Next time you see a “designer yogurt” commercial on TV, picture what that would have looked like 4000 years ago in the desert, with nomads carrying pouches of cultured milk! I suspect there weren’t any catchy product names in those days. But people knew that milk would turn into yogurt under certain circumstances, and a new health food was born without any marketing executives!
Kefir is a product much like yogurt that has similar health benefits; it contains different strains of bacteria and isn’t as thick. The starter cultures you can buy contain the specific strains of healthy bacteria that give these foods their healthy properties
Those good strains of bacteria are called probiotics: pro (for) and bio (life), so probiotics are literally life-giving, active organisms that help support our digestive health and immune systems.
We know that antibiotics kill bad bacteria because they are anti (against) bio (life). Sometimes that is necessary to control infectious microbes. But we must remember that antibiotics kill all bacteria indiscriminately. They also wipe out the beneficial strains of bacteria that the intestines need to do their important jobs, as we will see.
The Gatekeeper
When you chew a piece of chicken, for example, the mechanical action of chewing along with enzymes in your saliva begins to break the food down. Then, more enzymes in the stomach break down the food even further. It’s because of this natural food processing that you don’t have pieces of chicken floating around in your blood! Instead, the protein in the chicken is broken down and ends up as amino acids in your small intestine.
Think of your digestive system as a long tube going from your mouth to your anus. In one sense, it is actually “outside” your body because it doesn’t interact directly with your internal organs. Substances must first pass through the intestinal lining to get into the bloodstream and be carried to all the tissues of the body.
However, the digestive tract is also more than just a tube. It’s actually a whole complex ecosystem filled with living microorganisms–mainly bacteria and yeasts–that co-exist there in a healthy balance. It’s like other natural ecosystems where health and harmony are maintained as long as nothing interferes with the natural balance of the inhabitants.
The intestinal lining is an intelligent “gatekeeper.” When healthy and functioning properly, it only allows nutrients (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose) into your bloodstream. It also keeps foreign invaders and waste material out. Whatever isn’t usable will be part of your next bowel movement. This is the way the system works when digestion is healthy.enough probiotics in their intestines. When the balance of good and bad bacteria is disturbed, the intestinal lining becomes “leaky.” Then leaky gut sets us up for many health problems including candida overgrowth. It is not only candida that is a problem, but also the eggs or larvae of worms that can
then pass through the intestinal lining.
How Do We Heal a Leaky Gut?
Healing the gut requires improving the diet, and the most important aspect of that will be to repopulate your intestines with healthy bacteria: probiotics. That will help restore the intestinal lining so it can do its gatekeeper job properly.
You can buy probiotics in capsule form from health food stores, but make sure you get a high-quality product. Or, simply make your own yogurt or kefir to ensure that you’re getting live, active cultures; this is very easy and also inexpensive! I love my yogurt with fresh berries in the morning. I add the berries to the plain yogurt just before eating.
Homemade yogurt is much better than all the sugary, fruit- flavored yogurt products in the supermarkets these days. Those products may not even contain active cultures because livecultures would feed on the sugar and give the yogurt a tart or sour taste. Making your own plain yogurt and adding fresh fruit for sweetness gives you a much less-expensive and much healthier product!
Here’s to life, with probiotics!
Take care and smile!
Louise Grenier
