12 Steps to Whole Foods

Preserving Raw Foods with Natural Probiotics
I personally asked Colin Campbell, author and lead researcher of The
China Study, about the beneficial properties of yogurt or kefir, since the
protein consumed in his animal studies was casein derived from cow’s
milk. He acknowledged that his studies have not examined fermented
products and people’s or animals’ reactions to them. Chemical changes
occur in dairy products when lacto-fermentation takes place that may
mean a place is warranted in the human diet for these types of animal
products. Keep in mind that Campbell’s studies involved 20% animal
protein diets and 5% animal protein diets (not 0%). That said, pure
vegans can also make kefir out of raw coconut liquid (or canned, though
raw is more nutritious) using water kefir grains (shown at right).
I made a gallon of yogurt every week for many years until I learned that
kefir has a wider variety of probiotic organisms, both bacteria and
friendly yeasts, than yogurt does. These colonize the digestive tract well
(and also the birth canal, which is important for expectant mothers).
Kefir is also easier to make once you acquire infinitely reusable kefir
grains (as starter) and it does not require cooking the milk, thereby preserving its enzyme content. Kefir is
more liquid, whereas yogurt is firmer. Yogurt will support the probiotic strains in your gut that keep it clean,
but kefir will actually colonize the gut proactively.
Now I make a gallon of yogurt or kefir every week. I serve it every morning to my kids as a smoothie, blended
with bananas and other fruit (along with a bowl of granola and sprouts). You can also make delicious, creamy
popsicles with yogurt/kefir blended with fruit. Keeping the gastrointestinal tract colonized with healthy
bacteria from daily kefir or yogurt dramatically boosts your body’s ability to fight bad bacteria. I believe it to
be the reason none of my children has ever had strep, the flu, or any infection in well over 10 years—nothing
requiring an antibiotic.
“Antibiotic” literally means “against life,” and “probiotic” means “for life”! Taking an antibiotic kills all the
good bacteria as well as the bad, leaving your body wide open to the next infection that comes along. So if you
or your child takes a course of antibiotics, you can replenish the good microorganisms killed in your gut by the
antibiotics with about 30 days of eating live, fermented probiotic foods such as kefir or yogurt, raw cultured
vegetables, and/or kombucha.
Unfortunately, antibiotics are so powerful and devastating, often children will become ill again before that
significant amount of time needed for good bacteria to regain a foothold has passed. Therefore, my family
avoids antibiotics except in absolute crisis, as a once- or twice-in-a-lifetime event.
Many people take expensive probiotics, which are dried and dormant. These probiotics are inferior to the
growing and thriving bacteria in live yogurt or kefir—a very inexpensive, effective probiotic!
Kefir—which originated in the Caucasus region and is still a daily staple there, as well as having become
popular in parts of Europe and the Middle East—is less familiar to Americans than yogurt. Some research
suggests that the right-turning, active, live bacteria in kefir are far superior and more beneficial to the digestive
tract than left-turning, transient yogurt cultures. Kefir actively populates the gastrointestinal tract with more
species of natural flora, whereas yogurt merely supports that colonization of the gut. The lactose in kefir is
digested by the time you eat it, with the proteins broken down, so it can be used by many people with milk
226 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw