Kombucha

[Phoebe]

What is this crap supposed to do and why on Earth are people paying so much money to drink it?

[Cazmonster]

Fermented things are good for putting beneficial flora back in your gut. I'm all about the kefir and the yogurt with the active cultures.

I've been debating rolling my own cultured pickles because I've got a basement where I could store a crock.

[Phoebe]

So is kombucha fermented tea? I feel like what one reads about it on the internet is not the same thing I am seeing in the grocery store and people drinking. That's my puzzlement. There's some blob of bacterial crud, and then what happens? Do you dip it in the water like a tea bag? Do you grow it like a sourdough starter? And apparently it's alcoholic in some small way. People at my work drink this semi alcoholic beverage, no wonder. It's like $4,000 for a teaspoon of it.

[Cazmonster]

You're close. The 'mother' is a culture of bacteria and yeast. It's added to a base of sugared tea. That mother will eat up the sucrose and poop carbon dioxide, fructose, glucose and some acids along with a little ethanol.

[Kyle]

So the efficacy of eating live bacteria is kind of sketchy (I looked into this when my Mom was hospitalized with CDiff). Everything gets killed in the stomach acid in your stomach and other digestive processes. In fact, that's one of the main purposes of those digestive processes. But a small amount can get through. The problem is the expense of probiotics versus the benefit- it's not worth it. As Caz says, do it through healthy natural sources- cheese, yogurt, produce, beans. Other "natural" things that cost a lot-- like kombucha-- fall into the probiotics category for me. Also, it tastes like shit.

My grocery store just installed a "kombucha bar" where you pay $12 for a glass jug and then fill it with kombucha on tap.

I'll pass.

[mimekiller]

You know you're in a hipster bar if they have Kombucha on tap.

[Kyle]

Interestingly, I just randomly came across this article that talks about the only type of food that gets microbes into your gut biome: fiber. Which makes sense- cellulose and fiber arenubdigestible and travel to the intestine relatively intact- with their resident bacteria relatively intact. Sonif you want yo improve your gut biome, eat a high fiber diet.

Link- https://www.popsci.com/how-to-eat-more- ... t-microbes

[Iantha]

Kyle's right - kombucha does virtually nothing for the microbiome. However, I just really like the taste so I have my own little micro-brew of kombucha, with scoby and all. Sometimes I put in cranberry juice, sometimes nothing, sometimes pear juice. I like the light carbonation it gets.

[Phoebe]

So does this mean you have some type of a thing in your fridge or wherever that's like a sourdough starter except for a tea? The whole thing is fascinating but I don't know that I would want to drink the results unless it tasted good somehow.

[Iantha]

I have a jug sitting on my counter with the scoby, and a cotton towel laid over the top. Every couple of weeks I pour off a bottle, leave a little in the bottom, and add more sweet black tea.

[Phoebe]

Fascinating. So did you obtain the starter from somewhere or did you grow your own bacteria? I guess there are a few kinds of bacteria that are most common for kombucha so you need to have something that provides a source of those particular bacteria. But perhaps different starters provide a different mix of ingredients. Relative to what Kyle was saying above, it's interesting that the tea apparently provides cellulose. I don't know how cellulose comes through the tea. I don't really know exactly what's in black tea after it's brewed. Another thing that's interesting is it has ingredients that may have a role in counteracting inflammation. This is one of those topics where I feel like I understand very little of the thing that the actual experts understand very little of already. But from what little I know the claims about these ingredients and inflammation are not unfounded. It would be nice to know how it actually works, and whether certain types of ingredients are better than others for this purpose. Are the things one would do to adjust the mix of bacterial ingredients? How do the companies that produce it get it all started? I have questions.

[Mike]

I think Kyle's implication is that only high fiber foods can effectively deliver bacteria, and since tea is NOT a high fiber food...

[Phoebe]

If it's a general claim about high fiber being the only way to deliver bacteria because the indigestible structures protect it, that doesn't seem right because some bacteria will survive. Some have highly sophisticated strategies for surviving that environment, and we wouldn't be getting some of our nutrients unless they could survive it. But generally - with no less respect to Kyle who is a smart dude - I would be more likely to defer to experienced legit doctors on the subject, some of whom advocate for other forms of probiotics beyond fiber as effective. Let's put it this way, it would be edifying to hear a debate about this from experts.

[Mike]

To be more accurate, I should not have said "only". Better would have been "most effective."

But your point is still taken.

[Kyle]

I am a doctor and an expert on this. But the wonderful thing about the internet is that you can have an edifying experience learning expert opinions whenever you want- if that’s something you actually want to do.

[Phoebe]

I do and I do. Luckily I am in a position to avail myself of such knowledge even without sifting the source materials of the internet, which is even better, since a non-expert is not the best person to reap the true import of the source materials of the internet. What I really want to know is about kombucha, because the internet is awash in crap about it.

[El Jefe]

I know that it tastes fucking awful, smells even worse, and does godawful things to your clothes when you find the inevitable broken bottle on the shelf. I willingly traded to get canned cat food over this section of awfulness. And there's nothing more annoying than stocking Fancy Feast.