Make your own Kombucha! http://wp.me/p5nnb-7pJ

[GiaK]

wasn't sure where to put this...please move it if this isn't a good place.

 

Kombucha can be made so that it is both caffeine free (use decaf black or green tea) and sugar free. It’s important for those of us with very sensitive systems to make it both caffeine and sugar free. Directions are below.

 

Kombucha is a probiotic beverage that helps repopulate the bacteria in ones gut. It is a potent medicine and a delicious beverage. People who are weak or unhealthy need to drink it carefully and in small amounts. Certainly if you are in active withdrawal syndrome of any kind it may not be appropriate until you are healthier. First you might want to add pro-biotic capsules and/or vegetable ferments as well as changing your diet to help heal your whole system. Adding too many potent pro-biotics too quickly can make you feel sicker if you’re in bad shape. Once one slowly adds beneficial bacteria and starts deeply healing the gut one can experiment with Kombucha too. If you’re healthy you don’t have much to be concerned about but start slowly anyway.

 

see rest of post which includes links and video on how to do it: http://wp.me/p5nnb-7pJ

[Nadia]

Right on! I make kefir and "water kefir" or "tibicos" which is kind of like kombucha. I use molasses, and let it ferment long enough that the sugar content is low. It does have a bit of alcohol, so I didn't do well with it at first, but then I felt it helped my digestion (though since I drink kefir every day as well, who knows where one ends and the other begins).

[Altostrata]

Very interesting. Doesn't green tea contain caffeine?

[alexjuice]

I'd be game to learn to make it. I used to drink it but it's the sugar of the store stuff is too much for me now.

 

I actually have heard that the GT's brand, the original I think, has no caffeine but it does have sugar. It is not made with green tea.

 

I sometimes drink weak green tea and have taken green tea extract supplements -- they have immune stimulating properties, humoral immune response according to the Th1/Th2Balance Hypothesis -- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12946237

 

Some say kombucha tastes odd but I like the taste quite a lot and have not noticed issue with the trace alcohol either.

[GiaK]

from the post:

 

Kombucha can be made so that it is both caffeine free (use decaf black or green tea) and sugar free. It’s important for those of us with very sensitive systems to make it both caffeine and sugar free. Directions are below.

 

and to get rid of the sugar the only trick is brewing it long enough for all the sugar to be eaten up by the yeast and bacteria.

 

you must use green or black tea...it's a necessary ingredient...but for an entire gallon only 4 or 5 tea bags are necessary...so even if you use regular tea (which I do not as I'm uber sensitive) the caffeine content is pretty darn low. If you use decaf, which works just fine because it's not the caffeine the bacteria wants.....its something else in the tea, in any case with just 4 bags for a gallon whatever tiny bit of caffeine in decaf tea is there becomes totally insignificant...

[GiaK]

oh...Alex...knowing how delicate your system is I'd be very careful.

 

even now I don't drink more than 4 oz at a time and not on a daily basis. For a long time I didn't have it at all...then I would have just one sip every few days. Now that I've been heavily pushing tons of ferments (only recently again, really) I can tolerate it and enjoy it again.

 

The ferments I make now are made in truly anaerobic conditions and seem to possibly have contributed to another sort of global improvement in me...(but I'm still really sick and it's unclear what is going on with me, so I say that tentatively)

 

in any case I completely changed the way I ferment my veggies and it does seem to have made a difference.

[KarenB]

Gia,

 

Now that you are some years down the track do you have any further thoughts on using kombucha or pro-biotics?  The latter give me instant w/d symptoms, but tiny amounts of the former seem fine for me.  I plan to experiment with some sauerkraut.  Just trying to find the best approach for myself in further gut healing.

 

Thanks in advance for any thoughts you may have,

Karen

[GiaK]

I don't do kombucha anymore, as much as I love it, but I do a wide variety of other homemade ferments and several different commercial sorts. 

 

Kombucha is a wild card for folks with yeast (candida) issues so best to avoid if that's a problem. I wasn't clear on what my needs were for a long time. 

 

Probiotics are critical to healing in a general sense, but I couldn't eat or take capsules for a few years when my sensitivities were the most extreme. Now I do a wide variety and generally cycle them ... my body actually lets me know what it wants and when. Sometimes I eat something for a while then need a break and I use other sources...that's pretty routine. 

[KarenB]

I have to say, I am generally in awe of how well tuned in to your body you are - so far beyond where I am that it almost looks like magic .  I will keep going with listening in and paying attention to what my body is saying.  Thanks for the inspiration GiaK. 

[Junglechicken]

My cousin makes Kombucha and says you buy the kit from a distributor.

 

She also makes her own yogurt, and is about to stop drinking coffee for 2 months in order to get her candida under control.

[KarenB]

Often you can get your 'mother' or 'starter' for free from people who've been growing theirs for a while.  Look on community noticeboards and things like that as people often have some to give away.