Category: fermented food

Sickness After Starting to Eat Yogurt

Seth Roberts8 Comments

A friend writes:

As of today I’m getting over my fourth cold since I began eating lots of yogurt (maybe 1-2 cups a day, homemade), which was roughly in March of this year. So that would be a rate of about a cold every two months. On the one hand that sounds pretty terrible. On the other hand, a couple of things to think about:

1. I used to always get colds and other sicknesses as well. They just seem to be attracted to me. By my intuition, the current rate doesn’t seem particularly unusual, although I never kept track before. If anyone had a cold anywhere around me, invariably I got it. It’s been that way as long as I can remember, especially when I was traveling, as I have been during these last few months.

2. Each of the colds I have had in this last eight month period has been remarkably short. Really remarkable, so I will remark, by way of example, that this cold came out of the blue yesterday evening with a fit of sneezing. I hadn’t felt bad at all earlier in the day although in retrospect it’s possible I was a bit worn down (or maybe not: I took a half-hour swim in the late afternoon and felt pretty good). So I sneezed my way through an evening, nose dripping like a faucet. Before going to sleep I took some sort of medicine for cold symptoms (maybe something made by Bufferin maybe? Night/day something…), and in the morning I took the same thing (day version). During that whole time I was still pretty symptomatic: sneezing, nose dripping etc., but I guess the medicine might have been somewhat useful. Now here it is 2:30 in the afternoon and all of a sudden I realize my nose is dry and I haven’t sneezed for hours. I reckon this is about the end of the cold: less than 24 hours. The other three were like that as well: very quick onset, then disappearing almost before I could have time to realize I had a cold. For me this is particularly noteworthy because in years past I always seemed to get the worst of the colds, going on for days and often progressing into a hacking cough that would linger for weeks.

I suspect if my friend improved his sleep he would get see further improvement of these measures of illness. In this study, the frequency of sickness episodes went down for workers given a probiotic but their duration, when they happened, didn’t change — perhaps because it was nice to be away from work.

After I copy-and-pasted that, I got sick. It wasn’t sickness as most people know it. After an afternoon walk (1 hour) I felt tired; that was the first sign. After dinner, I felt really tired. That was an unmistakable sign. I went to bed early, slept about 8 hours (1-2 hours more than usual) and woke up rested. But an hour later I fell back asleep for 15 minutes. At that point I was sure something was wrong. I had a class that morning starting at 10 am. Should I cancel it? I got much more tired and, about two hours before class, was too tired to get out of bed to turn off the beeping yogurt maker. Okay, I’ll cancel class. I phoned the TA to cancel the class but he couldn’t — he had a bad cold. I phoned a student and she phoned the other students.

An hour later, however, I felt much better. By class time I felt well enough to go to class, although I walked rather than ride my bike. (The student did her best to uncancel the class.) In the afternoon I took a long nap (1.5 hours). The next day I was just barely more tired than usual. Today I feel completely well.

I was sick, yes, but without chills, runny nose, sneezing, sore throat — without any discomfort at all unless feeling tired counts as discomfort. And I felt distinctly more tired than usual for only about a day. I think this is what happens when your immune system works properly. You fight stuff off much faster than the five days or so many people take to get better. Before I figured out how to improve my sleep, I got the usual 4-6 colds per year. After I started to sleep much better, I never got sick in the usual runny-nose way so long as my sleep was good. The current episode is striking to me because I was more sick — that is, more tired — than usual. I do only two things to make my immune system work better: (a) improve my sleep in several ways (eat animal fat, get plenty of morning light, stand on one foot); and (b) eat plenty of fermented foods (mostly yogurt, but also miso, kimchi, natto, and kombucha).

The Alternate Universe of Fermented Foods

Seth Roberts3 Comments

In the Afterword to Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov wrote that in his books he tried to create an alternate universe “where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.” Fermented foods are now a big part of my food world and I remain amazed how different they are from ordinary foods. They are in another universe:

Temperature. To make ordinary food requires high temperatures. You need always be careful that you don’t hurt yourself. Fermented food requires no higher temperature than a hot day.

Deliciousness versus health. With ordinary food there is the tradeoff we are endlessly familiar with: If it tastes good (ice cream, chocolate, cookies) it’s bad for you. If it’s good for you — spinach, carrots, cabbage, brown rice, soy products — it doesn’t taste so great. Anyone who thinks raw food tastes better than cooked food is ignoring history. Whereas fermented food tastes great and is incredibly healthy. (This point has been missed at any number of otherwise great American restaurants, such as Chez Panisse.)

Price. In Berkeley, heirloom tomatoes cost a lot more than ordinary tomatoes. They taste a lot better, too. Perhaps, being organic, they are healthier. The general rule is that better food costs more. An apple costs more than a Coke, etc. Whereas fermented food is often dirt cheap. Kombucha is practically free. For 5 teabags and a cup of sugar, you can make a lot of kombucha. Ordinary milk is cheap but to me at least nutritionally worthless. Whereas yogurt is gold. They cost the same.

Time. Ordinary food takes minutes or no more than an hour or two to make. Fermented food takes somewhere between a day (yogurt) to a month (kombucha) to longer (wine, cheese).

Difficulty. In my experience, it isn’t so easy to prepare a delicious meal if you’re not using fermented food. With fermented food it becomes so much easier. And the result is far healthier, I’m sure.

Need for refrigeration. Fermented food goes bad very slowly at room temperature. Not so ordinary food. I once visited a New York pickle store/factory. No electricity.

You can read a great novel again and again, yes, but not every day. After I read Lolita four or five times, it lost its power over me. But I can happily eat fermented food at every meal, day after day and — judging by other food cultures — year after year.

Use of Probiotics in Hospitals

Seth Roberts5 Comments

A Canadian company named Bio-K+ makes lactobacilli-based probiotics — mainly a fermented milk drink, like Yakult but with different bacteria — that hospitals can use to reduce antibiotic-related diarrhea (a common side effect of antibiotics) and C. difficile infection, a less common but far more serious side effect. In this 2007 study, the probiotics reduced the rate of diarrhea by half and reduced the rate of C. difficile infection by a factor of 7 (from 7 cases to 1 case).

How the company started. Thanks to Anne Weiss.

Yogurt and Seasonal Allergies

Seth Roberts3 Comments

This comment on a previous post deserves emphasis:

For the past 3 years or so, a co-worker and I would suffer spring allergies together. We seemed to be allergic to the same thing, because we’d start and stop at the same times. This year, we both got whacked hard late April. Desperate, I started eating yogurt (Breyers mostly, some Danactive and Stonyfield) every day, sometimes twice, after reading your blog and doing some research. About 8 – 10 days later, I noticed I had no symptoms. My friend had light symptoms, so I thought maybe it was just a lull. Then about 2 weeks later, my friend got pummeled by allergies again, very badly; he could hardly work. I had NO symptoms. I didn’t even realize it was a bad day for allergies until he showed up to work. I haven’t had any allergies since.

Yogurt-Making Results

Seth Roberts18 Comments

I’ve been steadily using my new yogurt maker. It’s like a microscope: I can see things I never saw before. I started with the recommended fermentation time: 12 hours. Then I did batches at 16, 20, 24, and 28 hours. The yogurt grew steadily more sour. The increase was remarkably clear. I am unable to find this crucial info anywhere on the web — that 28 hours produces more sour yogurt than 24 hours, etc. By making my yogurt much more sour than commercial yogurt I’m getting a lot more of the crucial ingredient (bacteria).

The results are so clear, I think, because I’m starting with a hyper-pasteurized product (which can be stored at room temperature) and the yogurt maker holds the fermentation temperature very constant. Constancy of temperature means constancy of selection means greater population. (The theory behind the Shangri-La Diet says the main reason for the obesity epidemic is that we’re eating food with exactly the same flavor from one instance to the next — from one can of Coke to the next, for example.) If the temperature is 120 there is selection for bacteria that grow best at 120; if the temperature goes down to 110 many of those bacteria die and are replaced by bacteria that grow best at 110. If the temperature goes back up to 120, those bacteria die . . . and so on. More temperature variation means more diversity of bacteria but less number of bacteria. I’ll get my diversity of bacteria elsewhere — from kombucha, say.

I suspect that commercial yogurt makers are time-limited. If they fermented twice as long they could only make half as much. The average yogurt buyer has no idea that more sour = more healthy, so they couldn’t charge more.

Although the yogurt maker’s box shows the machine set to 32 hours, the actual maximum time is 24 hours. To get 28 hours I reset it during the process.

The official website of the National Yogurt Association, aboutyogurt.com, contains nothing about how to make yogurt.

The Salton Yogurt Maker might be the best yogurt maker available in America. I can’t tell if you have to preheat the milk — the worst part.

More Does more sour = more healthy? I agree with the two commenters who suggest that the number of live bacteria probably goes down after a certain point as the mixture becomes more acidic. The number of live+dead bacteria, however, probably continues to increase. My guess is that the total live+dead is maximized when the yogurt is most sour; the number of live bacteria is maximum around the tme that the acidity is most quickly increasing, somewhere in the middle. I think the digestive benefits come only from live bacteria but that the immunostimulatory benefits come from both live and dead bacteria. I find it hard to believe that the immune system can tell whether bacteria it encounters are alive or dead.

Probiotic Health Claims Dismissed

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From BBC News:

General health claims for “probiotic” drinks and yogurts have been dismissed by a team of experts from the European Union.

Their opinions will now be voted on by an EU Committee which is drawing up a list of permitted health claims.

Scientists at the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) looked at 180 health claims for the supplements.

They rejected 10 claims and said a further 170 had not provided enough evidence of their effects.

The manufacturers of best-selling yogurt drinks Actimel and Yakult have submitted claims that will be considered at a later stage.

The difference between “rejecting” a claim and saying “not enough evidence” isn’t clear.

Miso Shopping in Beijing

Seth RobertsLeave a comment

In Beijing I have no kitchen, just a microwave oven. Which is enough to make miso soup. Which I can eat happily day after day.

But I need miso. In Tokyo I bought miso far better than what I used in Berkeley and now cheap miso isn’t good enough for me. Finding high-quality miso in Beijing is turning out to be hard, even though there are many Japanese students in my neighborhood. Today I went to a Japanese-owned department store with a food market. They had hundreds of Japanese foods, including plum wine, natto, Japanese pickles, sushi ingredients, seaweed crackers, and black milk (whatever that is). But they didn’t have miso. I have no explanation; the local hypermarket (Carrefour) had low-quality miso.

If you know where to get good miso in Beijing, please let me know.

Chinese Yogurt Maker

Seth Roberts17 Comments

I got a Chinese yogurt-making machine. Here is an example of what it looks like. I got the ACA VSN-15B but the 15A is almost the same and far more available (in Beijing). It cost about $20; the simpler VSN-15A costs about $10. You put 1000 ml of milk plus 50 ml yogurt starter (e.g., commercial yogurt) into a container and just start it. You can ferment it as long as you want. The instructions recommend 8-12 hours.

What interests me is (a) how easy it is and (b) the high quality of the result. I’ve made yogurt dozens of times without a special machine. It’s not hard, exactly, but it isn’t easy, either. You need to preheat the milk to denature the proteins, then let it cool before adding the starter. The denaturing phase takes a few hours and a different heating system (microwave oven) than the fermentation phase (ordinary oven). The final result isn’t as thick as I like unless I add milk powder — another not-quite-easy step. (Given problems with Chinese milk, I would never use Chinese milk powder.) Using the yogurt machine the texture is excellent (thick and creamy) without adding any milk powder. I suspect the final product is so much better because the proteins are more completely denatured. Maybe 2 hours at 150 degrees denatures a much larger fraction of the protein than 180 degrees for 5 minutes, for example. Another possibility is that I was using too much starter and that less starter produces better results. (How could that be? Perhaps with less starter you get more genetic diversity as it grows, which allows it to becomes better adapted to the particular milk and temperature you are using.) Perhaps a steadier temperature allows better adaptation to the temperature. You add hot water around the container to help steady the temperature.

I still need to experiment to get it as sour as I like but I can get it as thick as I want just by draining it. It’s not exactly the universal condiment but it’s close; tonight I had it on leftover dumplings.

All in all, a ten-fold improvement over what I’d done before. The big improvements: 1. So easy I can do smaller more frequent batches (in Berkeley I did at least 2 quarts at once), thus need less storage space. I also suspect the bacteria are more active soon after fermentation, so more frequent is better. 2. Requires much less attention. The mental cost of each batch is less. 3. Produces much better yogurt. 4. No more milk powder. 5. More energy efficient. (Using the microwave, I nearly boiled the milk, then heated an entire oven just to keep the yogurt warm while fermenting.)

Effects of Probiotics on Kids

Seth Roberts4 Comments

As I previously blogged, a recent study in Shanghai found that schoolchildren given milk with added bacteria had fewer colds than children given milk without added bacteria. The study was funded by Danisco, a Wisconsin company that makes bacteria-containing (“probiotic”) capsules. Obviously they want to sell more of their product. But ordinary yogurt probably produces the same result. Aaron Blaisdell told me this:

Since introducing yogurt into my daughter Maggie’s diet on a daily basis about 5 months ago, she’s gotten far fewer colds, and those she did get were milder.

I asked him for details.

Maggie is 4 years old. She eats a bowl of Traderspoint Creamery whole milk yogurt (from grassfed cows) each day. She started day care since 4-months old and now goes to a pre-school. She used to get a cold about every other month (6-8 per year), but since we introduced yogurt daily to her diet about 6 months ago, she’s only had one cold as far as I can remember and it was very mild. Even the cough which used to last a month or two after she recovered lasted only about a week or two.

How much yogurt was she eating before that?

I think she had yogurt once or twice a week for the six months prior to introducing it daily. Before that it was even rarer. We introduced it a few times between the ages of 2 and 3 years old, and after initially liking it for a day or two she would then reject it thereafter. The reason she eats it every day now is because I put Ovaltine in it (about a teaspoon).

Did he make other changes at the same time?

I also try to sneak fermented high-vitamin cod liver oil into the yogurt, but I can only do this if I make it while she isn’t looking. I also put 2-4k vitamin D3 (Carlson’s drops) into it if she isn’t looking when I make it. Also starting at the beginning of this year I switched from organic pasteurized milk to raw milk. I can’t think of any other significant changes in diet, except that I continue to try to cut down on the amount of cereal and crackers she eats and increase the amount of eggs and cheese instead.

Let’s hope she doesn’t read this!