My Kefir Story

I used to be ill all the time.  Nothing major, but every year from October to March, I’d be a sniffling wreck, with tonsillitis one week, bronchitis the next.  Antibiotics were a common occurrence.  Some years ago, I was so poorly, I ended up in hospital with suspected pneumonia, on intravenous antibiotics. 

When I was home a few days later, a friend appeared with a jar of what looked like runny yoghurt.  “Drink this” she said, “it’s got good bacteria in, it will make you feel better”.  I was not particularly keen  - when she told me it was called Kefir, I had never heard of it and sniffed the jar suspiciously – it smelt acrid and farmyardy, not a good combination.  However, I had nothing to lose, so agreed to have a little bit every day.  She showed me what to do – to simply strain out the grains and add fresh milk.

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather.  After a few days I was beginning to feel “better”.  I put it in inverted commas because it is very difficult to define exactly how I felt better – maybe a spring in my step, more energy.  At first I was sceptical and convinced it was the plaebo effect.  After three weeks or so, I began to acknowledge that maybe the kefir was responsible.  I remembered that in my dim and distant past I had got a PhD in microbial genetics and decided that I should at least find out what Kefir was, where it came from and whether it really did have magic properties.

At that time, there wasn’t a lot of kefir information readily available in English on the internet – I spent hours trawling Russian websites using an early version of google translate, which lead me to work out that kefir was a type of fermented milk that had originated in the Caucasus mountains about 2000 years ago, and had until the early 20th century been the secret elixir of that region. It eventually spread to Russia, being used by the medical profession, and then further afield – in fact the Jewish immigrant father of a friend of mine used to make and sell kefir to an East London maternity hospital just before WWII.  (One assumes that when antibotics came along, we stopped being interested in fermented milk – little did we know that bacterial resistance would come back to haunt us years later).

I learned that kefir arose from the interaction between various microbes and yeast, and that kefir grains arose naturally and have never been created in a laboratory.  Fast forward to today and there are almost 1200 peer reviewed scientific papers on PubMed, so I am not alone in my interest. 

Studies have shown that kefir can have beneficial effects upon digestion, the immune system, blood pressure, blood lipids, dental health, bacterial infections, cancer risk,  skin etc….   Here’s one of the first diagrams I did, showing all its potential benefits

The reasons behind kefir’s health-enhancing properties lie not just in the variety of potentially probiotic ( useful to human health) microbes it contains, but in the vast array of end products of fermentation – vitamins, minerals, short chain peptides and organic acids among them.

But is it all too good to be true?  As with most research, bias abounds, and if you’re a kefir fan you might well be looking for data that supports your cause – but there really does seem to be some benefit far greater than a placebo effect could account for.  As with most things, it will be more effective in concert with eating well, exercising, sleeping etc…

From my own personal experience, though, since starting my daily kefir habit almost 15 years ago, I have never needed another dose of antibiotics (famous last words!), my sweet tooth is much reduced, and gaviscon isn’t something I need to own. 

I love the idea of safeguarding my health, and that of my family, with the simplest of things – fermented milk.  Takes seconds to make, but with effects that could last a lifetime. I’ve spent years working on how to make it taste delicious too – now it’s something I look forward to every day.  Of all of the fermented foods, it’s the one I can’t do without.

If you’re keen to give it a go, see if anyone you know is already making kefir – if so ask them for some grains, if not head over to the shop to get some for yourself.