Why Milk Kefir?
How this “magical elixir” inveigled itself into my life…
Unless you’ve been to one of my workshops, or read the into to my first book, you probably won’t know why I became an advocate for fermented foods in the first place, so let me enlighten you.
I used to be ill all the time. Every year from October to March, I’d be a sniffling wreck, with tonsillitis one week, bronchitis the next, maybe a touch of flu to spice things up a bit. Antibiotics were a common occurrence. Then one December, I was so poorly, I ended up in hospital with suspected pneumonia, on intravenous antibiotics.
When I was home a few days later, a friend appeared with a jar of what looked like runny yoghurt. “Drink this” she said, “it’s got good bacteria in, it will make you feel better”. I was not particularly keen - when she told me it was called Kefir, I had never heard of it and sniffed the jar suspiciously – it smelt acrid and farmyardy, not a good combination. However, I had nothing to lose, so agreed to have a little bit every day. She showed me what to do – to simply strain out the grains and add fresh milk. I treated it like medicine; I grinned and bore it.
Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. After a few days I was beginning to feel “better”. I put it in inverted commas because it is very difficult to define exactly how I felt better – maybe a spring in my step, more energy. At first I was sceptical and convinced it was the plaebo effect. After three weeks or so, I began to acknowledge that maybe the kefir was responsible. I remembered that in my dim and distant past I had got a PhD in microbial genetics and decided that I should at least find out what Kefir was, what these microbes were doing, and where it came from.
At that time, there wasn’t a lot of kefir information readily available in English on the internet – I spent hours trawling Russian websites using an early version of google translate, which lead me to work out that kefir was a type of fermented milk that had originated in the Caucasus mountains about 2000 years ago, and had until the early 20th century been the secret elixir of that region. It eventually spread to Russia, being used by the medical profession, and then further afield – in fact the Jewish immigrant father of a friend of mine used to make and sell kefir to an East London maternity hospital just before WWII. (One assumes that when antibotics came along, we stopped being interested in potential health benefits of fermented milk – little did we know that bacterial resistance would come back to haunt us years later).
I learned that kefir grains arose from the interaction between various microbes and yeast, and that they have never been re-created in a laboratory. Fast forward to today and there are almost 1200 peer-reviewed scientific papers on PubMed, so I am not alone in my interest.
Studies have shown that kefir can have beneficial effects upon digestion, the immune system, blood pressure, blood lipids, dental health, bacterial infections, cancer risk, skin etc…. Here’s one of the first diagrams I ever did, showing some of its potential benefits:
The reasons behind kefir’s health-enhancing properties lie not just in the variety of potentially probiotic ( useful to human health) microbes it contains, but in the vast array of end products of microbial fermentation – vitamins, minerals, short chain peptides and organic acids among them.
But is it all too good to be true? As with most research, bias abounds, and if you’re a kefir fan you might well be looking for data that supports your cause – but there really does seem to be benefit in many of the isolated areas studied that is far greater than a placebo effect could account for. As with most things, it will be more effective in concert with eating well, exercising, sleeping etc…
From my own personal experience, though, since starting my daily kefir habit almost 15 years ago, I have never needed another dose of antibiotics (famous last words!), my sweet tooth is much reduced, and gaviscon isn’t something I need to own.
I love the idea of safeguarding my health, and that of my family, with the simplest of things – fermented milk. Takes seconds to make, but with effects that could last a lifetime. I’ve spent years working on how to make it taste delicious too – now it’s something I look forward to every day. Of all of the fermented foods, it’s the one I can’t do without.
While cow’s milk is commonly used, don’t let that convention stop you - cows, goats, sheep’s, mares if you can find it, and soya all make lovely kefir. Some people like coconut milk kefir, but I am not one of them.
If you’re keen to give it a go, see if anyone you know is already making kefir – if so ask them for some grains, if not head over to the shop to get some for yourself - and do follow me on instagram for my almost daily fermenting lives.
Now, I would be absolutely fascinated to hear how kefir has OR hasn’t changed your life! Please do let me know in the comments
… However if you felt the urge, you could put a smile on my grumpy face and
Refs: Milk kefir: nutritional, microbiological and health benefits.
Rosa DD, Dias MMS, Grześkowiak ŁM, Reis SA, Conceição LL, Peluzio MDCG.Nutr Res Rev. 2017 Jun;30(1):82-96. doi: 10.1017/S0954422416000275. Epub 2017 Feb 22.PMID: 28222814
Interesting to read about your first experiences with kefir. During the 1980's my father (Jewish immigrant stock) started making it, and continued to do so for over 40 years. During the 1980s he spent many hours researching it, and although he was able to identify its origins, he was never able to find any scientific papers on it. Even academics at the local university knew nothing about it.
As a young adult, I was totally revolted by the huge, scary bowl of kefir that was always on the kitchen worktop. Friends used to recoil in horror. He used to leave it for several days - sometimes longer, and I refused to eat it. Many years later, probably after I'd started to help him out by making it for him - I began to realise I was an idiot and that he was onto a good thing. Much to his amusement, I began consuming it myself.
Occasionally his grains got into a sorry state but they always pulled through, and I'm still using them, more than twenty years later. Over time, they've waxed and waned, been shared with friends, given back to me, frozen, and neglected. I eat kefir every day and I love its taste. I also like the link it has with my father, and to his friends in the Wye valley that gave him grains all that time ago.
This piece is brilliant timing. I recently took up daily consumption of kefir (several months ago). I don’t have it alone I use it as the base to a wild blueberry smoothie and I toss in some chia seeds, hemp hearts and often saffron thread for good measure. There was no ‘reason’ for having daily kefir other than I read a clip somewhere about gut health. Good to see it is indeed great for you.