Q1: What do you think about Probiotics: are they good/do we need them?

Q2: Do you use Probiotics/For how long?

Q3: What kind/brand?

Q4: How much?

Q5: What effects/results do you feel/have?

Pls. excuse my English - foreigner.

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Medicine, Food Industry and Commerce are businesses.
Is their goal to make/keep me healthy or to make more profit?
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Here is a article I wrote that was published in Frederic Patenaudes February 6th, 2004 issue of The Raw Vegan E-zine.

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Letters From the Readers: the probiotic debate
The Probiotic Debate


People use probiotics for various reasons; their digestion is impaired or sluggish and probiotics help. They may have candida overgrowth from continuous uses of antibiotic or anti bacterial/antiseptic agents.While consuming a probiotic restores the bacteria flora that lives in the digestive system, continued use of the probiotics relieves the symptoms while masking the original cause of the problem, and the continued ignoring of the cause of the problem will ultimately result in poor health down the line.

If a person finds herself with little flora remaining in her digestive system, a single dosage of probiotics should help restore the flora, and no successive applications of the probiotic ought to be necessary. But this is usually not the case. Instead, the probiotics work after the application, but are quickly killed and are no longer effective, since they are no longer alive.

What is it that kills the beneficial flora?

For folks on the SAD diet, regular use of prescription/pharmaceutical antibiotics is known to kill both the beneficial and harmful bacteria in the digestive system. But most raw/live foodists dont consume pharmaceutical antibiotics.

Instead, raw-foodists kill their beneficial flora with herbal antibiotics and natural spices that in historical times were uses for their food preservative qualities. Certainly herbs such as echinacea and goldenseal are well know antibiotics, which are often used to fight the symptoms of colds and flus. These antibiotic kill bacteria, and are unable to distinguish between beneficial and harmful bacterias. Garlic and onions are another antibiotic that will kill bacteria in your digestive system, especially when consumed in their raw state. In addition to garlic and onion, the following herbs and spices are known for their antibacterial properties: allspice, oregano, thyme, cinnamon, tarragon, cumin, capsicum, white and black pepper, ginger, anise seed and celery seeds.

Salt throughout history has been known as a food preservative. It preserves food by creating a saline environment that is hostile to bacteria. Again, beneficial bacteria can no more survive a saline environment than a harmful bacteria can. Salt can come into the diet from using refined salt, celtic sea salt, Braggs liquid aminos, nama shoyu, tamari, and regular soy sauce. It can also be introduced with unwashed sea vegetables like dulse and nori.

Another matter of importance is improper food combining. Not only does improper food combining use more energy and time to digest food, but if fermentation of sugar occurs, toxins such as alcohol are created that will also kill your beneficial flora.

Rather than having a lifetime dependence on store-bought probiotics and supplements, it is much healthier and cheaper to remove the causes of the death of the flora.

San Francisco, California

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Man, u r fast w. your answer.

I agree w. everything u wrote in your message - from my own experience.

Personal, I do use Probiotics and I have + effects and results (but not with every/any kind of Probiotics).
I think the Primal Defense (R) HSO(TM) Probiotic Formula from Garden of Life worked for me the best. Those little creatures :-) worked hard for me - my digestion improved so much and all the pain, acid reflux and other (digestive) negative symptoms just disappeared after couple of weeks of raw and 1 pill of probiotic blend/day.

I can tell how much damage are the antibiotics doing to my gastro-intestinal bacterial flora. The bad (digestive) symptoms came back every time after I had 2 use antibiotics.

I still intend to buy an expensive pH meter and to make a chart w. the pH of each fruit and veggie (blended individually) to help me to balance my purees to a close-to-neutral pH.

Pls. excuse my English - foreigner.

=============================================================
Medicine, Food Industry and Commerce are businesses.
Is their goal to make/keep me healthy or to make more profit?
=============================================================

i think prebiotics are more important than probiotics. just eat plenty of fiber-rich whole foods and your intestinal flora will have plenty to munch on.

in cases where intestinal flora is damaged or out of balance, then probiotics may be useful, but only in conjunction with healthy diet and lifestyle

I took them for a long time when I wasn't raw and they probably helped but not noticiably.

I don't think supplements are well-made. I think synthetic factory crap is churned out and this crap is labelled something like, "The Perfect Supplement For The Ignorant Consumer Whichs Costs Pennies To Produce But Costs You $30, And We Know You'll Pay Lots Cause You're A Dumbass"


except it's abbreviated and translated into PR-ese.


I think the long-term raw people here know as much as we need to know about good intestinal flora and give good advice.