Diabetics Need Probiotics – Part 2

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

Diabetics and obese people need this life-giving information, as do those who want to lose the post-pregnancy bulge or remain at normal weight! I am continuing this series, for friendly intestinal flora (probiotics) are crucial for health and life itself.

Be sure to read the first articles at:
Probiotics for Diabetics and Pregnant Moms – Intro
Diabetics Need Probiotics – Part 1

Serious issues for all diabetics are nutrition, immunity and energy.

Diabetics’ cells are actually being starved — of nutrition (even though they may eat well) and consequently,  starved for energy production. Probiotic bacteria in kefir* actually help produce nutrients; help your body absorb nutrients; help reduce stress on the immune system and provide tools for immunity.

South African, Ingrid van Heerden, D.Sc. is aware of her country’s great need for strong immunity, as they fight rampant AIDS, as well as winter influenza strains like Swine Flu.  She recommends supplementing with friendly bacteria as “probiotic containing foods like kefir are important for maintaining a strong natural defense system because they stimulate the production of immunoglobulin in the intestines, which improves the body’s immune response”.

Facts to know:

___ Your intestinal tract is colonized with more than 100 000 billion  micro-organisms.  So, there are approximately 10 times the number of micro-organisms in your body than there are your own body cells!

___ You have about 300 – 500 different strains of intestinal flora; only about 50% of the species are known to mankind.

___ Kefir generally incorporates more known friendly bacterial strains than yoghurt does. It’s milk-based source will be an easier transition in daily diet use than many other healthy probiotic foods. Kefir is  especially good as an option for children and the elderly, as it it more digestible than other milk-based products (even better than yoghurt) due to lower curd surface tension.

___   As fewer babies are being breast-fed, and as fewer people continue to get friendly flora from raw, washed vegetables and fruits as well as kefir and yoghurt, more intestinal problems and body-wide health problems are arising, at all ages.

___ Mothers given kefir from the first tri-mester onward were able to lose more post-delivery weight than Moms who were not given kefir, a Finnish study showed.

___   Kefir helps weight loss.

___  Lack of exposure to these friendly micro-organisms is a likely cause of rising incidence of allergies and asthma.

___   Receiving probiotics via mother’s milk is one of the best ways to get your life-time resident population, says Bengt Björkstén, Professor of Allergy Prevention and Paediatrics, Centre for Allergy Research, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.  Encourage your new Moms to breast feed!

___   Your friendly bacteria need the foods inulin and oligofructose available from the soluble and insoluble fiber in vegetables to feed them and help them stay healthy!  Foods which provide excellent sources are:  chicory endive, artichokes, asparagus, salsify, leeks, onions and garlic.  But, all vegetables help, to varying degrees, as these are important fiber components are available in 36,000 varieties of plants.

___   Additional sources: honey (only careful use by diabetics), rye, banana, maple sugar (again, careful use by diabetics), oats and oat bran.

___   Just the  inulin and olifofructose fibers are fermented by specific, friendly bacteria in your colon, to make a positive change for you and them! They stay healthy and increase their colony size, which is important as they are your immune systems first battle-line troops. And, they make important B vitamins for you, to help you with nerve health and to combat stress, and the friendlies help you absorb calcium better. They also help to keep your intestines at the correct pH levels.

___   When the balance of microbiota is disturbed, the person involved can become susceptible to disease. You have to have the friendly bacteria in sufficient numbers to fight off the harmful, even life-threatening, bacteria.  Several factors, like stress, altitude changes, erratic eating patterns, improper foods, lack of proper foods, parasitic organisms, food additives, chlorinated water, diarrhoea, and use of antibiotics, could contribute to such a disruption.

___   Several studies have shown that we need 1 – 10 billion bacterial cells of a specific strain for a probiotic to be effective.  First colonization begins from the birth canal, but with increasing incidence of caesarian births, this process may not happen well or at all.

Next chance for proper inoculation is through breast milk, but we have to increase the numbers of Moms who are breast-feeding!

After that, discuss using kefir with your pediatrician, when your baby is allowed new foods, and from then on, have you and your baby taking probiotics daily, and have the rest of your family using them too!

The colonization process speeds up noticeably once solid foods are given.

Probiotics are critical if your baby (or adults) are prone to diarrhea.

___   If you are using a cow-milk based formula to feed your baby, research has shown that “ongoing treatment with probiotics can help to break down the milk sugar, improving the baby’s lactose tolerance. The colonies of good bacteria will re-establish and provide the natural digestive assistance needed.”

And, as pasteurized cow-milk is implicated in the destruction of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas in Type 1 diabetes, this is something to discuss with your pediatrician! Newborns have been shown to safely tolerate treatments with probiotics, so talk this over with knowledgeable medical professionals.

___   Research shows that our modern lifestyle and fast-food diets are not conducive to healthy intestinal flora colonies. Period!

So, I encourage you to start incorporating more probiotic foods into your diet.

* Probiotic food choices are:

kefir

active, live culture yoghurt (read the labels!)

slow-made, naturally fermented sauerkraut or pickles — home-made or Bubbe’s brand

tempeh

miso

natto

kim chee

probiotic supplements — acidopholous and bifido bacteria strains, minimum

Be proactive. Only you can turn your health around.

Best to all — Em

(c)2009 Em http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com

Please use the About Me page to contact me re-quoting from or using my article. Please respect my copyright. Thanks.

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Diabetics Need Probiotics – 1

“Everyone Knows Someone Who Needs This Information!” (TM)

“Listen-up!” diabetics, pregnant Moms, breast-feeding Moms, overweight people,  pre-diabetics and those with digestive troubles — go out to the health food store or supermarket and get some plain kefir, now! You’re about to learn about a food which can change your life (or your baby’s life!).

You’ll be able to use the kefir you purchase in a recipe or two below, by the end of the weekend, and get yourself going on a better path to Health.

Firstly, a quick overview and a reminder to read last week’s post (if you haven’t already). Kefir is a cultured milk product, more beneficial than yoghurt because of the microflora strains it contains (some products have 7 – 10 strains, whereas yoghurt usually only includes 2 families).

Probiotic bacteria are important because these microflora make critical products for your immune system and nutritional well-being. Different strains make and behave differently.

Normally, you have about 300 different strains of bacteria in your gut, and those double in number one or two times a day. About 10 – 12 pounds of your body weight is this intestinal colony! If you are healthy, most of your colony consists of healthy families but, if you are unwell, then more of your colony is bad-guy types. They may or may not be ones to kill you, but they will age you or make you ill.

As diabetics are starving for nutrition (much of your nutrient reservoir is robbed by extra urination and lack of enzymes), and as all babies’ guts are sterile when born (and must be populated by “seeding” through the mother’s milk), having the right probiotic bacteria, in the right ratios is critical. Probiotic foods can populate your gut with the friendlies you require.

Mom’s have only about a 2 – 3 month window to largely determine their child’s intestinal profile for life. The intestinal bacteria blueprint ratio is almost as individual as finger-prints, and is remarkably stable unless you know you must change it and work to do so.

Reasons you might need to help: if you become seriously or chronically ill or chronically stressed (then self-regulation tends to break down — as it does when you eat poorly, too).

The Ayurvedic medical texts of 5,000 – 6,000 years ago already tell of the benefits of fermented milk saying that ‘fermented milk leads to a long and healthy life’!  Pliny, the Roman historian writes in 76CE that he was treating gastro-intestinal infections with fermented milk.

Now, when I say “fermented” milk, this is a very specific,  purposeful, cleanly-cultured food product, not just some left-over or random happenstance.

These properly fermented, pro-biotic foods — slow fermented sauerkraut (usually not made commercially *), natto, miso, tempeh, slow fermented pickles *, kim chee, yoghurt, kefir, lait ribot (from Brittany, in France, which uses buttermilk, rather than whole milk) — provide beneficial bacteria to keep your body healthy in many, many ways which we’ll learn here, over time and several articles.

All of these are traditional foods e.g. lait ribot has been made in Brittany for thousands of years, well back into the time when it was made there by tribes of Gauls.

It is important to eat these foods in ways which keep the beneficial bacteria alive, as they run the gauntlet of  dashing through your stomach acid, by potent bile and much more, to hopefully arrive, safe and secure (and still in large numbers) to make a home in your small intestine, daily.

Like any other living organisms, the friendly microflora are killed by freezing and boiling and oven temperatures, so even though there are lots of recipes for ice-cream, soups and muffins etc. etc. understand you are compromising getting live inoculations to boost your intestinal colonies, if you use those cooking methods.

However, if you use kefir in these types of recipes, the product will still be superior to using plain milks, as the friendlies have already increased the actual nutrition in the milk, while they were alive, even if you kill them later.

I prefer to try to walk the middle path, and use my kefir cold from the refrigerator. So the recipes I feature in the photos above are cold soups. The middle-ground for ice-cream and parfaits, is keep it soft and not really as ice-cream, if you want to keep some of the friendly bacteria alive. Adding and pureeing some frozen berries goes a long way to accomplishing that, rather than putting the kefir in the freezer.

Kefir is likely a Turkhish word derived from “keif” meaning “good-feeling”. Kefir is pronounced “k’feer” but many mispronounce it as “kee-fur”.

Using a purchased culture of “kefir grains”, it can be made from many types of milk, as well as super-healthy young coconut water (and an Australian has even made a water version that behaves like a healthy “champagne”).

But, kefir must be made by the actual grains, which are removed and re-used, so you cannot use a commercial kefir as a “starter” the way you can with yoghurt, as the dairies removed the grains of kefir before they bottled it.

The first site I remember coming across about kefir was probably Dom’s when he started in about 1999. You can still learn more there than just about anywhere else. The reference is below. Starters are available from Donna Gates, at bodyecology.com

More on kefir and probiotics — how they help; why you need them; how they can retrieve your health will continue next time. Meanwhile, here’s a quick cold soup – two versions.

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Em’s Spring Green Kefir Soup

In a blender or food processor:

2 English cucumbers – washed and chunked

1/3 – 1/2 small yellow onion, peeled and washed

3 medium size garlic cloves, sliced somewhat

2 giant pinches of rough-chopped fresh dill (tops and stems)

Blend all of these ingredients — taste. Add more onion or garlic if needed. It’s impossible to say how much as some onions are very raucous (but the strong flavor comes from sulfur, which is why they are healthy!). The same is true about garlic. You can always add more, but having too much at first is almost impossible to undo.

After you decide if you want to add some sea salt and / or some cayenne pepper, you are now ready to add the kefir.

1 quart plain kefir

Combine gently, without using the blender … remember, we’re trying to keep these helpful little-guys alive!

Serve immediately with a dash of chives.     Makes about 2 quarts.

VARIATION:Swirling Gazpacho Kefir Soup

for every portion of Spring Green Kefir Soup, add half again as much organic tomato juice, just into the center of the green soup. Gently swirl.

For example: 8 oz. green soup + 4 oz. tomato juice.

You can also add a dash of Worcestershire sauce and an 1/16t of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, if you find the need. It will be more like a Bloody Mary, then!

Why I used these ingredients and how they’ll help you:

The cucumbers help alkalize your tissues.

The onions provide sulfur to make potent detoxifiers.

The garlic is a natural anti-viral and anti-bacterial, if it is raw.

The dill is for flavor and the B vitamins all green leafies have.

The sea salt will alkalize. (Do NOT use regular table salt!!!)

The cayenne is important for your heart and circulation.

The kefir will provide all the probiotic, live, friendly bacteria families.

The tomato juice will provide other anti-oxidants, especially helpful ones for eyes.

If used, the Bragg’s apple cider vinegar (or Spectrum — only those brands) will alkalize (yes, you read that right. I leaves alkaline ash, after metabolism.)

The lemon juice will alkalize (yes, it’s citric acid, but as note above, for metabolic ash).

Worcestershire sauce is just for flavor, put if you use an Asian Fish sauce, instead, you will get some beneficial enzymes, if it has not been overly processed.

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Experiment with smoothies, but, again, whirl everything before you add the kefir, as much as possible. Some great smoothie recipes – Dom’s

NOTES:

Read last week’s Introduction to Kefir and to bowel health and to the opinions of Dr. Mercola and Dr. Ron Rosedale

* In America and Canada, Bubbe’s Brand is properly slow-fermented and available in many health stores and some supermarkets.

And, CultureBiota is an artisanal food maker in Portland, Oregon with the same kinds of slow probiotic products, truly traditional foods. Health stores will generally have healthier and organic forms of the Asian foods, but check out Asian groceries, too, for miso, tempeh and natto, as well as kim chee.

Preferably, consider Nancy’s brand of kefir, as it is made with milk from grass-fed cows and uses low-glycemic agave for sweetener.

Note, kefir has a very mild laxative property, which many people need.

You should definitely include kefir as part of the regimen when taking anti-biotics and for up to a couple of months after them.

Naturopathic physicians recommend kefir over yoghurt for those with digestive problems because kefir has very low curd tension, which makes ir very digestible.

Kefir has the potential to be a potent help in cancer prevention due to its high concentration of lactic acid.

LINKS:
Use for starter culture source for kefir grains

The most comprehensive kefir site I know – Dom’s

Traditionally fermented foods – CultureBiota

(c)2009 Em http://diabetesdietdialogue.wordpress.com

Please write for my permission to quote from or use my article. Thanks for respecting my original work and copyright.

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