bacteria.  Sauerkraut, kimchee and fermented root vegetables are all examples.  Gather clean, unblemished vegetables and slick, dice or grate.  Ginger is often a good addition- it’s used in a Hawaiian Kimchee along with the chile peppers.  Curry and cilantro have been added to cabbage.  Cabbages should be shredded or cut into small chunks. Garlic, carrots, burdock (gobo), Jerusalem artichokes, onions and beets can all be fermented.  Place in a clean jar, cover with sea salt brine, add a little starter from nonpasturized pickled veggies, cover and store in cool darkness.  Refrigerate after three days.  Traditional recipes only uses salt, but since air bacteria vary, I prefer to seed my own.  Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions has a number of recipes for fermented foods and I highly recommend it.

http://nccam.nih.gov/news/newsletter/2006_summer/bacteria.htm