The benefits of kefir are many, since it is a fermented food that is loaded with probiotics, or good for you bacteria. It was used in ancient times and there is a theory that it may have been the manna from heaven as described in the Bible.
If you want to taste some before making it yourself, you can buy some of Lifeway's brand of kefir. It is pasteurized, homogenized and most of the time, low-fat, though, so I don't recommend drinking it very often.
There are two different kinds of kefir that you can make: sugar water and milk kefir. Making either is a lot more challenging than making yogurt, but especially the water kind, but the benefits of kefir are great. You have to purchase starter grains, kind of like making sourdough bread, and you have to take care of the grains, which reproduce themselves, and find other folks to give them to or discard them.
Water kefir tastes absolutely wonderful and has lots of probiotics for you, but it also contains sugar, which you ideally want to avoid. Do not try making it with anything else like stevia or xylitol. I tried it and it tasted awful plus I had to throw out the grains afterwards. There are no benefits of kefir unless it is made with sugar.
It also requires dealing with it every 48 hours and you can’t miss it or the grains go bad. You have to drink it fairly quickly too or it will go bad. Even though I liked it very much, I was gaining weight with all the sugar and was spending way too much time on it so I gave it up, in spite of the great benefits of kefir drinking.
Making Water Kefir
If you want to try making some of the sugar water kefir on your own, I will refer you to Dom’s web site. He is the undisputed King of Kefir at http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html. He is located in Australia. You can get the grains from a source here in the United States through the mail, and immediately begin to reap the benefits of kefir.
I do agree with Dom that the milk kind should be made with raw milk to be optimally beneficial for you. You can buy it commercially made from most grocery stores as Lifeway brand sells it everywhere. However, it is pasteurized, usually low-fat (except for rare occasions at Whole Foods), and has sugar in it so I don’t recommend it for those reasons. You will miss a lot of the benefits of kefir by not making it yourself.
Making Milk Kefir
Making your own at home is fairly straightforward and using the natural grains provids the best benefits of kefir. For those grains, you would have to go to Dom’s site to order them. However, there again, you have to be diligent about keeping up with it and that gets to be a bit of a drain after awhile.
So I have opted to use starter grains that I purchase from Dr. Mercola’s web site to reap the benefits of kefir. You may also purchase them closer to home here from Hoegger’s Goat Supply web site at: (www.hoeggergoatsupply.com) They are a local Georgia company located in Fayetteville, GA. I try to support local people whenever possible.
Once you make a batch of either kind, you keep out 6 tablespoons of “starter” for the next batch and you can repeat this for a total of seven generations. Then it’s time to get a new batch. It’s best to start a new batch within three days.
Of course, some people may be asking, “Why go to all this trouble?” Why indeed? Dr. Weston A. Price, in his groundbreaking book “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”, points out that ALL of the healthiest native tribes that he studied ate fermented foods of some kind. That was the common denominator among all of them and the benefits of kefir are enormous.
Fermented Food
So it is vitally important that we add in some kind of fermented food in our diets if we want to have optimum health from the benefits of kefir and yogurt. Here is an excerpt from Dr. Price’s site, written by Sally Fallon Morell and Mary G. Enig.
“Acid porridges made from grains are far superior to western grain preparations. Fermentation increases mineral availability by neutralizing phytic acid, increases vitamin content, predigests starches and neutralizes enzyme inhibitors. Insoluble fiber can cause pathogenic changes in the intestinal tract unless properly soaked in an acid medium.9 Oat bran, which is high in phytic acid, as well as related bran products can cause numerous problems with digestion and assimilation, leading to mineral deficiencies, irritable bowel syndrome and autoimmune difficulties such as Crohn's disease. Case control studies indicate that consumption of cereal fiber can be linked with detrimental effects on colon cancer formation.10
In his lectures, Burkitt was fond of pointing out that the typical African stool specimen was large and soft, and that stool transit times were rapid, compared to the puny hard fecal deposits and slow transit times of hapless Europeans. The large amount of fermented food, easy to digest and contributing to the health of intestinal flora, is the most likely explanation for this phenomena - fermented dairy products in European groups and fermented fish among the Eskimos accomplish the same results.”
From this, you can see that yogurt and kefir are the two products that will help those of us who eat a Western diet the most. Of those two, yogurt is the easier to obtain and to make yourself, but the benefits of kefir are great as well.
Instructions For Making Kefir
If you want to try making kefir, here are the instructions.
1. Boil water in a pan on the stove and then use it to sterilize the container in which you will culture your kefir. A glass jar that can be closed is best, but any lidded container will do.
2. Heat 1 quart of milk (or two cups if using goat’s milk) on medium-low heat on the stove for about 5 minutes to slowly and gently bring it up to skin temperature (about 92 degrees F.)
3. Stick a clean knuckle into it until it feels neutral, neither hot nor cold, to the touch. The idea is to heat it gently to maintain all the good bacteria and enzymes.
4. Remove from heat.
5. Add the starter package to it, using non-metal utensils.
6. Stir until the ferment has dissolved completely.
7. Pour the inoculated milk into the jar and close the lid.
8. Ferment the mixture at between 72-75 degrees F. for 18-24 hours in a place where it will not be disturbed. The top of a refrigerator is a good choice.
9. The mixture will thicken and turn slightly lumpy and have a distinct sour smell to it. It will change into a milky white and may have some bubbles form on top. The taste will be slightly tart and tangy and little of the original sweetness will remain.
10. Refrigerate after fermentation. It will continue to ferment but at a slower pace, adding to the benefits of kefir.
11. Save six tablespoons of the culture to start the next batch. This may be done for seven generations before discontinuing and using a new starter packet the next time.
It is best to start the next new batch within three days. Batches will last approximately one week in the refrigerator. The lactic acid generated by the fermentation process acts as a preservative to facilitate the benefits of kefir.
The milk sugar (lactose) wakes up the bacteria in the starter, which then feed on and grow in the milk. This creates beneficial probiotics which are essential for good intestinal floral health.
The kefir culture started can be stored in the refrigerator for at least 18 months. You may want to sweeten the mixture with the natural sweetener of your choice: stevia, Luo Han Guo, or xylitol.
Now that you have made your kefir, you can use it in the Healthy Smoothie Recipe, the Sweet Breakfast Granola, or just over fruit as a snack. The probiotics are what makes the benefits of kefir so good and will greatly aid in digestion.
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