There are a lot of things that we need to know about probiotics or as what we know as “good” bacteria. Check out the article we found at Probiotics Mercola.
The most important thing to do before focusing on probiotics.
For probiotics to do their job, you must optimize the conditions where these “good” bacteria will live and flourish. This starts with nourishing your microbiome with real food.
The purpose of probiotics, whether in food or in supplement form, is to help balance your ratio of beneficial-to-bad bacteria in your gut. If you eat processed foods or foods with added sugars, they will do the opposite of what you want: they will nourish the potentially pathogen bacteria in your gut and crowd out the beneficial bacteria. The bad guys love simple sugars!
On the other hand, pathogenic bacteria can’t thrive on and derive the energy they need for growth from healthy fats, proteins, complex carbohydrates, and fiber-containing foods. When you focus on eating real food that isn’t processed or doesn’t contain added sugars, you’re supporting the growth of your good, beneficial bacteria.
The best sources of probiotics may not be what you think.
If you ask a person whether or not they consume probiotics, you’re likely to get an answer similar to this, “Oh yes, I eat yogurt every day”. A whopping 44 percent of people who eat yogurt do so for health reasons.
While yogurt is a traditional source of beneficial probiotic bacteria for your gut, today’s commercially mass-produced product is much different from yogurt made with cultured raw milk, either at home or from a trusted source. Many yogurt products aren’t even real yogurt!
The majority of the yogurt sold at your local store is made from factory farmed, pasteurized, homogenized milk that may contain Monsanto’s genetically bioengineered hormone rBST, also know as rBGH, that’s injected into dairy cows to boost milk production.
Pasteurization uses high temperatures to destroy bacteria present in the milk. If the manufacturer has added the probiotics before pasteurization, there will be no live cultures left in the finished product. If probiotics are added after heat treatment, you have a better chance of receiving some live cultures.
Commercial yogurts also typically contain substantial amounts of sugar or other sweeteners, including artificial sweeteners. One 6-ounce carton of a popular brand of yogurt contains at least 20 grams of sugar! Because sugar feeds pathogenic bacteria, eating this type of sweetened yogurt most likely cancels out any potential benefits from the small amount of probiotics it may contain.
Many brands of yogurt tend to offer a limited variety of probiotic strains. The more strains, the better, as different strains work in varying parts of your gastrointestinal tract. Not all strains can tolerate the harsh acidic conditions within your stomach.
The best real food sources of probiotics.
So what’s a better food source of probiotics than most commercially produced yogurt? Cultured yogurt and other dairy products that have been traditionally fermented work well to nourish your microbiome.
An excellent way to get healthy bacteria from your diet is to make your own homemade kefir from raw milk. Simple to make, just add some kefir starter granules to a quart of raw milk and leave at room temperature overnight. Ideally, choose unpasteurized raw milk.
Kefir is inexpensive to make, once you’ve acquired the raw milk. You can reuse the kefir from the original batch about 10 times before you need to start a new culture pack. One package of kefir granules is enough to make 50 gallons of kefir. Plus, one quart has far more active bacteria than a probiotic supplement!
Next Article: The Best Antibacterial, Antiviral And Immune-Boosting Drink That We Can Make
Read Full Article: A Guide to Probiotics – 7 Fast Facts You Should Know
Marc Piscaer
Jun 01. 2016
Whoever makes blanket statements that “GMOs are safe” are either corrupt or quacks. Hypothetically, if you engineer a crop to produce more vitamins, it can be healthier. If you engineer a crop to produce cyanide, it can be deadly. Saying GMOs are safe is as dumb as saying chemistry is safe. It depends what you do with it. Such a statement should set off alarm bells. Now onto what Monsanto is doing with it as it concerns the western market: Glysophate in GMO foods kill bacteria/fungi. These 10s of trillions of bacteria/fungi that live in and on us form what is called the micro-biome. We are made up of more bacteria than human cells. They are essential for our health. These thousands of different strains in a healthy person should weigh slightly more than our brain (avg 4.4 lb) – which is ironic seeing that it produces 90% of our serotonin (the “happy” neurotransmitter) (1) and functions with the same importance as an organ. An unhealthy gut microbiome may lead to obesity, chronic inflammation (which can lead to things like cancer and arteriosclerosis: heart attacks/strokes) (2) , autism (in animal studies) (3), depression (4), anxiety (5), obsessive compulsive disorder (6), stress (7), nutrient deficiencies (8), leaky gut (which may causes slow digesting proteins like gluten and milk casein to pass into the blood partly undigested – triggering an immune response) (9) and numerous other problems. Many of these problems have been on a steep rise since GMOs have been introduced in the mid 90s (10).
The microbiome’s importance to our health is not in debate. The fact that glyphosate kills bacteria through the Shikamate Pathway is not in debate either. All conducted in vitros studies show that Glyphosate is more toxic to friendly bacteria than pathogenic ones (11), potentially causing a negative change to the micro-biome overtime. Due to legal bribery and a revolving door paradigm between Monsanto and the regulatory agencies (i.e Michael Taylor – Monsanto VP now Deputy Commissioner for Foods at the FDA) “Roundup” GMOs now are allowed to have far more GLYSOPHATE THAN IS TYPICAL FOR VITAMINS (40mg/kg) because it has been deemed safe. But tests have mainly used short term acute toxicity measurements like LD50 or animals with short life spans. Industry often points out that the acute toxicity of Glyphosate is less than caffeine. However, that should only be a small part of the safety assessment. For instance, the acute toxicity of Lead is also less than caffeine. Would you chose to drink lead water every day over a cup of coffee? The truth is that there are too many unknowns here. Glyphosate ready GMOs offer no benefit to the consumer. Until long term, independent studies are conducted directly on human microbiomes – which until now have yet been done, despite industry using 650,000 tons a year, why take the risk with our health, and in particular the health of our children? Please watch this excellent TED talk on the microbiome by a leader in the field, Prof Eissen of UC Davis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27lMmdmy-b8
Sources:
(1) http://www.caltech.edu/news/microbes-help-produce-serotonin-gut-46495
http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(15)00248-2
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166432814004768
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25078296
(2) http://www.nature.com/articles/nature05414.epdf?referrer_access_token=xT2UDQTK2UNuKeWj2_HAvtRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0P_gm4ZxZUZ6NodVj5RFo8V2DLr1fQS5v6HcfIbRyE1hJC_CPvpTjibvwr1bOkbOCbLbOShpwd4xFf8oOopcNLkZbn3kxc1B1CfYtKNJfWVgOriAnF8X3__afkDVb_ese4pXtfUjoy6YrAFzA3YwdVpcdJZFM1cCHBi0D7uyzLcQNB20G1WZyK_JPYAcwYJ2Ns%3D&tracking_referrer=www.huffingtonpost.com
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112373/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4112188/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4487407/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/joim.12476/ful
(3)
“I think there is now sufficient proof of concept where people can start to look at probiotic bacteria to improve brain function in humans,” says gastroenterologist Stephen Collins of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada”
http://www.nature.com/news/bacterium-can-reverse-autism-like-behaviour-in-mice-1.14308
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-bacteria-may-play-a-role-in-autism/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564498/
https://sfari.org/updates-and-events/sfari-news/2016/sfari-launches-spark-an-online-research-initiative-that-aims-to-recruit-50-000-individuals-with-autism
(4) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25415497
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-health-may-depend-on-creatures-in-the-gut/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/inner-source/201411/the-gut-microbiome-anxiety-and-depression-6-steps-take
http://www.seeker.com/autism-pesticide-link-found-in-calif-study-1768739610.html#news.discovery.com
http://www.nature.com/news/gut-brain-link-grabs-neuroscientists-1.16316
(5) http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00213-014-3810-0
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-health-may-depend-on-creatures-in-the-gut/
http://www.nature.com/news/gut-brain-link-grabs-neuroscientists-1.16316
(6) http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/apa-2016-coverage/ocd-and-the-gut-is-there-a-connection/article/496849/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26629974
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24332563
(7) http://www.psyneuen-journal.com/article/S0306-4530(12)00093-5/abstract?cc=y=
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24281320
(8) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3144392/
(9) “We don’t know a lot (about leaky gut) but we know that it exists,” says Linda A. Lee, MD, a gastroenterologist and director of the Johns Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center.”
http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/features/leaky-gut-syndrome
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4604320/
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1440-1746.2003.03032.x/full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22109896
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2886850/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945755/
(10) Note that Glyphosate was only introduced in the mid 90s, and only grew to significant levels about 10 years later as can be seen on the first graph (which compares it to Autism rates):
https://www.google.ca/search?q=autism+mit+glyphosate&biw=1024&bih=667&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8m5zsyYPNAhVVKFIKHRGxB9gQ_AUICCgC&dpr=1#imgdii=QITw-I95MLUOsM%3A%3BQITw-I95MLUOsM%3A%3BirclAs22dkIVQM%3A&imgrc=QITw-I95MLUOsM%3A
http://www.niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/strategic-plans-reports/Pages/burden-digestive-diseases-in-united-states-report.aspx
https://www.google.ca/search?q=digestive+problems+rate+us&biw=1024&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiI_PiizIPNAhVDEVIKHXxyDeIQ_AUIBygB#imgrc=u4FKiTQUS-uP9M%3A
(11) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23224412
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1075996413000188
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC213615/
https://nas-sites.org/ge-crops/2015/03/20/webinar-april-6-microbiome/
*How Glyphosate ready GMO soy differs from conventional and organic soy:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814613019201
How Glyphosate GMOs contain less micronutrients (several factors) and why there are likely no yield increases :
http://www.growersmineral.com/crops/indepth-articles/glyphosate-and-micronutrients
Mother Nature Approved
Jun 01. 2017
Who else loves natural products ?