I hear a voice: “Okay, you’ve convinced me, I need to eat more bacteria. How should I do it?” Well, Tim Beneke writes:
I want to revise my comments of a few months ago on probiotics and breathing through my nose. The probiotic pills by themselves do not enable me to breath better though my nose, even if I take 2x the dose they recommend. However, if I eat a lot of miso, yogurt, tempeh etc., I can breathe better through my nose within a day or 2. Previously, when I ate a lot of yogurt etc. for a couple of weeks, and then just went on the probiotic pills, it seemed as if the pills were enough, but after a week or so of just doing the probiotic pills, the stuffed nose came back. Then just doing yogurt and miso, my stuffed nose went away.
The probiotic pills are called Acidophilus Pearls, said to have one billion CFU [colony-forming units] of lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidobacterium longum per capsule; I got zero noticeable effect taking 2 of them a day while eating virtually no probiotic food.
Doing 16 oz of yogurt/day plus one 480 ml bottle/day of kombucha, while consuming none of the Pearls enabled me to breathe much better through my nose within a day or 2.
I haven’t tried regularly eating fermented foods, but I did quit putting Splenda in my coffee after reading about how it seems to have been killing off bacteria in the guts of rats, so I can see if anything new happens to me off Splenda.
Just as another data point, when I eat more than ~10 oz. of yogurt in a day, my nose gets substantially blocked, in typical allergic response. Cow yogurt, goat yogurt, makes no difference. (I’ve been using Trader Joe’s’s “European Style” and “Goat”, plain, served with fruit.)
The response is different from orange, which clogs my throat too, and from cranberry, which does neither but raises tiny blisters on the backs of my hands and neck, and also from onion, which raises large blisters in my nose and sinuses. I haven’t found any medical doctor who knew a name for the latter symptoms.
@Nathan,
Too bad to hear about your extensive food allergies. Are you able to tolerate sauerkraut and other pickled vegetables like kimchi? If so, you should give those probiotics a try.
I was wondering about the relative effects of pills vs the real stuff. I recently started having yogurt, kombucha, and kefir daily and have felt much better (due to this blog, thanks seth). I do have a question about pasteurized vs non- kombucha. If it’s pasteurized does it lose the benefits?
I’m also trying to figure out if Carpe Diem brand is pasteurized, as it is the easiest for me to get. I can’t find the info definitively anywhere and they do not address the issue on the company’s website (as well as not answering my query I submitted to them.)
So far I just eat less yogurt, and more cheese. Cheese doesn’t cause me any difficulty. I mentioned it here because it’s clearly not the dairy causing the allergic reaction, but the Acidophilus. Bacterial exposure is manifestly not anything approaching a panacea.
After starting a new prescription med about 2 years ago, one of the side effects was that my appetite was drastically reduced, and when I did eat, I would have a mild upset stomach and a general ill feeling like mild car sickness.
I already often ate soy yogurt and kombucha, but not on a daily basis. Just reading your blog gave me an appetite for more and I started to consciously include lots of fermented foods in my diet. I tried milk keffir even though I’m vegan (didn’t like the taste). I likewise bought a cup of icelandic cow yogurt and goat yogurt at Whole Foods (these tasted good). I bought a case of Kombucha on sale for $1.50 per bottle, and I started loading up on soy yogurt at the grocery outlet. Heavy consumption of soy yogurt and kombucha showed some minor improvements in my digestion. But I like the way they tasted, anyway, so I wasn’t too worried that they didn’t cure me.
A couple months ago I started using a fermented oat/juice drink called “Good Belly” – I think this improved my indigestion and appetite more than the yogurt/kombucha.
After reading about Tim’s perceived success with pills, (which I had considered purchasing before, but had always chickened out over the price) I decided to spend the money and bought the cheapest kind. These really worked the best, as far as I can tell. Since my condition was digestional, instead of nasal, it makes some sense that a delayed release pill to get past my stomach might succeed in repopulating my tract with good bacteria. I took the pills daily for 2 weeks and this seems to have finished my indigestion permanently. Now i take one of the remaining pills when I remember, but it seems that after 2 years on stomach ailments, the pills permanently cured it (with the help of all the other fermented foods)
So while the pills may not contribute the allergy-symptom-fighting benefits of other probiotics, in my case I think they were an effective tool against my indigestion.
I should clarify: The intermittent use of Good Belly and the regimen of pills both started this summer, and that’s when I noticed the most improvement, even after I stopped taking both.
Socktopi – thanks for your input.
I’m coming from a background of digestion problems, and it is so inspiring to hear success stories like yours!
Thank you so much,
Best wishes!