From Kefir, With Love: An Irreverent Guide to Making Kefir and Healing Your Gut Naturally by Whitney Wilson

Author:Whitney Wilson [Wilson, Whitney]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2018-02-26T00:00:00+00:00

Lactose

Because the grains are a living organism, they need to eat just like humans do. All that is needed to keep kefir grains alive is lactose. That’s what they eat. Lactose is the carbohydrate, or sugar, in milk. The grains will slowly consume the lactose in milk over the 24-hour fermentation period. It’s for this reason that kefir grains are placed immediately into fresh milk once a batch is finished. Without milk, they are like a fish out of water—a grain without lactose.

Lactose is a type of sugar called a disaccharide. This means that it’s a combination of two different sugars: galactose and glucose. These sugars are found in all mammalian milks (like cow, goat, and sheep milk) and are a necessary component for a baby’s nutrition because of its ease of absorption. Lactose is replicated for use in many infant formulas, and pharmaceutical companies use its unique absorption properties to deliver the benefits of their medications. Word on the street is that lactose is even used to dilute heroin to produce a faster effect. That’s not the word on my street, but, you know, some other street… But don’t visit that street!

Like all other living things, kefir grains also create a waste, or by-product resulting from their metabolism. If we eat, we poop, right? Lucky for us humans, the kefir grains’ by-product has great benefits for us. Don’t worry, it’s nothing like our poop! When kefir grains consume the milk sugars, they release alcohols, ethanol, and CO2 (which is the reason for kefir’s fizzy nature). This is what gives kefir that distinct, tart flavor. All the sweet stuff is replaced.

Some of you may have a bad relationship with lactose, though. But kefir is great news for all you millions of Americans who are lactose-intolerant. There is an extremely low amount of lactose in kefir. Most people who suffer from the gas/bloating/diarrhea symptoms after dairy consumption do NOT experience these with kefir simply because most of the lactose is consumed through the fermentation process.[40] We’ll get more into this later, but for now, ice cream lovers rejoice!

Kefiran

Kefiran is a sugar found inside kefir grains. It is a water soluble exopolysaccharide that is unique to kefir. It’s basically a sugar structure that you can’t find in any other food. It is produced from the bacteria Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens. It’s made when one glucose molecule and one galactose molecule bond together. When this happens, it creates a gelatin-type structure. This is the thing that makes kefir thicker than the milk it’s made from. Kefiran is not quite as strong as something like gelatin, but it’s kind of like pectin that you would add to make your jams and puddings a bit thicker. Your kefir will never turn into a consistency like jello, but kefiran is the thickening agent that gives kefir that nice, thick, creamy texture.

Kefiran may be partly responsible for the unique health-promoting characteristics of kefir alone. Studies indicate that kefiran can have positive effects on lower blood pressure and cholesterol.[41] Other

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