fermentation

[Roger B]

I have been doing kefir fermentation for the past 2.7 years. I have drank as much as 5 legal cups of kefir every day for months on end. It has been nothing but good for me. It provides enzymes and prana and probiotics and prebiotics and excellent proteins and fats. It compensates for the pasteurized milk that most of us are stuck with or can afford.

Fermented foods are universally acclaimed. They are a traditional food; those that ate fermented foods thrived. Those that didn't had trouble keep up. Fermenting veggies is one of the best ways to enhance one's health. I have done plenty of veggie fermentation also. I have eaten veggies that were months old without any problems whatsoever, including any problems associated with taste. Your gut microbiota is the most important consideration when thinking about nutrition and health at the physical level.

Consider that most of you have been spending all of your time studying homeopathy, a MOST noble endeavor. But, consequently, you have NOT had the time to spend on nutrition, which I have for the past 9 years, intensely. Nutrition study is mostly a dispensing of old paradigms and an embrace of new paradigms. And, once new paradigms are embraced, one might think through them. Ayurveda and traditional Chinese Medicine are also helpful in this regard of paradigm comparison.

Roger Bird

[Ellen Madono]

I totally agree. I study nutrition and I think most homeopaths do too. Everything can't be healed with homeopathy. Hahnemann called those other huge factors the maintaining causes.
Best,
Ellen

[Irene de Villiers]

It seems there are different strokes fro diferent folks in ths as well.

Same with cats (bear with me here) : In cats, so far 22 different "fermentale fibers" - ones eaten by intestinal bacteria so that they can manufacture butyrates, propionates and acetates for organ support, plus B vitamins.

ONLY 3 of te 22 are of any use in cats. Also, whatever way you look at it, it is NOT the bacteria ("probiotics") that matter - you only need one bacterium with the rght food- it is the fermentable fiber they eat, (("prebiotc") that REALLY matters.

So as with cats - humans need fermentable fiber that works for them. Dfferent ones for different blood groups.

In my case (and I do have a weird more primitive blood type combination) fermented products merely make me ill. I can scarcely tolerate yogurt. However I find that drinking Chia - UNfermented - keeps my system happy.
I've tried all kinds of fermented drinks, always wth horrid results. So I am a Chia fan:-)

So the important part is not the fermentation so much as the substrate the bacteria need.
Fermentation itself DOES release some nutrients into the fermented food - but the maximum benefit is from internal fermentation using an appropriate substrate (prebiotic).

Namaste,
Ierne
REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[Ellen Madono]

Hi Irene,

Are these fermentable fibers the plant fibers of raw veggies? Obviously, cats are carnivores so they would not do well with lots of plant fibers. Which plants produce the fibers that cats can digest? I know you can give them pumpkin. I am guessing the choice is based on what is cheap and available in the US. I am using an Asian squash in homemade cat food, and she really likes it. But, liking it doesn't mean it is good for her I suppose.

Is this fiber specific blood group information related to all the talk about eating the foods that are right for your blood group? If that is true, I take it that you do not fit the blood group profile. Blood group typing has never made much sense to me.

Best,
Ellen

[Irene de Villiers]

Hi Ellen, Good questions...
The idea is not to find what cats can digest, but to find what will be eaten by the bacteria in their gut, instead of beig digested.

Pumpkin/squashes (gen squash has been specfcially tested - needs to be yellow squash and very well cooked), rice bran, and beet fiber (not beet vegetable, just the fiber) are the best ones for cats to use as prebiotics.
Rice bran is also a superfood for humans. We digest it well and it is loaded wth nutrients including a fat profile comparable to Extra virgin olive oil - but wiith far more B vitamins, and beta sitosterol (like roto rooter for blood vessels)..

The ones in commercial cat food are terrible, things like cellulose, psyllium husks and any other agricltural garbage that someone wants to get paid to dispose of for profit. These have no fermentability in cats. That's terrible because cats RELY on gut bacteria for the things WE get from plants. So cats in USA nearly all die of kidney failure - if FIP does not get them first.
Not necessarily, (I see cats hooked on poisonous plants for example) - but in this case probably yes
Probably but the blood group research is in its infancy and the "devil is in the details" as usual.
It helps to combine the blood group research, the genotype research, Perricone's research etc, and common sense.

It's necessary to type in more detail than most do - to integrate with genotype diet, and to realize this is a BROAD category, and we each belong to a narrower one.
I do then find all that research useful to me - very - needs to be applied well.
So I use my major blood type, Rh type, secretor type, and genotype...
so that's four types which narrows it down a lot.
I then elminate anything that does not agree with me, and add in things that do.
(We all have hidden genes that affect us as well as the visible ones. I know some of mine from genetic knowledge of my parents' blood groups etc - and I also take note of what my grandparents ate and what health they had (excellent on meat/cheese/milk and fruit farming).
So where blood type diet says no dairy for me - I thrive on it, and adjust my diet approach accordingly.

DO not use any diet as "gospel". ALL of them are based on generalizations - you need to adjust for individuality.
Blood type diet never claimed to be an exact science - it is based on averages and majoriities. Nobody is average:-)
Use them all as a GUIDE. Or look into WHY a specific thing is said to be ill advised for a blood type - the reason may or may not apply to YOU. "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater" - use the blood type system and genetoype systems with care - find the baby- toss the bathwater - there is good value in there if you work at it.
You can find the PRINCIPLES of any system and apply them to your individual plan, wtih benefit.

Namaste,
Irene

REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[Roger B]

Even I, foolish Roger, can remember shortly after my nerve got pinched around April of this year, I can remember thinking that some homeopath that I was considering seeing, she required patients to write up their entire diets for the past week. I thought, oh what a dummy I was, I thought that she was just trying to expand her business by pressing patients for their diets. But after much more experience since then, including watching my healing take off like a dragster after I started getting enough magnesium and boron and Vitamin Bs (thank you Irene), and after I thought about it for a while, I realize now that there is NO HEALING without a proper and healthy diet. You can design buildings until you are blue in the face, and you can scream at your contractors and workers until you are red in the face, but if you have no bricks, concrete or other building material, then NO building is going to be built.

Roger
________________________________

To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: ellen.madono@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:16:05 +0900
Subject: Re: [Minutus] fermentation
I totally agree. I study nutrition and I think most homeopaths do too. Everything can't be healed with homeopathy. Hahnemann called those other huge factors the maintaining causes.
Best,
Ellen

[Tanya Marquette]

my understanding is cats eat about 5% vegetable content.
in nature they get most of that from the stomachs of beasties they forage
I also see my cats nibbling on select grasses. many people grow wheat grass indoors for their cats.
I had a guest cat 2 yrs ago who ate the top off one of my dracena plants when he first arrived.
my daughter has a cat that eats her house plants which she has to hang high to protect them.
winter squash seems to work okay with cats.
I once had a cat that would eat all my leftover salad—except radishes. she would nose them out
of the way. it was really interesting to watch her pick and chose what she ate. she also liked
spicey dorito chips but not potato chips.
t
From: Ellen Madono
Sent: Friday, November 15, 2013 4:11 AM
To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Minutus] fermentation

Hi Irene,
Are these fermentable fibers the plant fibers of raw veggies? Obviously, cats are carnivores so they would not do well with lots of plant fibers. Which plants produce the fibers that cats can digest? I know you can give them pumpkin. I am guessing the choice is based on what is cheap and available in the US. I am using an Asian squash in homemade cat food, and she really likes it. But, liking it doesn't mean it is good for her I suppose.
Is this fiber specific blood group information related to all the talk about eating the foods that are right for your blood group? If that is true, I take it that you do not fit the blood group profile. Blood group typing has never made much sense to me.
Best,
Ellen

[Roger B]

Music to my ears. I have always thought that probiotics is a win only for a short while, but what we should really be eating is what the micro-buddies like. I noticed that when I boosted my B-vitamins per your suggestion that my poop got MUCH healthier and bigger and whatever constipation was still present became utterly gone.

But also remember that any so-called probiotic food must necessarily be a prebiotic food to some extent, otherwise the micro-buddies couldn't be living in it.

So, Irene, tell us about prebiotics.
Roger Bird
________________________________

To: minutus@yahoogroups.com
From: furryboots@icehouse.net
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:12:39 -0800
Subject: Re: [Minutus] fermentation
It seems there are different strokes fro diferent folks in ths as well.

Same with cats (bear with me here) : In cats, so far 22 different "fermentale fibers" - ones eaten by intestinal bacteria so that they can manufacture butyrates, propionates and acetates for organ support, plus B vitamins.

ONLY 3 of te 22 are of any use in cats. Also, whatever way you look at it, it is NOT the bacteria ("probiotics") that matter - you only need one bacterium with the rght food- it is the fermentable fiber they eat, (("prebiotc") that REALLY matters.

So as with cats - humans need fermentable fiber that works for them. Dfferent ones for different blood groups.

In my case (and I do have a weird more primitive blood type combination) fermented products merely make me ill. I can scarcely tolerate yogurt. However I find that drinking Chia - UNfermented - keeps my system happy.
I've tried all kinds of fermented drinks, always wth horrid results. So I am a Chia fan:-)

So the important part is not the fermentation so much as the substrate the bacteria need.
Fermentation itself DOES release some nutrients into the fermented food - but the maximum benefit is from internal fermentation using an appropriate substrate (prebiotic).

Namaste,
Ierne

REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[Irene de Villiers]

"Understanding" - from where please?

Cats have a simplistic liver NOT capable of digesting ANY plants or herbs. Their liver simply lacks the enzymes to break down the cmplex plant chenicals nto usable smaller componebets, leavubg hte large and complex antioxidant molecules to act as toxins.
In most cases any plant eaten by a cat is a toxic substance that depletes their antioxidants, in order tot ry to detoxify it. You can hardly feed a worse cat diet than all those "holistic" human styled foods sold as cat food, containng blueberries, potato, garlic, rosemary, yucca and whatever sounds good for a human antioxidant diet - as these destroy cat antioxidants instead of adding to them, and they predispose struvite crystals and they destroy kidney tissue. Not great! It's one reason kidney failure is the leading cause of death )except for wild cats - they are smarter and do not stalk blueberries and potato - not grass.

Cats are designed to use gut bacteria to manufacture the things that omnivores and herbivores get from plants.
In the wld, cats will run the guts of prey through their teeth to get the contents out. Those contents contain the essential prebiotics and probiotcs they need - VERY much after digestion and absorption of the food elements by the prey - there is NO raw plant in sight to cause pH changes, struvite, kidney damage, or to deplete antioxidants due to undigested antioxidants. The prey takes care of all that before it gets to the gut.
No they do not "get plants" - much less 5% of the diet!
They get the leftover bacterial mush of well digested leeftovers only. t's a VERY dffernet pcture for the dangerous raw plants. (dangerous to cat health)
That is becasue they are craving the folic acid that their gut bacteria are NOT making but should be making.
They chew grass to get some folic acid. They cannot digest the grass. The juice contains water-soluble folic. The grass itself is either vomited out or passed through the gut to the outside. It is not digested.
They would do better to feed them a suitable diet. Their gut NEEDS the prebiotics and probiotcs MUCH more than humans do - they have NO other source of many nutrients - unlike us.
In the wild, cats get plenty of prebiotic and probiotcs from prey - and nobody is feeding them herbs and other toxiins out there to kill the essential gut bacteria or add poisonous veg, herbs, and fruit to destroy the nutrients they do have. So they make plenty of B vits and do not crave them and consequently do not need to eat grass in desperation for missing gut health products.
Lucky to survive - that - and most house plants - are very toxic to cats.
To protect the cat actually!
It is a fermentable fiber - helps to cook it very well - and use SMALL amounts. It's just to feed bacteria, - not a food for cats. It is good becasue of its carotene content whih is very accessible to cats in well cooked squash/pumpkin (unlike carrots). Cats need 12 times as much carotene as dogs need - they get it from prey guts in the wild - you may have seen how birds eating blueberries etc, practically pooop predigested blueberry - the predigestion being important - as it is toxc to cats undigested.
It's telling you what is missing in the cat's diet.
When they are forced to get gut bacteria products from other sources, their short chain fatty acid manufacture in the gut, goes into backup mode and the cat is doing survival rather than being healthy - the butyrate production goes down way low and the immune system is very vulnerable, as propionate and acetate in high amounts do not support healthy metabolism as butyrate does.
Potatoes have three cat toxins in them.

I do not know what to say about spicy tastes in cats.
Except I had one cat who just LOVED to eat ants. He knew they were full of formic acid (stuff used to etch glass by the way!) and he'd stalk an ant in the floor cracks, nab it, - and bite it while scrunching up his entire face, eyes closed tight shut and shuddering his head at the taste - then swallow, look very pleased with himsef - and stalk the next one.

I figured - he's a carnivore - it's low volume - they need a very acid metabolism - I HOPE he knows what he is doing!
I sure did not.

I also had a cat who stole an entire very large slice of a rich fruitcake - she ate the whole thing I presume - I never found a sign of it anywhere, nor did she show any indigestion. She also liked to taste my very spicy curry meat.
Maybe our indoor cats tend to experiment with what the local "topcats" on two legs eat.

We learn more as research moves S L O W L Y forward with cats. Nobody has a financial reason to do the research so it is little and seldom - but the answers always start with the words - We THOUGHT(such and such....) .....but it turns out "CATS ARE DIFFERENT..."

Namaste,
Irene

REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

[Irene de Villiers]

Yes exactly.
It helps to give them some PABA along with the prebiotic. They use it as a kind of starter fuel from which they can make other B vitamins.
PABA - para amino benzoic acid - find it with the B vits at the HF store.
Once a good colony is established and well fed in the gut, then they will make their own PABA.

Re prebiotics for humans. I have not studied the research on which work for whom in humans - if such research has even been done properly - , and suggest looking at the blood type diets as a start but just experiment with what works. My main work area is animals - so I have studied the ones for dogs and the ones for cats, both having been researched - and which by the way are vastly different. What is good for dogs can be useless to cats - or bad for different reasons. For example lactulose is used by dogs but it is OVERused - produces too much fermentation and that rushes the gut contents through too fast, losing nutrients. Lactulose for cats is cruel - it does not work for ther bacteria for fatty acid production at all - but it will produce large quantities of very painful gas. (Yet vets will prescribe lactulose for ALL species coming their way with gut issues, and wonder why they do not get right......)

Same in people - one substrate will make gas, another will do nothing or diarrhea or constipation - it's a balancing act to find the right one (and the right amount, though the amount is less critical than first finding the one that works optimally). I came across chia in my case quite by accident - wanted to know what all the fuss was about concerning chia - and tried it

Namaste,
Irene

REPLY TO: only
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."