Unlock the Secrets to Wellness: A Comprehensive Look at Collagen, Kefir Making, and the Microbiome

This episode is brought to you by Nourish Me Organics, your gut health super store. Nourish Me Organics is the premier online store for all things gut health, including probiotics, prebiotics, natural health supplements and home fermentation kits. So head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code happygut for 10% off. In this episode, our host, Cribbin Govinda is interviewed by Steve from the Made to Thrive podcast. Cribben talks about the latest science around kefir, collaging the microbiome and much more.

Hello, Thrivers. I've got Cribben Govenda on the Made to Thrive show. He's the second time on this podcast and he's had so many downloads on our first episode, which is 7th of September, 2020. I know the date because I send so many patients, so many clients to that link. They love the show. And so I believe here we've got a food scientist that is the premier food scientist nutritionist in the world. And the greatest thing is this man has character and he has a heart to see people's lives changed. So crib and Govenda, welcome back to the show, Steve.

It's my absolute pleasure. I had a great time in the first episode, so hopefully I can do the second episode as much justice as I.

Brilliant. Tell us about your life. You've moved to Bali. Why the move? What's been happening?

Yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, it's been now more than one year since we left Melbourne for Indonesia and settled down here in Bali. I think the main problem that we had going through the struggles in Melbourne was the lockdown. So I think the six months of the hard lockdown really affected us from a mental perspective. I saw my own mental health deteriorating quite substantially. And also the main thing was the children really being stuck at home with the schooling at home as well, the online learning, they weren't getting anything done. They were just literally watching YouTube videos and playing games so that there was not much learning happening. So we made a very hard decision to actually leave Australia and which we absolutely love Australia, you know, it's my home for 30 years. And move to a foreign nation in Indonesia. In Bali and Bali we've been to many times in the past, we loved Bali. We thought Bali was infrastructure wise, set up to suit the Australian expectations in terms of, you know, standards and all that kind of stuff. And do not regret at all moving my family to Bali. My kids straight away got settled into school, so they were in school, you know with all the, with all the precautions necessary and they were in school and back to face to face learning. So they've been loving the journey and loving the new lifestyle and I'd say we're very settled now in Indonesia and we're, we're loving it and hopefully when things settle down again we'll be able to head back home to Melbourne.

So that's the plan to go back to Australia and sort of an interim move to Bali and the business nourish me organics. Obviously the website will put a link. Incredible website with incredible shop as well. But so did the business carry on and then you're going to head back to Australia when things sort of settle down?

Yes, Steve, we have a, we're really fortunate actually. We have an amazing team in Melbourne running our distribution in our factory in Melbourne. So it was business as usual. So I mean we're managing, managing everything remotely and I think most people can appreciate now with remote working, most people are working from home over the last couple of years. So it's no different in me, you know, being at home in Melbourne managing my team versus being here in Bali managing my team. So it's been really seamless with technology is amazing now with zoom and all the other tools that we have. So it's been almost hiccup free. I mean you're always going to have a few hiccups here and there. But I could say we're really fortunate and blessed to have an amazing team in Melbourne and opportunistically now being able to set up a team here for Indonesian and Asian expansion here using Bali as the hub. So one thing I didn't mention is we. One of the main reasons to leave is also to set up a hub for, for Asia. So we decided to pick Indonesia to be our hub for the Asian market. And so we've set up our a little presence sales office here in Indonesia. It's really off to a good start as well. So that's been keeping me very busy here to get things up and running. So we built a facility here in Bali. We were lucky to find a location. We built a small little shop and manufacturing presence here in Bali and obviously we export a lot of our products from Australia into Bali for the Asian market. And it's off to an amazing start. I'm really amazed at how good it's going given that we are still in a pandemic.

Well done to you. I think taking the risk and it is a risk. You move your whole family, you got children, you don't know how it's going to work out. Are they going to adapt? Are they not going to adapt? But I think the most important, you have an incredible product. You've got your expertise on kefir, on fermented foods. Just what we've seen on your podcast has been nothing short of supernatural. So well done to you. Tell us a little bit about kefir, what you're doing, what you've learned in the last couple of years. Last time we spoke was 202020 and it's almost two years ago. But tell us what you've learned, the new products you've got. And you know, I just think it's so important that you started with a dream to change people's lives. Yes, the business has grown. Yes, it's probably been more profitable. But the heart of Caribbean, governor is to see people's lives change through their nutritionists, through fermented foods. So tell us anything new about the science or what's happening with your kefir and your products?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, with kefir, since we last spoke, I think we touched on all the benefits of the existing science at that point. But now there's an amazing study that came out quite recently, would only be a few months ago about kefir specifically with its effects as it relates to Covid. So there's some amazing benefits and protective benefits from using kefir when it comes to mitigating some of the risks of viral infections. And particularly I can send you a link to that particular study where they talked about using kefir as a potential prophylactic type product for viral infections and very specifically to COVID 19. So amazing. And I haven't stopped taking kefir. I have kefir every day for the last how many years. And specifically speaking, I think it's to do with the ACE2 receptor the study talks about. I always knew from early days about the ACE2 receptor when it came to Kefir. But now it's very clear that kefir may have some benefits to blocking the viral adhesion to the cells by having the impact on the ACE2 receptor. The way it works with viral material, viral particles attacking a cell is that it has to bind to the ACE2 receptor. There's a couple of things that can mitigate that. Kefir being one of that. There's a of antiviral natural medicines that we can use as well. But kefir and vitamin D to me are the biggest ones that are going to block that ACE2 receptor and the viral particles from Attaching to cells. So that has been an amazing revelation over the last few months. I've also put it on my Instagram at Gut Health Gurus. So if you want to look at that particular study and some of the infographics on how the mechanisms of kefir work, head to my Instagram and check it out and you can see the link to the study there as well.

Fantastic. So kefir improving your immune function as a preventative and also, is it a form of treatment if someone gets a viral infection? You know, I think things are turning. South Africa is very positive. I saw a lot of people today at the coffee shop without a mask. Wherever I've gone, I've always not try and wear a mask that people ask me. I direct them to the science, to the research about masks. And in a very sort of loving way. I think, you know, these fundamentalists on both sides, the message and the method is very important. And the moment, how you share that message is crucially important. But I saw people a lot more relaxed. Obviously, Boris and his declaration yesterday, it's gone viral on WhatsApp and that and no more mandates, no more vaccine passes. So it's changed already. And I see people that are far more relaxed. Omicron has. Many people have been sick, but the hospitals have been empty, which has been really encouraging to see. Tell me, if someone gets a viral infection, can they use kefir, even if they've never used it before to treat the infection?

I haven't seen any data to support the treatment. I think it's more the prophylactic for preventing these type of viral infections and also obviously bacterial infections as well, because kefir is so rich in different types of probiotic bacteria, Lactobacillus bifida bacteria, a whole host of other beneficial organisms as well. But I think, you know, there's. From a treatment perspective, there's things like, you know, like, I'm all about the natural health, so I'll really focus on the natural health. There's obviously some great pharmaceutical products that people can use for. For treatment, but I look at natural health products, things like cinchona extract, you know, which is very high in quinine, which is very similar compound that's been used for malaria, compared to another pharmaceutical product. So qu. Quinine is a great one because it's a zinc ionifer. So basically what it does is it helps the zinc to actually get into the cell where zinc can block that viral replication pathway. So, you know, quinine extract is amazing. You know, obviously combined with zinc is A great one. Another one great one is quercetin. You know, not many people know one of the richest food sources of quercetin is actually capers. So, you know, including some capers in your diet just to boost up your quercetin. There's some great quercet supplements as well that people can look at. Obviously, getting out in the sun and getting lots of vitamin D3 is another good, good way to sort of get better when you get sick as well. But fortunately, what we're seeing now with Omnicron is in most cases it's pretty mild compared to the initial, initial strains that we variants that we saw. So I mean, it's just like any other cold and flu and how we deal with it, aside from someone that's immunocompromised, then obviously a lot more is required to get these people happy. But from my perspective, you know, it's all about prevention. So it's all about, you know, keeping yourself healthy, keeping yourself fit, making sure you're not in that category where you're developing diabetes or metabolic diseases, where your risk profile then substantially increases. But if you put in the work now, making sure we're eating clean, healthy, natural foods, real food, no processed junk, getting lots of good exercise, getting out in the sun, getting your vitamin D, getting your circadian rhythms right, adopting things like fasting methodologies, intermittent fasting, all these things are going to set you up so then you're not going to be in that high risk category. If you do pick up a dreaded Covid or any other viral or bacterial infection, your body can deal with it pretty easily because it's not stressed out fighting other disease states at the same time. So I think that's really the key. Another great one that I've come across recently is black seed oil. So that's another good natural remedy as well. So that's very rich in different types of compounds of polyphenols and it's got some great literature and studies behind it as well. When it comes to dealing with bronchial type infections, viral infections, boosting immunity, all that stuff is great. Something that people might not be aware of. Groundbreaking stuff I'm talking about now. Collagen from kangaroos.

Wow. Never heard of this one. Cribbon.

Oh, yes. It's a revolutionary product, really, because no one's really talking about it yet, but I've seen the early literature coming out with this stuff and it's amazing when it comes to its anti blood clotting abilities.

Wow.

So, you know, people struggling with a small percentage of people have adverse reactions to different medications so they can potentially use something like collagen. I think it's, there's different types of collagen peptides that can exert benefits when it comes to its anti blood clotting abilities. But the particular one I've seen is the collagen, the collagen from kangaroos. Another great one. You might be aware of this one because you're a Chinese, Chinese medicine practitioner.

Yeah.

Have you ever come across E Jiao?

No, no, no, not with regards to viral.

Yeah, not so much relating to viral in this conversation now. I mean I. Jiao is like a donkey collagen. Donkey collagen but it also has some exerts, some sort of benefits when it comes to blood health specific specifically when it comes to menstrual issues with women and also you know, anemia, things like that. It's, you know, it's in the, the Chinese pharmacopoeia. It's been used for thousands of years. People go so crazy about donkey collagen that they've basically come close to eradicating their donkey population in China. Sure it's a big problem but fortunately now in Australia we have a lot of feral donkeys. So back happened is that when they cull the donkeys now there's an upstream value add by taking or using the waste stream materials, the skin and all this material that's typically thrown out and turning it into E Jiao which is a huge, you know, like a natural health Chinese health benefit that's hugely popular in China. Anti aging skin, all that kind of stuff. But also very specifically used when it comes to blood. There seems to be some something going on when it comes to collagen consumption and blood. So you know, I'm still researching, I'm still in that research phase to understand it more.

But when you get the data and the links and the articles and send them our way so we can put it on the podcast and on the YouTube video. I think that's important. If you're looking at kangaroo cartilage you're going to be obviously, I assume stocking it on the Nourish Me Organics website. So are you going to be sort of distributing also the donkey cartilage as well as the kangaroo cartilage?

Oh yeah, we've got both on our website. I mean the kangaroo is on the website right now. I mean you're going to love this. It's very effective when it comes to erectile dysfunction. Sure, very. Again it's something to do with blood flow it's something to do with this kangaroo collagen, and I've tried it myself, so it works.

It works. Brilliant. And what's the difference between that and sort of the. Or any bovine collagen or any marine collagen? What's the difference?

Great question, Steve. I mean, they all differ in the peptides. So there's glycine, there's proline. There's a different balance between the peptide content. So something like bovine collagen has things like type 1, type 3, and then you got marine collagen that has a different mix, it's got different types. There's all these different types of collagen strands. So the peptides are just. If you think a protein is the long chain of the molecule, and then if you chop up that protein, you get these smaller strands of peptides and if you go even further down, then you go down to the individual amino acids. So each of these peptide exerts a slightly different benefit. So when you're talking the marine collagen, for instance, it's very effective when it comes to skin, the peptide mixture is very good when it comes to beauty and skin. Bovine collagen seems to help a lot with gut health issues, gut permeability, leaky gut, things like that. The kangaroo collagen is very specific when it comes to blood and vascular dilation, stopping blood clotting, things like that. And then the donkey collagen seems to be helping when it comes to menstrual issues with women. That's what it's specifically used in Chinese medicine. But then there's a whole host of other benefits as well. So all these products will be available on our website if people are interested. I mean, it's so early. I mean, I think we'd be one of the first companies in the whole world to launch kangaroo collagen. There's nothing available out there. I think we're probably the first ones. Ejiao has been used for thousands of years, so. But I don't think it's readily accepted yet or known about. That's a better word, known about in the west, but it's certainly known in Chinese medicine.

Great. I want you to just consider that I'm a client of yours and a patient. I'll give you my backstory on fermented foods. And kefir is I've got an incredible colleague who got a farm, organic farm. He's a medical doctor, runs an incredible clinic as a functional medicine practice practitioner. We've become good friends. He does my platelet rich plasma injections, my prolotherapy, my protozone. And he gave me many, many years ago. We've been friends for 12 years. He gave me a bottle of the grains of kefir and he told me how to do it and I probably did it for a couple of years but just the PT of doing it and watching it and trying to convince my wife of the smell and you know, I now go to a natural health store and this is my story, this is my honest story and I buy the kefir and I try and change it up to get microbial diversity and I've done the organic acids test and a stool test that's just I've got a huge microbial diversity which is great because I don't stick to similar probiotic fermented foods. I always try and change things and use sunlight and grounding and hug trees because and dogs and animals to try and improve the microbiome which we spoke about. And we can get into a bit of the details because I'd like to know the research and science but try and sort of persuade me why I should be growing my own grains. Because when I go to your website and I look at all the kits that you've got and what you're doing, it seems obviously the better way to do it. Although there are a lot of natural companies that are got the goat kefir with the raw milk and you know, the normal kefir as well, full cream kefir is. Why should people like myself rather be growing their own and kefir and doing it themselves?

It's a very easy answer. This is a really simple one. It the main thing is that the ones that you get from the store are likely going to be the fake stuff very simply because the alcohol content that's produced during a fermentation is normally restrictive and it comes from a legislative perspective when it gets to a certain percentage like 0.5, you got to start getting liquor licenses. So not many people can actually overcome that hurdle based on the legislation in their area. And the other thing is it's so much easier and cheaper to just get a stock standard kefir and inverted commas starter culture which is typically going to be just a yogurt starter culture majority of the time. Sometimes there might be a couple of kefir isolates in there. And so really then when you're buying that product from a store, all you're buying is the hype. You're buying, oh, kefir is good for this and good for that. And it's good for Covid. But the problem is it's not the real stuff. Because kefir that you make at home yourself, the real stuff that's been made for thousands of years, you know, originally from the Caucasus Mountains and these ancient people making this product, the benefits of that product come from the bacteria itself. But also going back to the peptides, it's all the individual peptides that exert this medicinal benefit onto the person consuming it. And when you're not making the product from start to finish, you might be getting a handful of yogurt type bacteria from a commercial product, maybe one or two kefir strains. But you're missing out on all the peptides, the postbiotics, that's also the peptides, the vitamins, the plethora of different bacteria and real kefir. You're talking, you know, a couple of trillion organisms per serve, a hundred different types, up to 100 different types of probiotic organisms. So I think you're really going to be short changing yourself. But I understand, I understand that it's easy to just go to the store and pick up some kefir and you look, if that's, if that's, that works for you, there's still benefits in it. I mean, most of these products are natural, they don't contain additives. They're a good little gateway into the world of fermentation. But ultimately, if you want the full gamut of benefits from kefir, it all starts with making it yourself at home, or if you've got a friend that makes it, or if you're fortunate enough to find a company that actually does it the proper way and makes it from start to finish using kefir grains, that's probably going to be the best, the best thing for you. But, you know, each, each to their own. So you pick your own adventure.

So now I'm going to push you a little, impress you a little. Is like if there's an organic farm and they now send it to or like a little organic wholesale distribution retail store. And then it says no additives and it just, but it's just liquid, it doesn't have any grains inside there. How would you test that to see, you know, how beneficial that is, whether you should do your own or not, or, you know, it almost seems like unless you're very sick and you got your backstory of mental health, ill health and issues and you're desperate that you're going to go this sort of, you know, personal route, I mean, how do people know the difference what to do? Because I look at your website and I think, let's, you know, I want to talk to Grim and let's do an affiliation on my website. Let's. I see you deliver to South Africa. Let's give South Africans the opportunity with a kit and the real grains and a little video on how to do it and empower people to do it. But is there a huge difference with quality? How are South Africans or Africans going to test these products that have been so dubbed as organic from an organic farm with high concentrations of probiotics?

The easiest way to look at it is the label is a good telltale sign. So if you read the label and you just look at the organisms that they're listing. So the most prolific kefir organism is going to be Lactobacillusae kefiranofaciens and Lactobacillus kefiri. So those two, if you see those two on the label, then that's a good starting sign that at least it has the two major kefir organisms. So this is going to be a reasonable product. I think it's organic, it's got no additives, it's got a couple of kefir strains. Tick, tick, all good. But if you read the label and it's got lactobacillus, just a generic one, or it's like a Staphylococcus thermophilus bifidobacterial strain, then you're just talking a yogurt culture. This is the telltale side. If you just see the kefiri, it's easy to remember. It's just got kefiri kefirinifaceans. You just look for the kefir in the word of the strain. Then you know, at least there's a couple in there and there's going to be some benefits. Even better, if it's on the label, you know, made with real kefir grains, then this is even better. This means it's going to have the full gamut of different kefir organisms. And then it's just a matter of getting, getting in touch with the manufacturer. You can contact them on their social media or send them an email, give them a phone call and just ask them, hey, guys, is this stuff made with real kefir grains or is this a commercially available starter culture? Some companies are really cheeky. They literally have no kefir in there. It's just literally yogurt culture and they call it kefir. And the reason why, because there's no legislation to Protect the consumer, yes, because it's such an early product coming into that sort of mainstream commercial space that it's not regulated as such. It will eventually there will be some provenance of how you call things and what you allowed to call and what you're not allowed to call. That'll come in time. But at the moment, the easiest thing is just to look for something that's made with real kefir grains. And if you're willing to go down to the next step, you know, it's so easy and it's so cost effective to make kefi yourself, because once you get kefir grains, you have that for life. That one culture can be used over.

And over and over and over.

And really the only cost is your cost of milk. That's it. So when you come to the purely economic considerations in your decision making, you know, you could head down to the store and buy it, or you can make it yourself a fraction of the cost with so much more benefits. And many people in our community, it becomes like a pet. I mean, they love their kiffy grains. They take care of it like a dog or a cat, and they talk to it and they, you know, they put their intention, their love and their gratitude into the grains and it becomes part of their family almost. In my household, that's what kiffe, it means to me. You know, it's. It's my routine, my ritual that I followed for, for so many years right now. And I love it personally.

You got a personal story, though. You've got a personal experience of having mental ill health, of having depression, anxiety, of having something that you started that moved the needle that changed significantly. Then you could find out all about the good foods, the bad foods, the environment, the light, the circadian rhythm. But the kefir was something that moved the needle for you most. And so that's possibly why you're looking at with a lot of endearment. And you've made a business out of it. You've changed many people's lives. You've got testimonials. I mean, it just. There's a momentum that moves forward as you keep on changing lives, which is incredible. But tell us, do you use raw milk with your kefir grains? Is that necessary? I've used goat kefir. I've used, you know, traditional dairy kefir. I've used coconut kefir, maybe. I mean, my smoothie that I make probably every day or every second day has got a lot of fermented products in it. Just because I. I Struggle sometimes with the sauerkraut taste or you know, those type of fermented foods. And I put it in my smoothie, which is beneficial. But maybe you can just sort of give us the differentiation between all these different types of kefir and the uses and the benefits of each one.

Sure. I mean in terms of pasteurization, if you're using kefir grains, it doesn't really matter too much. Some people are real purists where you know, if they could source a good quality raw milk, that's, that's the ultimate, you know, that's the, because you've got the natural bacteria that, that's in the, the raw milk, raw goat's milk. Even better, goat's milk is probably the, the most traditional type of kefir you can make. And then pasteurized. Yeah, as when you pasteurize the milk you are changing the, the proteins and the structures of the proteins. But I mean when you ferment it, fortunately the proteins get broken down into peptides so it's not so detrimental. Whereas if you're drinking pasteurized milk there's always a risk, reward, benefit because obviously with raw milk there's risk of contamination, of food poisoning, things like that. Tuberculosis was one of the reasons why they started pasteurizing milk. But then you move towards pasteurized and you've got, you know, a change in the protein structure can be a bit more inflammatory. Fermenting it will mitigate most of those risks. So I'm not too concerned. UHT milk probably is the least one I'd recommend because it does doesn't produce as good of a kefir, say the other two milks that we talked about. And then when you come to the other type of milks that you could use, you could definitely use coconut milk, you could use soy milk, you could use oat milk. You know, they're all going to produce a kefir. It's not going to have the same peptides because obviously you're not starting with the same protein mix at the start. But look this to the organisms in there. When you're using plant based milks you have to add some form of sugar substrate. So the easiest thing to do is just drop in a, a day to, or a fig, dried fig or dried date, preservative free and this will give it some food to actually to grow and to thrive. So out of all the alternative milks, soy milk produces the best type of kefir because the protein content is higher than the other two. And it does produce quite a Nice kefir. So I mean you pick your own, your own journey. I mean if you want to go plant based, yeah, this is a good alternative to still get the probiotic organisms. If you're more purist and you're not too worried about, you know, the vegetarian, vegan sort of conversation, then the best, most researched type of kefir, with all the evidence, all the science behind it, all the peptides, is going to be a milk based product. I recommend just, you know, pasteurized dairy is fine. Choose like an A2 type cow. Nice, nice soft protein, easy to digest, that will produce the best type of kefir.

And if you can't find the A2 milk here, say in South Africa, do you, we've got a good farm close by that produces raw milk. It's not pasteurized obviously and that's something that we try and have in the house. And raw cream as well. Raw cream to my coffee has been a game changer. But oh yeah, if you can't, if you haven't found A two, what do you just use? You know, traditional raw or pasteurized and that's fine, it's still going to produce the robotics.

Absolutely, it's going to be perfectly fine. You know, your goat's milk is going to be a great alternative as well. And if you're not sure whether something is A two or not, not everybody, A two has become a brand now so it's, it's a bit more challenging to navigate. But basically a 2 is a jersey cap. So if you speak to the farmer, I think there might be another type. I can't remember what was the name but the most obvious one is your Jersey cows. So if something's branded as Jersey milk or you're not sure, ask the manufacturer, are these Jersey cows. That should bring some clarity into that decision making process.

And if you change the grains like do different grains produce different organisms? Is that good to sort of change the grains out or you know, you know, after a year use different grains or mix different grains. Is that a clever idea?

That's a double edged sword is ultimately from a microbial diversity perspective that's a great idea. You know, share, share your grains with your friend, get them to share some, mix up the culture and then you've got a bit more diversity in your actual kefia. That's the first thought bubble. The second thought bubble is that and I think long term kefir makers will appreciate this. It takes a long time to get the taste profile and the organoleptic qualities, you know, the taste, the Smell, the thickness, viscosity, all that. It takes a long time to find something that, that you love. So for me personally, I love my kefir the way it is and I don't want to mess with it because, you know, like, if, if I change it up a little bit, I mean, it might, it might ferment too quickly and all of a sudden, you know, it splits really fast or it produces a really smelly kefir or it's too thin. You know what I mean? So I think the long term and kefir makers will appreciate me saying this. When you find something that works, it's like, hallelujah, yes, we've got it right. I'm not going to change anything. I do everything the same water. Kefir makers will also appreciate this because, you know, they get to a point where their grains are multiplying and it's producing this beautiful tasting kefir or, you know, it's producing some gas, so they're really happy with the fizziness or something about it. And then if they go mess with it, all of a sudden, the grains just dissolve and they disappear and then you'll start over again. So I hear you, I hear you. From that diversity perspective, great idea. From a practical application, probably not a great idea, but each of their own, you know.

But maybe you can just share some of your kefir with your friends in that so that they can send you some. You don't have to change the grains. You can make some and then you give it to them and you take a bit and then you've got microbial diversity. Of course, you can just nourish your little pet, you know, and make sure.

That your pet produces what it needs to absolutely share. Share the kefir. That's a great idea. I mean, you get some from their batch, you get some from yours, and you mix it up, you know, and you're getting more diversity by just having different batches and, you know, slightly different environments, slightly different kefir grading. So they might have an organism that's a little bit different to yours, that's got all these benefits or just the ratios are a little bit different as well. So, you know, with fermented foods, you know, diversity is always the key. Great idea, Steve.

Okay, so my commitment is I'm going to order a kit from you, I'm going to start the process, I'm going to start videoing myself, put it on all my socials. We're growing nicely, especially on Instagram, which is cool, but you can maybe you know, I'll go to your website, walk me through the process. We can connect, possibly. We can. I'm not. Are you delivering significantly to South Africa or you're not sure about those numbers through?

I mean, we, we don't get many orders from South Africa, but obviously we, I don't think many people know about us in South Africa yet. But we can ship. We could certainly ship to South Africa. I don't think it'll be a problem.

Right, brilliant. And you don't know sort of the duties or you have to pay or the ease of getting it door to door and you know, how will it be for the South African consumer or the African consumer because we started to grow into the rest of Africa. How will that work from a sort of, of, you know, a procurement point of view?

I don't really know the duties rules in South Africa. Always with any international orders, consumers need to be cognizant that there could be some duties involved. It's really tricky when it comes to duties because sometimes it depends on the person on the day what they decide. Even when we ship to the U.S. again, some items will get duties applied or other items, items will get held up or other items will even get rejected. So it's always up to the duty officer or the customs officer on the day and how they navigate. So that's a common problem that we have when we ship overseas. So you've got to be aware of that.

Okay, so I'm going to start then. I'll get in touch with your team or you can just link me with the right person, make the order, see how it comes through and we can go through that process. I wanted to ask you a little, just a personal story. We try to get. Woolworths is a big brand in South Africa, sort of a premier supermarket brand, high end, and they do organic coffee, which I've checked out. I try to. They've got an organic milk and their processes and their protocols are pretty strict. But they won't make a cappuccino with organic coffee and organic milk and organic milk is on their shelves and we, we try to do a whole social push, but nothing from them, from dairy's point of view because, I mean, as a nutrition scientist, how important is it to use the organic dairy versus the conventional traditional dairy?

I think it's incredibly important because by using organic, I mean there's standards on antibiotic usage, their standards on any additives, hormones. So all these, these additives, they're used in conventional dairy. But if you look at the price difference of conventional dairy versus organic. It's often it's, you know, chalk and cheese. Organic is much more expensive because it's more difficult to make it and you don't get the same level of yield. So I think, you know, if you can afford organic, definitely choose organic versus conventional. But I'm not sure why Woolworths are doing that. Maybe it's the cost. Maybe it's a purely a cost conversation. Maybe they're not going to be able to make enough money margin on using organic. Or maybe the.

Look, I've asked the question. Yeah, yeah. And they have. They haven't come back to me with anything. You know, it's sitting on their shelves there. I don't mind paying extra. You know, they give you the option of oat, they give you the option of soy, they give you the option of almond. You know, some stores give you the option of macadamia, but you know, they don't give you the option of organic dairy. It's just a fascinating process. I don't think you can find organic coffee and organic dairy product in this country. And the milk lab products that come from Australia that everybody's raving, the stuff inside there is horrific. It's horrendous. All the, you know, the seed oils, these processed seed oils that they using in these malts, I mean, I tell my clients and my patients, try not to use those because you're increasing that omega 6 to omega 3 ratio, which is not beneficial at all. I don't know what your take is on there.

Completely agree. I mean, seed oils, omega 6 is, you know, really toxic and poisonous products. You know, again with my, my nutrition clients as well, you know, always steering them towards your natural types of fats, not the, the processed fats. They're the most toxic products on the planet. Things like canola, you know, sunflower, all these oils, they're just really highly inflammatory in the body. Soybean oil is probably the worst of the lot. That is the cheapest and nastiest oil that's used in a lot of processed food products, fast food products. So, you know, you're much better off going for your natural fats. Naturals. The one I use the most when it comes to cooking is avocado. I love avocado oil. Or if I have to do some very low temperature frying, I'll use olive oil as well. Salads will be mainly olive oil and a plethora of butter. You know, your, your full fat dairies, you know, they're all, they're all great. Again, again, but again, it's, it's an individual conversation, you know, that this is what works for me. You know, if I'm working with a client that's got a slightly, you know, impaired gut, where they're having problems digesting fats, or their microbiome is not conducive to saturated fat, then it's a slightly different conversation. But holistically speaking, I can say hand on heart, you know, the, those processed vegetable fats are poison, absolute poison. There's no place for those products in anyone's diet. Whereas you, you know, your avocado oils, your, your butters, your, your cheeses, you know, they're, they're good for most, most people, you know, aside from a few that have dysbiosis problems or they choose not to have it based on cultural veganism, sustainability, things like that.

Great. Let's talk about the microbiome. Any latest research, number one. And then I want you to take the audience and the viewers through Cribben Govenda's sort of care of his microbiome, how he looks after his microbiome, obviously including and focusing on kefir and what you're doing, how much time it takes to look after this pet and feed this pet and check this pet and make sure this pet is producing what you wanted to do. So tell us, what do you do? How does your morning start, your whole day when you use sort of fermented foods for the audience?

Yeah, sure, let's unpack it. So in terms of the microbiome, the hottest areas in the microbiome tend to be your prebiotics. That, that seems to be the hottest area of research right now. So, so early days, there was a lot of research happening on the probiotic organisms and the different strains. But I think what we're starting to understand now is that much more powerful tools lie in that prebiotic, postbiotic space. So when I deal with a client and I look at their stool profile and I can see deficiencies or excesses in the microbiome, typically the first thing I'm going to do is use some form of probiotic, because your prebiotic will firstly, it'll bolster up organisms that are lacking that I feel that are lacking, like your short chain fatty acid producing organisms, which are a very common one to bolster up. But then also because the prebiotics then lead to the postbiotics, these are the compounds that the bacteria produces. I mentioned short chain fatty acids, which is a perfect example of a postbiotic. But this is the fuel source for the gut colonocytes, so they use this as fuel. So a lot of people, when they have issues with not getting enough fiber or, you know, diversity of plant foods in the diet, they're very deficient in these short chain fatty acids. And this is leading to things like leaky gut and gut impairment. So, you know, and now, I mean, we're discovering so many different prebiotics. You know, there's Xos, Zos gas, there's a whole plethora of partially hydrolyzed guar gum is my go to one, because it doesn't create much gas. You know, it doesn't cause bloating. Fossil inulin is another one. But scientists are discovering more and more and there's a huge amount of research going into polyphenols because polyphenols themselves, polyphenols, about 80% of polyphenols, can't be digested by you. They have to go to the gut and be digested in the large intestine or the colon by the microbiome. So a lot of the benefits are actually coming off the polyphenols. You know, there was a buzz thing with polyphenols years and years ago. Get your antioxidants and your polyphenols, but it turns out that most of the benefits are coming from these, the postbiotics created by the breakdown of the polyphenols by the bacteria. So a perfect, perfect example is a pomegranate or things like strawberries or raspberries, very rich in polyphenols. But what, what actually creates a lot of benefits is that these polyphenols that are present in these fruits are broken down into lagic acid, which is where the benefits are coming from. So, you know, the microbiome is becoming extremely nuanced because one person might have the right type of bacteria to do that conversion to convert that polyphenol into a lagic acid. So if I see that on a stool sample, I'm like, yes, gordinibacteria is the specific type of bacteria. I'm like, yes, this person's got a free kick straight away. This is easy, get them to eat more strawberries, pomegranate, because they've got the right bug in there to do the conversion to get that allergic acid and then even further into your lithiumin a, which is, you know, a whole lot of mitochondria benefits as well. So we look at those nuances. We can even look at nuances of something like, like types of bacteria that can break down the soy isoflight flavones. So if you got the right type of bacteria, then all of a sudden you're going to do pretty well with soy, you know, because you've got the right players on that team to be able to use soy in a beneficial way. Whereas if someone doesn't have that player, they're not going to get the same benefits from soy. So there's all these type of nuances when you look at a, at a stool profile. So that's where the research is at. So what was the next one after that?

Tell us about your sort of plan, your fermentation daily plan, your kefir, how much time you spending to, you know, nourish this pet?

Yep. I, it's, it's become almost a robotic exercise. It's something I don't even think about. The way I start my day is the first thing I do do is I go and brush my teeth in my backyard out in the sun with very minimal clothes. So my backyard is very sealed off. In Bali, if people know Bali, most people have an outdoor shower and it's very private. So I just go out, brush my teeth in, you know, as just minimal clothing, sunlight straight in my eyes. Then the next thing I do is I do a 20 minute meditation. Meditation just to get the day started. You know, calm, present, focused. When, when I meditate, I, this is when my mind is racing. All the really important things flow to the surface. I give it some time and then I go back to just being really, you know, empty as possible. And that goes by pretty fast. I've got a, I've got a sauna in my, my villa as well. So I'll do a 15 minute sauna session with my wife. I'll have a cold shower, I'll do some rebounding. And then breakfast is when the fermented foods start. You know, obviously the kefir with some, just a little bit of fruit, a bit of natural honey. We get great honey here in Bali. Raw honey, bee pollen, all my supplements, different supplements that I take. And then I start my day. But then in terms of the, the fermented foods, I try to incorporate a fermented food in each meal. So, you know, at lunchtime it'll be maybe a bit of miso or it'll be some sauerkraut, some kimchi. So every meal has some element of something fermented, some yogurt, even just some homemade yogurt. So it's pretty simple. I don't make it too complicated, but this is my, my daily routine.

But how are you nurturing those grains and who's putting the cream? Are you using raw milk? Or who's putting the cream? And who's watching this them? The splitting, it grows so fast, starts bubbling. I mean, I can just remember my story 10 years ago. My wife was like, the stuff's in the fridge. What are you doing? We can't go. We can't smell anything else. So tell us a little bit about that process.

I'm really lucky. I mean, in Australia, I'd be looking after it myself. But, you know, people that live in Bali, we have lots of help. So we have people in our villa, you know, know people that look after the grains for us. I don't really have to think about it. I've trained them initially. So all I know is I wake up in the morning and I've got some kefir in my fridge. So the whole straining, the process side of it's been outsourced.

But tell us about when you go to Melbourne, what you do then, because, I mean, obviously this is something that a lot of people will need to do themselves. Obviously in South Africa, Africa, we've got a lot of help, so we can outsource it, or some people can. But tell us the process of looking after this pet.

The most important thing is consistency and keeping it at room temperature and keeping it fed. So as soon as you, you take a bit of a break, you put it in the fridge, as he mentioned before, then it becomes really sluggish and the mixture of bacteria shifts. So then you're going to struggle to get it back to its original potency. It's going to take quite a few batches. The key thing is get into a routine, set up your morning however you want to set it up, what needs to be done. But at some point, allocate some time to actually doing the straining, which is pretty fast. I mean, it's literally, if you use a kefia co, it's faster because it's got the strainer built into the lid. But it's just as easy as get a kitchen strainer, pour out your kefir into the strainer, let the kefir drain out, use your clean fingers, push the kefir through, take the grains, put it into a clean jar, top up with milk, cover it, restart and then repeat that process every 24 to 48 hours.

24 to 48 hours. So you could produce significant amounts of kefirium. You could distribute this down to your neighbors across. But just take a strong to start. I mean, you get the grains I'm going to order from you you fill it up. What milk that you want, you cover it, you put it out, you leave it outside. Initially, you put it in. What do you do exactly?

It never goes in the fridge unless you're strained. You've strained it and you put it in there for storage. But the grains always stay outside. So this is how you keep them optimized because the temperature is just right for them outside, they don't get sluggish. So then it depends on your own climate. So I'm assuming South Africa, it's pretty warm. You're going produce KEFIR probably every 24 hours. So you know, it's just a table, a teaspoon of grains, 250 mils of milk. So you're going to produce roughly 250 mils of kefir. Strain it out, the kefir grains will be left in the strainer. So then you take the grains back in 250mils of milk, start again. It's really easy. It's a simple process. It's a little bit tedious because you do it every day. But so some people, it becomes like a meditation. It's something they start to enjoy and they love. So, okay, it's not rocket science.

Last one that I wanted to go into came to the end of the show because I know you're involved in deuterium depleted products and testing. I had Victor Sagolowski on the podcast from Light Water. Obviously there's a big move for patients that are really sick to do DDW water. Tell us where you are in that process. Maybe we can do another podcast cost end of the year or next year. What is happening with DD water and how important is it?

DD is huge, especially we partnered with Preventa. So Preventer is pretty much the leading manufacturer of DDW in the world out of Hungary. And they recently sent me a paper as well with COVID So using deuterium depleted water, their ppm is around 20. So you know, for real sick, really sick people, we use the lower ppms because this is going to exert that benefit when people are really sick with things like cancer or metabolic diseases. Covid, you can even use DDW. Probably 80 is a good place to use. If you're really sick, then you use the 20. But general health, I think think anywhere between say 120 and 140 is a good place just for general health. But if you're really sick, you're working with really sick clients, then it's going to be 8. Around 80 would be where I'd Start with and if they're really sick, go right down to your 20, 25 ppm.

Okay. Is that Laszlo Boris that you speak? Is that he? Is he prevented?

Not Lazaro Borosch? That would be Dr. Gabor Shamli.

Okay.

But they're, they're affiliated with each other, they're friends. So they, they do a lot of research together with Laszlo Bar, Dr. Laszlo Borish and Dr. Gabor Chamlier.

Okay, so maybe we can get you those links. I don't think you can find DDW in South Africa that we've looked at. We're not sure with the demand in Covid. Obviously it's an expensive product, but just quickly, the testing, how important has that been? Has that been a sort of big uptake in testing people's levels of detection? Deuterium.

We admittedly with the deuterium testing, we. We decided to shut that down.

Okay.

Because. Because we moved here to Australia and that requires quite a lot of technical expertise. So. And plus the labs that we were using during the shutdown, they. They also. It became too difficult for us to send saliva samples. Okay. So it became a nightmare to deal with because obviously with COVID and all that happening at the same time, we decided just to pull the plug on it. Just wasn't worth it. But, you know, in future there's lots of demand for it. I mean, we get lots of emails of people asking for the test. It's just not the right time for it now. We'll just wait for things to settle down and then in future we can look at implementing it again.

Brilliant. Well, those that are listening, go and check out cribbing Dava on YouTube. He looks incredible. His skin is glowing. I don't know if he should move from Bali back to Melbourne. Looks like Bali is treated you exceptionally well. You got a great lifestyle. When do you hit? Are you going to head back and is there a possibility of staying in Bali?

I've got lots of projects here in Bali at the moment to keep me really busy. So we're keeping a very open mind. Obviously, we've got a lot of setups still to happen for Asian market here. So I'd say at least the next few months I'll be still based in Bali and then we'll see how things play out with Australia pretty soon.

Good. Where can people connect with you cribbing? Tell us about your social media, how they can get onto your website and all your channels.

Yeah, sure. The easiest way to connect with me is on via Instagram, just uthealthgurus the website is very simple. Just nourish me again. Www.nourishmeorganics.com and really, you know, if you want to go deep in what we're talking about, the podcast, the Gut Health Gurus podcast, which was, was I think having some good success in South Africa recently. Number one in Namibia. So that's in Africa. So we got to number one. Number one in Oman, I think so kind of close to Africa. So we're starting to make some waves around the African area. But still our main market is still Australia, Canada, uk, US where we're really popular. But guys, yeah, check out the podcast. You know, it's, it's scientific in nature but we try and simplify it and bring more you the latest and most cutting edge scientific information that we can.

Well, thank you so much, Kevin Govenda declare favor and blessing over you that your dreams may actually come into fruition. You're a man of much character, truth. You want to see people's lives transformed and it's been a privilege to partner with you, to get to know you, to share your incredible wisdom because you're a man not only of the science, but you're a man of experience. You've experienced what it is to have mental ill health, anxiety, the depression. What happened to you? You got some incredible pictures on Instagram that I saw how you were, what you looked like compared to what you look like now. So people can go and check that out. So thank you so much.

My pleasure, Steve. Thank you so much for having me.

Brilliant. Thanks Krivin, really appreciate your time. Maybe we can sort of just connect and put you guys an affiliate on my website, madetothribe.co ZA Let me start importing some things. Maybe you've got your head operations manager that I can deal with directly. It might just be easier. I can order a whole bunch of products, see what the duties are, see, you know, the hassle factor, which, you know is a bit tricky sometimes with South African, you know, Port Health that we've had a lot of products just being held up. Port Health and unfortunately they're looking for bribes, they're looking for money. You know, there's just so much corruption unfortunately in the system. But I do want to give it a go and then if it does work and it's easy, then we can just put you in as an affiliate and, and see what happens.

Happy to explore. Absolutely.

Well, thank you so much. I think via email, if you can just drop me the person that I should connect with and then we can go from there.

Yeah, sure. We'll do man.

Brilliant Craven. Have a super evening. I know it's probably afternoon there and thanks for your time and well done on your expansion. You're an inspiration to me. Made to Thrive is only two years years old or not even two years old. So yeah, just keep going.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Gut Health Gurus Podcast with our host Criben Govinda. If you found this podcast of value, leave us a kind review and five stars on Apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube or your favorite podcasting app. If you want to connect with our host Criben Govinda, please follow him him on Instagram and Facebook Gut healthgurus Also check out our Gut Health Gurus Facebook group with 17,000 plus members ready to help you on your journey to amazing gut health. This episode is sponsored by Nourish Me Organics. Head to www.nourishmeorganics.com and use the code HappyGut for 10% off. Make sure to check out their home kefi making kits, collagen supplements and deuterium depleted water as recommended by Cribbon. Until next time.