Thanks for checking out my video. A question I get asked from time to time. I get asked about fermented and cultured foods. Patients often ask me is Kefir any good for thrush? Is it any good for a yeast infection? Will it be beneficial for me? How do I take it? How do I make it? What does it taste like?
I’m going to do over time a series of different videos on Kefir and explain a little bit more about it, but Kefir is quite an interesting substance. The name Kefir really originates from the Caucasus region in Russia from the 1880s. Like Bulgaria, the Russians and the Ukrainian people have long known about cultured milk. Now how this came about really a long time ago is milk would have been kept in skin bags and, of course, it soured over time. And then people started to realize that it didn’t taste that bad. And it, in fact, improved things like gas, bloating were improved by having this substance.
Back in the 1880s, they had no idea about bacteria. They didn’t know about lactobacillus, acidophilus or bifidobacterium, propanol bacteria, they had no idea, but they knew that this sour stuff stopped gas and bloating. This is called empirical observation. Empirical observation is very important and we know that people have had sour products going back hundreds of years.
Why I like Kefir. Not because I’m Dutch and I like saving money like some people think. I like Kefir because you can use it again and again and again. The grains basically keep growing, so once you’ve made this culture, you use some grains. It’s basically a lump of it. It looks like a cauliflower lump when you look at the grains. It’s basically lipids. It’s like fats and proteins and carbohydrates with different beneficial bacteria mixed in there. When kept at room temperature in a medium which contains enough lactose like a milk sugar in there or kind of sugar, it will feed on the sugar and create lactic acid. Kefir is about 25 percent lactic acid. And lactic acid is extremely good stuff for the colon to develop and to build beneficial bacteria on.
When you have Kefir in your diet, make darn sure that you eat also food for the Kefir’s bacteria. With lactic acid is going to help produce the bacteria, but they’ve got something to grow on. And this means eating the right kind of fibers in your diet. There’s no point in having a piece of pizza and a glass of beer and then having a glass of Kefir thinking you’re going to do yourself good. You’re wasting your time. If you’re going to have Kefir in your diet regularly, make sure you eat good vegetables. Plenty of good vegetables containing fiber, green vegetables, lots of green vegetables. It’s going to really help you a lot. And there are other kinds of soluble fibers you can have, too, in your diet. Go and check out my article about soluble fibers, insoluble fibers, on yeastinfection.org.
When you do Kefir, you start slow. Don’t start with a pint a day like 600 mils. You’re going to get quite sick if you do that. And many patients have contacted me with bloating and diarrhea, vomiting, nausea because they went hard out with these sort of foods. Always start slow. If you came to me and said, “Eric, I haven’t been to the gym before, but tomorrow I’m going to go. I’m going to work out three hours and then the following day, I’m going to work out for three hours and go for a five-mile hike.” I’m going to tell you you’re crazy. Because you’re going to hurt like hell. You wouldn’t do that because you know you’re going to hurt. But the thing with Kefir, people often will go out and make Kefir and start drinking three or four glasses a day and then complain to me they’re getting sick.
Remember, you’re changing your interior environment substantially and that could really upset the beneficial balance and the unbeneficial balance of bacteria and make you feel quite spaced out and sick. Many people think they get die off when they take these foods, but they don’t. What they’re doing is they’re creating a really big struggle between the good and the bad in their digestive system by starting out too hard out. Start out with a small amount. And I’m talking maybe a tablespoon, if that, per day. Maybe for the first week if you’ve got a bad yeast infection and gradually build up; 250 mils or a cup is not out of the question. It’s quite good to have.
Kefir is exceptionally good for thrush. It’s also really good for women who are breastfeeding because I know that it works well for infant’s oral thrush. I know that it works also for jock itch, vaginal thrush, toenail fungus, intestinal systemic yeast, and any kind of yeast infection. Use Kefir. Also what you can do is soak a cotton bud in it, squeeze it out and dab it around the jock itch areas or around the vulva if you have irritation there. It works quite well.
And I know some patients who actually soak their feet in a Kefir solution and swear that it works fantastically.
Do use Kefir. It’s a premium, premium food to take into your diet if you’ve got a yeast infection. You can’t go wrong. Thanks for your question.