Anyone here drink Kombucha tea? What are your experiences with it? Can you reccomend a good online retailer/brand where I can buy some? Thanks.

Hi Numenor, good question. I personally LOVE kombucha. I love the whole process of making it, waiting patiently for it to ferment, and then of course drinking it

A lot of people advise against it though, on account of the ingredients used to make it (sugar and tea). I don't do well on regular tea because of the caffeine, so I make my own alternative - I blogged the receipe here (plus an awesome variation I invented that tastes like coke!)

[www.cherrytherapies.com]



And I don't find the sugar content causes me any problem, as it's pretty much all metabolised in the fermentation process (if you do it right).

If you just want to try ready-made kombucha it's available in most health stores these days. If you want to make your own, you can buy a starter culture ('scoby') online. Happy Kombucha is a good company to buy them from.

Also check out the Facebook group 'Kombucha Nation', they have some great chats about kombucha, plus some folk there will mail out scobies if you ask them nicely



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Thanks Lisa I'll look into it

lisa

<< And I don't find the sugar content causes me any problem, as it's pretty much all metabolised in the fermentation process (if you do it right)<<>>


so...is sugar used twice?

once 1_ for feeding the things that feed on it during the fermentation process

then

2) more sugar is added to the kombucha afterwards to give it its sweet taste

i'm wondering because kombucha always tastes sweet...so how is it that it is all fermented and converted to probiotics?

that is what i am wondering

Hi La V,

Sugar is used in the 1st ferment, then during the 2nd ferment (optional) you can sweeten/flavour it with whatever you want. So you can add fruit & spices instead of refined sugar. So the kombucha should use up the regular sugar during the 1st ferment leaving only the sweetness from the fruit. Of course it's not an exact science (or is it? I'd love to see studies done).

However, I would imagine that store-bought kombucha just uses regular sugar in the 2nd ferment as they're not so fussy That's why it's a good idea to make your own - for quality control purposes



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I like Synergy strawberry kombucha.. altho, I don't care much for their other flavors. But I notice they only use strawberries and the tea in theirs. I don't think they use any other sweetener..if I'm not mistaken. I like to drink it occasionally and even though I'm sensitive to caffeine, I don't have a bad effect from it.

Once I start on Kombucha it is hard for me to stop. Poison or Panacea?

david

NO

You cannot have your Kombucha Tea and drink it too.

Be Nice and let a loved one drink it.

Quote
RawPracticalist
NO

You cannot have your Kombucha Tea and drink it too.

Be Nice and let a loved one drink it.

I may have a couple of those.

david

Absolutely on kombucha! Probiotics, super rich in B-vitamins including bio-available B12, phytonutrients, liver detox, enzymes...

Raw, unpasteurized kombucha contains health-promoting organic acids (glucuronic, gluconic, acetic) which are highly effective at eliminating toxins from the body. Acetic acid conjugates with toxins by solubilizing and eliminating them from the body. Glucuronidation is a major pathway of xenobiotic transformation and requires the co-factor uridine diphosphate-glucuronic acid. The reaction is metabolized by glucuronyltransferases (UGT's), which are a family of enzymes that detoxify hundreds of toxic compounds by their conjugation to glucuronic acid. This process forms glucuronides which are more water-soluble and thus more easily excretable.

www.phytopanacea.com

Wow thanks for the info!

david

Anytime.

www.phytopanacea.com

I've never even tried it but would like to. What would anyone consider wrong with it? About the sugar. It seems like everyone and his dog thinks that only just a bit of sugar even in the context of a healthful diet is going to do them in. Maybe that is true for hard-to-control forms of diabetes, but the rest of us don't need to eat as if we are diabetics when we are not. Or not even close to it.

I enjoy kombucha at times, but nowadays I only drink it on an empty stomach, with sufficient time before I am going to eat a meal. What I notice is that if I drink kombucha with a full belly, I feel bloated.

On the other hand, I make a fermented beverage from fruit juice and Effective microorganisms, or EM (like EM-1 or SCD Essential probiotics), 1 ounce of EM with 15 ounces fruit juice, fermented at room temp for 3 days. If I drink this EM concoction, even during or right after a meal, I don't feel bloated.

I think the difference is kombucha has acetic acid in it, while EM only has lactic acid. I think lactic acid doesn't interfere in digestion like acetic acid does.

More about the magical properties of EM here A Brief Introductory Note Regarding SAM Type 4 Microbial Consortia (including EM) and PNSB





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/2018 06:13AM by Prana.

@Prana. I went to that website on SAM Type 4 etc. Well, apparently it isn't so easy to make the high-test EM drink:

Next, if you choose to brew from the SAM Type 4 culture some of the a secondary product often known around the world as "activated EM", aka AEM, please be advised that, at least for subtle energy/ormus-like purposes, the stuff is next to useless, because, for these purposes, AEM, after brewing is done, is little more than lactic acid vinegar or lactic acid beer, and is largely lacking in the all-critical PNSB microbes which generate the subtle energy effects (what many in Japan call by the name "gravitational wave energy".) Rather, you will need, if you wish to accentuate subtle energy properties, to use more advanced and sophisticated formulas and processes to brew a customized SAM Type 4 brew, that, while it bears some vague resemblance to AEM, is brewed with far more ingredients and with far more sophisticated brewing techniques (and also for a far longer fermentation time) than is "traditional" AEM. In fact, I wrote a technical book a number of years ago which is devoted largely to advanced methods for brewing high-quality batches of customized SAM Type 4 fermented liquid products, including sophisticated nutritional brews, including some which exhibit rather powerful ormus-like effects. The book is entitled something like "Fermentation with Syntropic Antioxidative Microbes", and is distributed by SCD.

In any case, I want to try and make some of the EM drink that you mentioned was easier on your digestive system. Doesn't matter to me if the drink contains ormus-like subtle energy properties or not. I have tried kombucha and like the flavored varieties but thought that your drink sounds like it might be worth a try, too.

Can you direct me to a good brand of this EM-1 probiotic. Is it just as simple to make as you say? Many thanx.

Quote
Horsea
In any case, I want to try and make some of the EM drink that you mentioned was easier on your digestive system. Doesn't matter to me if the drink contains ormus-like subtle energy properties or not. I have tried kombucha and like the flavored varieties but thought that your drink sounds like it might be worth a try, too.

Can you direct me to a good brand of this EM-1 probiotic. Is it just as simple to make as you say? Many thanx.

Vinny is correct when he says trying to make an activated EM brew for human consumption that has sufficient PNSB concentration is difficult an requires expensive equipment and some lab skills.

On the other hand, making a fermented fruit drink with a 3 day fermentation is quite easy. The PNSB count will be no larger than the original count after you add the mother culture. But the lactic acid bacteria and yeast will propagate in those 3 days, and even with the dilution of the PNSB, you will still have the original ormus of the 1 ounce of mother culture that went into a 16 ounce brew. I highly recommend the mother culture from SCD Probiotics called ProBio Balance Plus ($30 + shipping for a quart). Alternatively, you can use SCD BioAg from Amazon with is $19.65 (that includes shipping) for a quart. I use SCD BioAg in my salad dressings and I drink it too.

@Prana. Many thanks for the information.

P.S. They say on SCD Probiotics that "We all have a digestive tract populated by a microbial ecology. We are not born with many intestinal ‘helpers’ or good bacteria. Instead, they must be introduced into our system via the food we eat and drink."

As far as I know, this isn't correct. So, I looked it up. Here is one result:

Where do my gut microbes come from? Do I just pick them up from my surroundings?

Partly. But it is more complicated than that. “It is still a little bit controversial but for the most part it is thought that we are sterile when we are in utero, and as we are being born, as we emerge through the birth canal from our mums, we get this handover bacteria,” said Cryan. “It is like a gulp at birth. Those bacteria are really important for starting the whole process.”


Cryan notes that during pregnancy a mother’s microbiome shifts, apparently to an optimum mix for offspring. “If you are not born by vaginal delivery, but are born by [caesarean] section, things start off being different,” he said. Indeed, studies have suggested that these differences could be one of the reasons why babies born by caesarean section have a higher risk of conditions including asthma and type 1 diabetes. That said, doctors have cautioned parents against attempting to seed babies born by caesarean section with vaginal bacteria...Our gut microbiome changes quickly over our first year or two, shaped by microbes in breast milk, the environment and other factors, and stabilises by the time we are about three years old

Everywhere I read that we are supposed to ingest fermented foods as a way of introducing healthful bacteria into our bodies. I don't think that this is the reason that virtually since Day One people have been fermenting food. Fermentation breaks food down into more manageable, easily digestible parts, that is all.

All probiotics (i.e. the bacteria in fermented food, or supplements) are notorious for not implanting in our guts. They may do some good as they pass through our digestive tract, but they don't stay there and set up house.

Just by way of discussion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/2019 07:14AM by Horsea.