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yogurt

Latta Love

August 16, 2013 by gracefulfitness 9 Comments

I’m not shy about my adoration of bacteria.   The “good” kind stole my heart about three years ago when I was recovering from an illness that landed me in the hospital (in China!) and on 3 different antibiotics.

I’d flirted with the lil guys before, been a big yogurt fan most of my life and started drinking kombucha way before it was a household name.   My dad taught me about miso soup (“add the miso at the end and don’t boil, it will kill off the good stuff”) and lacto-fermented pickles back in the ’90s when he was on a macrobiotic diet.

But it wasn’t until that fateful summer of 2010, when my poor body was wrecked from 18 months of third world countries (so much bacteria! not all bad but very foreign!), a possibly life threatening kidney infection, and a good dose of antibiotics that I truly started to admire and respect bacteria.

I started making kimchi, saurkraut, kombucha, kefir soda, and eating more miso.  And of course eating lots of yogurt, even started making it too to save money and use the best quality (grass-fed) milk I could get.

I’ve noticed a HUGE improvement in my health since I started eating cultured/fermented/good-bacteria filled foods.

One of the few cultured foods I never really got into was the yogurt-like dairy kefir.  I like my yogurt thick and substantial, the kefir I’d had in the past was always too thick to enjoy as a drink and too thin to eat with a spoon.   And honestly, I just didn’t get it, I thought it was completely interchangeable with yogurt.

But I have an open mind and have become much more adventurous and accepting with my eating habits lately.   Latta, a company making traditional Russian kefir, offered to send me some samples right as I was dealing with Lyme disease last month and in turn on antibiotics*.

*As you probably know, antibiotics kill ALL bacteria in the stomach, as they eradicate the “bad” ones the good ones get taken out as well.   Our health, as in our immune system, relies on the “good” bacteria of the stomach to be flourishing and balanced, when it’s less than stellar all kinds of nasty can occur, including most commonly yeast infections, elimination issues. And, turns out, skin break outs!  My skin was horrible for 2-3 weeks after my 10 days on doxycycline.

I lika Latta a lotta!

Awesome things about this company; their kefir is thick and creamy with a similar consistency to yogurt and they offer kefir in both organic and grass fed categories and all their kefir is certified gluten free.

So now that I was a kefir convert I still didn’t understand why it was different than yogurt in terms of nutrition.

Here’s the deal.

While yogurt and kefir both contain probiotics, or helpful bacteria, the types of bacteria are different, with kefir having many times more total bacteria than yogurt.   In this case more+different=better.

The fantastic all-things-fermented company Cultures for Health has some interesting information if you want to learn more on kefir vs. yogurt.

Do you have a preference between yogurt and kefir?

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Posted in: DIY, environmentalism, Fermented Food, food, super foods Tagged: cultured food, fermented food, good bacteria, kefir, Latta, probiotics, yogurt

Kitchen Fever

January 17, 2013 by gracefulfitness 5 Comments

Every few weeks I go on a kitchen rampage.

Over the course of an hour or two I bake, broil, chop, whip, cook, and stir up all kinds of food treats.

This little food tornado always results in at least a few fermented goodies and Tuesday’s rush was no exception.  With flu season in full thrust (Tate ran a 103* temperature for two days!) my brain is swirling with ways to boost the immune system and fermented foods are, in my humble opinion, one of the best. The Cheese Slave has a great post on the benefits of eating fermented food.

I made Kimchi!

Kimchi is an acquired taste, one that I now crave!  It’s tangy and spicy and a little stinky (in a good way!) and adds tons of flavor to whatever you eat it with.  I try to keep a jar in the fridge and eat a small serving several times a week.

Miso Soup!

Tate was so sick on Tuesday!  He mentioned something about chicken noodle soup in his delirious state and I made my equivalent (I’ve never eaten or cooked a chicken in my life). Heavy with veggies, garlic, ginger, and seaweed this was one Super Miso Soup!

Yogurt!

Making yogurt is easy and cheap!  And yogurt is an easy, accessible  delicious way to get probiotics in everyday.

What is your first line of defense when it seems like everyone around you is going down hard and fast?  I try to follow the ‘lots of fluids’ rule and get plenty of rest in addition to eating as nutritiously as possible.

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Posted in: cooking, Fermented Food, vegan, vegetarian Tagged: fermented food, kimchi, miso soup, yogurt
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I am Faith Levine, a movement instructor, home gardener, mountain biker, hiker, pickle maker, closet poet, and best of friend to some of the most amazing women in the world.

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Hi, I'm Faith! New? Check out I Am for my story, I Cook for recipes, and I Move for some motivation to get moving! I'd love to hear from you, e-mail me gracefulfitness@live.com
Header photo: Meredith Coe

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