Hi, I’ve just started getting interested in this clever guts stuff, and haven’t time yet to make my own Kefir. What brand would you recommend to buy? I’ve tried Bio-tiful, which says it is made with pasteurised cow’s milk fermented with live kefir cultures. How do I know it’s good? Having read a few remarks in the book about what is authentic and not?!

What is the context of the remarks about authenticity? Page number(s) if possible.

Dr Mosley describes kefir as “living communities of around 40 to 50 types of bacteria and yeasts” (p.208) You may not find this level of diversity in a commercial ‘fresh’ cultured milk product. Food manufacturers like controllability and reproducibility.

For the broadest range of probiotic microbes, eat a wide variety of traditionally matured cheeses: those from unpasteurised milk, rind washed, mould ripened etc.

I tried some shop brought Kefir but soon realised that making my own was much better. I brought some well reviewed kefir gains from Amazon. And have not looked back. My gut has benefited. My IBS is not cured but is very much better just 4 months on.
However if I was looking for grains now I would get it from someone in the Fermenting Friends Facebook group that I have joined. People are very generous and happy to share grains for just the cost of postage. The group is an excellent source of expertise and information on anything fermented from kefir to sourdough, saurkraut and beyond!

Hi guys,

I’m also interested in making my own Kefir after seeing the show and reading lots about it online. I bought some from my supermarket recently to try it and I found myself very badly constipated. I follow a low FODMAP diet for irritable bowel syndrome and I thought Kefir would be fine as the fermentation process converts the lactose to acid. I started small, with maybe only consuming 1-2 tbsp a day.
Just wondering if you experienced the same? Should I persevere?

Hello, I am no expert having just started myself, but I got some from a friend which had an after taste like vomit, so I threw that away and tried the powdered form you can buy on Amazon. This was OK, much more palatable, but people said it wasn’t as good as real grains. So I got some a few weeks ago from someone locally, as a friend had been on her sourdough course and the person in question supplies kefir grains for milk and water. These are very palatable, (so far!) I make smoothies with the milk kefir I make from these grains, i.e. put blueberries, strawberries, pineapple and banana in my NutriBullet and put the fermented milk in. Her details are wildbaker.co.uk and you can order them from her online.

Hope this helps! I don’t know anything about IBS etc though, sorry!

Flotty

I guess it all depends. The FODMAP diet while it definitely helps some people, its extremely restrictive..and the more you restrict the diet, the more you restrict the biome (=vicious circle). I’d suggest go through the rest and repair cycle in Michael’s book and then see if you can cautiously and very gently increase the diversity of your diet. KEFIR is pretty potent and maybe you should start more simply. Good luck!