Kombucha: Everything You've Always Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask.

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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. And as I've talked about a few times before on podcasts in my articles, I drink kombucha. I actually drink kombucha. I would say probably almost every day, as long as it's around and in the pantry. I personally don't actually get kombucha from the store, and we'll probably talk a little bit about why during this episode, but my wife actually ferments kombucha at home with like a home kombucha fermenting kit. And then she adds things like blueberries and ginger and, you know, all sorts of things that make it taste good and add a few antioxidants to it and also just basically enhance the health properties that are already in kombucha. But there are a lot of myths and there are a lot of mistruths out there when it comes to kombucha. If you don't pick your poison wisely when it comes to this stuff, you can wind up getting fat or throwing your blood sugar out of balance or doing a lot of things that really aren't healthy, despite it being on the shelf of just about every health food store out there. So you, you can call that a kombucha confusion, if you will. And I know a lot of folks wonder, like, is this stuff alcoholic? Can kids drink it? Is it dangerous to make? Like, can you get toxins and things like that? If you try to make bacterial rich kombucha at home, does it affect candida or bacterial overgrowth in your gut? What kind should you choose at the grocery store? If you're gonna get it at the grocery store, how should you feel after you drink it? All sorts of things. So today we're gonna answer all those questions and more because I have a guest who goes by the title of the kombucha mama, and her name is Hannah Crum. And Hannah is the founder of something called Kombucha Camp, which is actually the most visited website in the world for kombucha info, kombucha recipes, kombucha advice, and pretty much everything you need to know about kombucha. She's what's called a master Brewer, which I didn't actually know existed until I started to research Han. And she mentors thousands of folks who want to become kombucha brewers or just learn a little bit about kombucha. So she's the founder of Kombucha Brewers International, which is this nonprofit association that promotes bottled kombucha around the world. And she's actually got this really cool kombucha instructional video series over at Expert Village on YouTube. It's got over a million views in just a second. I'll tell you the URL where you can go check out all this stuff. And she's a leader and featured speaker in the California Real Food, and she uses what she calls the kombucha lifestyle as an introduction to fermented foods and gut health and the human microbiome and bacteriosapiens and some of the things that we'll also talk about on today's show. So she has kits, she has kombucha brewing packages. She has, like, kombucha do it yourself guides as well. So her video series, her website, her free guides, all of that. I'm gonna put it over in the show notes for for today's episode, which you can find over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kombucha so, Hannah, thank you for coming on the call today.

Thanks, Ben. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to hear that you're a kombucha lover.

I am a kombucha lover, and you and I met at the Ancestral Health Symposium this year, where there are plenty of healthy ancestral foods around. And, of course, one of the things that we talked about at that symposium is the human gut and where bacteria fits in when it comes to the human gut. So I think that might be a good place to jump in before we even start to talk about kombucha is why bacteria is important and why you kind of have this mission to heal the world, what you call one gut at a time on your website. So can you get into bacteria, the gut, and why that is important?

Absolutely. This is one of my favorite topics. And, you know, to be honest, Ben, I didn't really know much about this topic until I started drinking kombucha, learning about it, and it's kind of led me on this journey of discovery to what I call, you know, what it means to be a human being. And that sounds like a really huge topic to tackle, maybe very philosophical, but essentially kind of what I've derived from my studies and from, you know, attending Ancestral Health Symposium. And these other great informational websites like yours and the others out there there is that we are bacteria powered organisms, that every single cell in our body relies on bacteria to exchange DNA information, to create, to be catalysts for processes that literally fuel every single cell in our body. So when I discovered that, that was such a revelation because what it, what it meant to me is that we are being bacteria powered. That's our force field. And it makes so much sense when we kind of see how much the levels of disease, of autoimmune disease have risen, the more, the farther away we've gotten from being in touch with our bacterial brethren.

So is that what bacteriosapiens means when you use that term? Or did you make that up or is that an actual word?

No, it's a made up word, bacteriosapiens, because it encapsulates our relationship to bacteria. I think as human beings, we literally cannot function without them. The good ones, of course, that are helping to support our functioning. And in fact, even some of the bad ones, Candida albicans, E. Coli, some of these H. Pylori, live in our body, but when they're in balance, when they're in the right amounts, they serve a very specific function that actually supports our health. It's when we get out of balance that we end up with a lot of physical issues and things like Candida. It's not that candida itself is bad, but when it gets out of balance and it overgrows in your system and it literally takes over and starts telling you to eat sugar, starts controlling your mind and convincing you to eat foods that help support the growth of that bacteria or yeast, rather than what is going to support your optimum functioning. That's when we kind of see just how powerful this relationship is.

So that's one sign or symptom of a bacterial overgrowth or a bacterial problem would be like the sugar cravings. And I know that alcohol cravings are another thing that can go along with candida overgrowth. What are some of the other things that people would feel or experience if their bacteria was out of balance?

General feelings of not good, basically. So when our bodies are out of balance, we experience gut dysbiosis. Gut dysbiosis manifests in a variety of different ways. And this is why kombucha and many of these other fermented foods seemingly perform these near miraculous functions because they help with so many different symptoms. So for instance, in terms of gut dysbiosis, IBS not being able to digest our food properly, poor Bowel movements, constipation, all of this is one of the aspects of gut dysbiosis. Then you have things like autoimmune, such as eczema, psoriasis, the ways in which the skin reacts to the things that are disrupted in the body and how those manifest physically. And so when we realize that the root cause of disease is disease, diet and stress, it makes a lot more sense. Why something like a kombucha, like a kefir, like a kvass, like a sauerkraut, can come in and create this almost near immediate benefit to the body? Because it's helping to bring that balance back into a body that's out of balance.

Interesting. So when it comes toto bacteria and introducing bacteria to your body, why is it that kombucha is one of the things that you've chosen to focus on? What is about the bacteria in kombucha? I know we'll get into what kombucha is here in a little bit, but why kombucha?

Kombucha is an entry point. It's not a destination. It's a way into kind of this bigger world that is all around us, this bacterial world. For me, it happened. I call it kombucha kismet. I had a moment of encounter with kombucha that I had no idea was even going to happen. I was visiting a friend from college in San Francisco. We got a tour of their very groovy place. This is back in like 2003. And one of the stops on the tour was this box. And in the box were jars, and the jars were covered with towels and they go, that's the kombucha. Never heard of it. Never. We didn't even try it. It wasn't ready to drink or anything. But I came back to la. You know, there's a Whole Foods, they had kombucha all over the place back then in la. And I grabbed a bottle of gingerade and it was love at first sip. I mean, it was like I can still remember the moment as if the. The light from heaven shone down upon me when I was drinking this. And of course, in my imagination, that's how I remember it. But really, there was a. There was an instant resonance with the flavor. It was sour. It was something that I really liked. And it reminded me of the pickle juice I used to sneak out of the pickle jar growing up. My mom would always admonish me for that. And there was a vibrancy to it that just literally hooked me and here's the funny thing, Ben, is I was not into cooking. I was not the kind of person who would normally take on this kind of project. So for me to adopt this culture and raise it in my home and nurture it the way that I have for so many years was really kind of a first step outside of my normal comfort zone. And that's why I like to think of kombucha as an entry point into these bigger. These bigger things, such as, you know, understanding process, understanding that things, good things, come to those who wait and you reap what you sow. And I know those are kind of trite aphorisms, but when we get down to the truth of what they're saying, it really is true. You know, we're kind of programmed the opposite to have an expectation of instant gratification and. Or instant healing or, here, take this pill. And now you're cured. But that's not how our bodies work, and that's not how the world works. So by engaging in a process that helps to get back to that type of trusting the cycles and going with that flow and knowing that what you're putting into something will reap rewards down the road is just an exciting, exciting process to engage in for me.

Yeah, I hear. I mean, the gut is like a garden, right? So, like, by me drinking kombucha every day and introducing, you know, I do a wide variety of fermented foods. And I suppose you probably do, too, since you know the importance of bacteria. But, you know, kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, and even different strains of kombucha, different varieties of probiotics. And I also do kefir. And you mentioned kvass, and I drink kvass. And that's. I think one of the keys is to understand that if you wander out to your garden, you don't necessarily have to plant just one variety. You would plant a wide variety of different things that you can eat, and you don't expect them to all pop up at once, right? Like, you grow, you nourish, you feed that garden and gradually begins to thrive. And I think that that's one of the things people need to realize about bacteria, right? Is I know that the human gut can begin to change within, like, one day of changing your diet. It's crazy. Have you seen this about the gut microbiome and how it just, like, adapts so quickly?

Absolutely. And I love this metaphor that you're using with the garden, because here's the thing, Ben, and we know this instinctively, but we don't always remember it consciously is nature loves diversity. You never go out in outside, even if you walk out your front door. I'm in a major city, Los Angeles, I walk out my front door, there's palm trees, there's grass, there's roses, there's bugs, there's birds. Nobody lives in a place where there's only one thing, because nature loves diversity. And so in talking about the soil and the gut being the human soil, right? And so we need to plant the bacteria that help nutrify our organism so that it can function properly. And just like we put fertilizers or we put something into our garden that's going going to help nurture the soil and nurture the bacteria in the soil, because that's again, how plants eat too. Like literally our entire planet is bacteria powered. Plants uptake nutrition by bacteria, passing nutrition through the little roots that they have off of them, just as we're nutrified by the bacteria that live in our gut and create all those catalytic reactions. And to speak to diversity, there's over 500 different types of bacteria that live in our gut alone. And it varies from person to person. It's like a fingerprint in a way. The type of signatures that they're uncovering through this research is really exciting to know that there's this level of diversity not only within my gut, but in everybody's gut.

Yeah, I like it. So obviously there's a lot of reasons out there to introduce bacterial rich foods into your diet and to nourish your body just like a garden, to be patient and to be in this for the long run as you change the bacterial balance in your gut. Now, I think it's going to be fun here to jump into brass tacks and start off with this question. Hannah, what is kombucha? Because I know there's some people listening in for whom it's this mysterious beverage that they grab off of the shelf at Whole Foods and drink and know it's supposed to be good for them, but have no clue where it comes from. So what is kombucha?

Kombucha is fermented tea. So just like when we make beet kvass, we're using beets and a little bit of starter. The starter is on the skin of the bee, just like in a sauerkraut, the bacteria come from that. In the case of fermenting tea, we use a starter culture. So similar to like a sourdough bread or a kefir grain, these are all cultures that we place into a substrate or Medium, it then ferments that into a healthy beverage. So in the case of kombucha, we're putting it into tea. Now, tea, which is Camellia sinensis, it's a specific plant. I know we have a tendency to think, you know, peppermint tea and chamomile tea, those are actually herbal tisanes. But the tea plant, its from which green, black, white, yellow, you know, all the other types of tea come from, has very specific antioxidants and polyphenols that help support optimum functioning in the body. Now, when we expose that tea to a fermentation process with the kombucha culture, it makes those elements even more bioavailable. It breaks them down into smaller components that are easier for our bodies to absorb. So we're receiving nutrition in a living form, we're receiving nutrition in a form our bodies have evolved to recognize, and we're receiving nutrition that can be instantly utilized. And so a lot of times when people grab a kombucha off the shelf, the thing we hear people say most often is, it just makes me feel good. And when you realize it's the bacteria, it's the probiotics from the bacteria, it's the yeast. The yeast present have all of the B vitamins in a living form. Now, granted, these are in very trace amounts, so this isn't something where you'd be looking on the back looking for your RDA of all of your B vitamins. But again, being in that living form is something that I think is really crucial because, as you know, Ben, probably from studying fitness, our bodies are kind of like puzzle pieces in that the chemicals, the nutrition, the vitamins, et cetera, are in specific shapes. And when those shapes plug in, our body can uptake and instantly know what to do with those. And the reason that people have such a problem these days is there are so many shapes in our food that our bodies don't recognize. And any of those shapes that it doesn't recognize, like GMOs or artificial sweeteners or artificial colors, the body assumes is then being attacked by those things. And so when we consume products that aren't in a whole living form or that have a lot of additives to them, our body doesn't know what to do with it. And this is why we see such a huge incidence in the autoimmune disease, especially the more we consume it. Right. You know, if you eat a GMO bag of chips once, you're probably gonna be okay. It's not the end of the world. But if you're eating them on a regular basis, it's that cumulative effect that throws the body out of balance. And it works hard to try to keep up as much as it can until all of a sudden you have an illness, or all of a sudden, you know, your body has to send you a much larger message to get it through that, hey, this stuff you're putting in your body isn't working, and we're not functioning anymore.

So on a very, very basic level, like, if somebody wanted to make kombucha, what would be just like the most basic recipe that they would use? Where. Where would they get the ingredients? What ingredients would they need? And what's kind of the process to go from that tea that you talked about to fermenting it and then having a final batch of kombucha in a bottle or a jar?

You know, here's the thing, Ben. If you can brew a cup of tea, you can brew kombucha. It is literally that easy. So basically, instead of brewing one cup of tea, we're brewing a gallon of tea. So we use three to five tea bags or three to five teaspoons of loose leaf tea per gallon. We soak that in our hot for about 15 minutes. We remove the teabags, add one cup of sugar. So it's one cup per gallon is our basic ratio. Now, that's a lot of sugar, but when you taste the final product, you'll notice that it has a sweet, tart flavor. And that's because the sugar is broken down through the fermentation process. So one cup of sugar with our three to five teabags, we stir that up, and then we add a kombucha culture.

Can I interrupt you for just a second? When you say that the sugars are broken down by the fermentation process, does that mean that if excessive sugars aren't added, that the bacteria have actually consumed and metabolized that sugar rather than you consuming and metabolizing that sugar?

Correct. And so the sugar is not for you. The sugar is for the yeast. It's for the bacteria. So the yeast start breaking down. The sugar from sucrose is a polysaccharide. It's a disaccharide. So it's fructose and glucose that create the sucrose molecule. So the yeast start consuming the sucrose and cleaving it into fructose and glucose. Those then become fuel sources for the bacteria, which create gluconic acid, glucuronic acid. So they need that glucose molecule present in order to create those healthy acids that help detoxify the body and bring it back into balance gradually. Then the fructose is also utilized by the yeast. So by the time it ends up to you, even if you're looking at the grams of sugar listed on the label, it's not equivalent to, say, you know, teaspoons or, you know, if you had table sugar. They're not equivalent because although there's still some sugar present, it's in a form that's much easier on the body. It has a lower glycemic load. And in fact, there's been a lot of anecdotal evidence, as well as some research showing that diabetics and people who can't handle a lot of sugar, provided they're doing a longer fermentation process, in fact, it helps them to balance their blood sugar levels.

Okay, gotcha. So that sugar that you're adding as you've, as you brewed the tea, before you bottle this stuff up, it's basically not something that you need to worry about from a glycemic index standpoint.

Exactly right. And what we always tell people is, look, every body is different. As we've just been talking about. My microbiome is different from yours is different from someone else's. So how kombucha affects my body is going to potentially be different from how it affects your body. And this is due to a variety of factors, such as the state your body is in, what else is going on? Do you have other health issues? So, for instance, some people, when they drink kombucha, they feel like they're having some kind of reaction to the kombucha more often than not. This is what we call a Herxheimer reaction or a healing crisis, where and this occurs anytime you start some type of detox protocol where basically the body gets into a stage where it's ready to release the toxins. And as it releases those toxins in your body before they've been flushed, you experience those symptoms as if you had, you know, for instance, for example, in Candida, you might have a flare up where you have. It seems to get worse before it gets better. And that's because, look, these are organisms that you're trying to kill off and out compete by putting other organisms in there and they're fighting for their lives and they're going to try to hang on as long as they can. And this is where we bring in not just our gut and how it feels, but our brain and our knowledge and education. And when we combine Those two things, we're able to engage in a more full feedback process. So when we start to connect what goes in my mouth with how it makes my body feel and start to connect the dots on that, that's when people are able to make real shifts because they can recognize, oh, when I eat that, actually, that makes me not feel so great. Maybe I should cut down on that.

So I interrupted you as you were going into the part about adding sugar into the tea. Can you finish with the kombucha recipe?

Absolutely. So, okay, we have our tea, we have our sugar, we let it, then we add our culture. So your kombucha culture, it's always good to source one from a quality, reputable source. Reason being you don't know what kind of conditions they're grown in. You want to make sure it's something that's clean and isn't potentially contaminated. And more than that, because kombucha does have quite a few defense mechanisms. It's support, because so often, like, think about this. If you were making yogurt at home, would you ever be afraid of the yogurt or of the sauerkraut? Now, I know you're a fermentationist, Ben, but there is something about kombucha that inherently freaks people out because they're just not used to seeing this funky little culture. It's bacterial cellulose that the bacteria. Basically what the bacteria do is they throw out these nanofibers of culture that then bond together. And as they bond together, they create a very tight layer. And that's your scoby. Scoby stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. So the bacteria builds.

See, I always. I never knew that that was what SCOBY actually stands for. So S, C, O, B, Y. Symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.

You got it. Yeah.

I always thought it was just like a shortening of whatever the scientific term is for the big clump of fibers that floats there on top of the jar.

Well, it used to be called mushroom tea. And just like we think of kefir grains, but they're not actually grains. Mushroom was more of a descriptor that described the kind of. It looked kind of like a mushroom cap. Right. If you can imagine, it's all white and thick and. And that's what people identified it as. Scoby is a term that obviously is more accurate, but certainly is an acronym. So. So lots of things can be Scoby's, but scoby is the term that was invented for computer Kombucha.

Okay, gotcha. So is that it for the kombucha recipe? Once you've got all this stuff bottled up, right?

So then you throw your scoby in there. Now, the important thing is starter liquid. You need to have one cup of very strong starter liquid. Starter liquid is simply fermented kombucha. So like when you're making your next batch, like when your wife makes her next batch, she. She probably reserves a cup of liquid right off the top, and that becomes the starter for her next batch.

And the very, very first. The very first starter that she used, she just bought a bottle of kombucha from the grocery store and use that as the starter.

Well, and some. Some kombuchas you can do that with. Now, here's the. Here's the issue that we've run into because of what happened in 2010. In 2010, several brands of kombucha were removed from the shelves because. Because kombucha is a fermented product, it can contain trace amounts of alcohol, although typically we don't see it any more than, say, a glass of fruit juice or something like that. However, when we add fruit to our kombucha, what we're doing is we're reactivating the fermentation process so the yeast, now that they have a sugar again, starts converting the sugars from that. It also pulls all of the healthy elements from whatever you're infusing into it. So say blueberries, you're getting your antioxidants, your. Your flavonoids, all that good stuff. And that's why it'll turn your kombucha a really lovely purple color, because it's just pulling all that good stuff right out of there. The problem is, though, if you have that in an anaerobic environment and you don't give it time for the bacteria to then consume the ethanol created, you end up with levels that are potentially outside of what the current legally allowed limits is. So in response to that, the companies had to change their process and how they make kombucha. So this is very similar to what we see in commercial yogurt, right? Commercial yogurt has a couple of strains that have been defined as the specific strains for yogurt, but they're not nearly as diverse as when we make yogurt at home from a true yogurt culture, which has 30 plus strains of bacteria present. So oftentimes we're able to potentially grow a culture or create a starter. But many people say that subsequent batches simply don't have the same flavor and over time aren't as delicious as when you procure a starter from either a reputable source or a good friend or, you know, something like that. So.

Gotcha. Okay, so I want to ask you in a little bit here where we get, you know, some of these things like the starter and the culture. But before I do that, you talked about how once you've got your tea and your sugar, you add your starter and then what's the next step?

Give it a week. One week, Seven days. Seven days is our. Okay, so in our ideal brewing conditions, the temperature is 75 to 85, with 78 to 80 being our sweet spot. So kombucha does like it on the warmer side. But if we're in that one gallon at those ideal temperatures, about seven days is what it takes to turn that into something that most people find delicious. So it's going to be a balance between sweet and tart. And everybody's taste preference is different. And that's what's great about making it at home, is you decide when it has the flavor you like. You get to add the flavorings at the end that you prefer best. And you can get so experimental. Crazy people really come up with lots of fun stuff. One of the wackier flavors I made was a bacon booch. We did a maple bacon boot. So we took actual pieces of bacon and infused it into the kombucha with a little bit of maple syrup, and it's pretty tasty stuff.

Wow. Do you have that recipe posted on your website?

I don't, but it's pretty simple. We have a book coming out out in 2015. My husband and I are co authors on that and we're also partners at kombucha camp. So we're really excited about that coming out next November.

Cool. Okay, so I want to do a few rapid fire questions to you because I get a lot of questions about kombucha. And since you're the expert, I want to hear what your thoughts are. You talked on this a little bit just now as far as alcohol content goes. But of course, there's that whole Lindsay Lohan story where she got pulled over and she blamed the fact that she bought a kombucha, I think, at Whole Foods, for the fact that her blood levels of alcohol were above the acceptable limit for driving. Is kombucha like if you buy kombucha from the grocery store or you make it yourself, is it alcoholic? And if so, how high?

Sure. So as I mentioned, kombucha is a naturally fermented beverage, and as such, it does create trace amounts of alcohol. See, these fermented drinks, Ben, are our original soft drinks, right? There's hard liquor and soft drinks because all of the, you know, water, kefir, milk, kefir, all of these have trace amounts of alcohol naturally present. That alcohol serves a very specific function. And this is something we've kind of lost sight of in post prohibition United States alcohol culture, is that alcohol is medicine first and foremost. It is what we infused herbs into that created our first tinctures that we see derivations of and things like agarmeister and whatnot that have these very strong herbal flavors to them. But originally these serve very specific medicinal functions. So kombucha certainly has nowhere near the alcohol levels that you'll find in a hard alcohol. So all of these kind of soft drinks, right, your root beers, your ginger ales, all these naturally fermented beverages topped out at no more than 2%. So the alcohol levels in kombucha are self limiting because the bacteria consume the ethanol produced by the yeast, thereby reducing the ethanol and increasing the healthy acid content. So this makes measuring alcohol and kombucha incredibly difficult because a lot of the machinery, there's no like litmus test where we can just like put a little piece of paper and oh, okay, this, this has that. It's, it's a much more complex process than that. But suffice to say, because of the reformulation, now there are companies out there, all the companies that are out there selling an under 21 product, they are within that legally prescribed limit. There are brands of kombucha that are called over 21. And in fact, GT's has both an under and over 21, those you might have to be carded for. But the funny thing is they don't tend to have, again, more than that 2% alcohol. So in terms of inebriation, which is what you were asking about, can it get you drunk? I mean, it just really depends on your body. First of all, the way in which FDR tried to end prohibition was he said that beer that had a 3.2 alcohol by weight was considered non inebriating and therefore could be sold. And this is what then allowed them to sell other alcohol and end prohibition. So the government already set up a standard that that is an acceptable limit that's considered non inebriating. Other people have reported that when they take B vitamin shots, the feeling of euphoria that they get is very similar to drinking a kombucha Remember we mentioned earlier, there's yeast in kombucha, and it contains all of the B vitamins in a living form. So is the buzz that people are getting due to alcohol, is it due to B vitamins? I think it varies person to person. Some people who are very sensitive to alcohol may report feeling a sensation of it, whereas others never feel any kind of quote, unquote buzz ever. So most people find that drinking kombucha is not something that's going to impair them. In fact, I think almost 100% of people would find that. But, you know, everybody is different. And we always like to allow for individuals, but for the most part, we find it's something that people give to children. They do perfectly. Great. Do your kids drink kombucha, Ben?

They do drink kombucha. And that was actually my next question, now that we've got the alcohol issue out of the way is should. Should kids drink it? Is it okay?

Absolutely. See, here's the other thing about all those fermented beverages I mentioned before. They were also called small beers and they were given to children. So again, we live in an anomaly in history where we have this very puritanical attitude towards alcohol in that we. We treat it like a controlled substance. And unfortunately, that's how it ends up in our culture, as being viewed instead of as something that is a. That we evolved with. We evolved with alcohol, with all of these bacterial fermentations. And it provides a very specific benefit. So we call this healthy low alcohol just to kind of cast it in a more positive light. And numerous studies point to moderate consumption of alcohol as lengthening life. It's also something that we see in other countries where, you know, even after a woman gives birth, she'll be given beer because unfiltered beer, again, contains all those B vitamins. It relaxes the mother, it allows for the breast milk to flow. And so there's a lot of health benefits to it that we simply don't totally understand in this country. So children love it. Pregnant women can drink it again. It's listening to your body. I've had friends who were pregnant and they love kombucha. They got pregnant and they couldn't stand the smell of it.

Gotcha.

Listen to your body, okay? I've had other women tell me they drank it. It helped their breast milk flow. They craved it all through their pregnancy. They loved it. So it really is trusting your gut. You are the captain of your ship. You are in charge of what goes in. You are the one who experiences how everything reacts in your body. So it's really up to you to make that decision. And see, is kombucha something that fits for me? Is it something that's going to work for me? Because here's another interesting study that recently came out, and I don't know if you're following these, Ben, but there's a bunch of bacteria studies coming out. One of them showed that alcoholics who had poor diversity of bacteria in their guts had a harder time recovering from alcoholism versus those who had a more diverse microbiome. So kombucha is something that many people have reported curbs their alcohol cravings. So it could be by getting the healthy bacteria that we need, we then aren't craving what we think we need in a more toxifying format, especially when consumed in higher density doses.

Okay, got it. Next question. Can you drink too much kombucha? And I asked this question because it seems that whether I am drinking kombucha from the grocery store or I'm drinking my wife's homemade kombucha, if I drink more than about a decent sized bottle's worth, I tend to get some bloating and some gas. Is that because I've overdone it on kombucha or is that just coincidence?

You know, it's again, trusting your gut. And if you feel the two are connected, then I would sense that they are. And kombucha is a tonic, so it's something that is best consumed in small, frequent doses. So, for instance, 4 to 8 ounces first thing in the morning on an empty stomach is a great way to start. It allows you to feel how the kombucha is working in your body. And then from there you do that one to three times a day. So drinking a bottle from the store, that's 16 ounces, there's two. Two potential servings right there. So having more than that, maybe your body naturally tops off at that level. I'm the kombucha mama. I don't even drink kombucha every day. I do almost most days, but then there's some days where my body just doesn't crave it. And I listen to my body. So. And then there's times when I go when I don't have it for a little while, and then I'm like, oh, my gosh, I gotta have a kombucha. I'm just. I'm dying for that nutrition. So, you know, it really is that observation of your body and trusting that you're able to interpret the information correctly.

Right. Okay, gotcha. Okay, so kind of on the same vein of gas and bloating, we've talked about Candida a few times and I'm sure that you've gotten this question before. There are people out there in the healthosphere that say that kombucha is something you shouldn't drink if you have bacterial overgrowth growth or if you have candida. What are your thoughts on that?

I mean, I hate to harp on it, but trust your gut and here's why. Kombucha does contain specific acids that are known candida sites. It creates phenylethyl alcohol, it creates caprylic acid. So these things are already known to have an anti candida effect. It also creates other antimicrobials and things like that. Here's the problem. As I mentioned before, sometimes it gets worse before it gets gets better. And people who are not prepared to go through the process of a die off situation or who don't know what's happening in that situation may incorrectly interpret those. You know, it might be gas bloating, it could be cramps, it could be headache, it could be just kind of feeling out of sorts. Any of those symptoms can be misinterpreted as the kombucha is making me sick. And it's by listening to your body, trusting the information you're getting, and also applying your conscious brain to, hey, what's going on with my body? What is it I need to correct? Because oftentimes people who have out of control sugar cravings and alcohol cravings can't stand the taste of sour, when that's exactly what they need to get their bodies back on track. So for some people, when they take that first sip, they're like, oh, this is bleh. But their bodies will bring them back around to it because instinctually the human organism knows, hey, this is something that's good for me and I want more of it. And this is why we'll also see some people who first start drinking kombucha crave a lot of it. Their bodies are missing something. So by listening to what your body needs, you're able to flush. Now, people who do experience a Herxheimer reaction, as I mentioned before, the simplest thing to do, reduce the amount of kombucha you're drinking, increase the amount of water you're drinking. Flushing is going to help to get those toxins out of your body and then gradually add it back in as you're able to. Now some people find that adding Kombucha right from the top isn't going to work for them. And that's when going back to a lacto ferment, like a kefir or kvass or something like that is going to be a little bit gentler. It's a higher pH. It's a different type of organism. It allows the gut to heal in a different way first before then adding in the detox properties of kombucha as well as the acetic acid. Acid that comes from it being an acetic acid ferment.

Okay, got it. Cool. So essentially what you're saying is that a lot of times when you feel symptoms, like if you have candida or you have bacterial overgrowth, it is probably just a detox Herxheimer's die off reaction and not the fact that you are feeding a bunch of the candida and yeast and fungus with the kombucha.

Now, let me make a caveat here. If you are brewing it at home and you're not allowing it to ferment long enough, then you might be inadvertently feeding your body sugar.

Yeah. Because the bacteria hasn't had a chance to eat all the sugar. So you're eating the sugar, it's feeding the yeast and the fungus in your gut.

Exactly right. And so for candida sufferers and for diabetics and for people who have sugar sensitivities, we need to be conscious that we're fermenting it long enough. So in that case, that same gallon of kombucha that we mentioned was ready in seven days. We'd give it 10 to 14 days for someone like that. Now, if they find that the kombucha is like too sour to drink for their palate, dilute it with water. It's like a little bit of lemon in your water, you still get the probiotic benefit. That's also a great trick for helping people who are addicted to sodas to get off of soda, is start sneaking the kombucha in with the soda, they're at least going to start receiving some of that probiotic benefit, some of that stuff that's going to help signal their body, hey, time to let go of this addiction and incorporate a healthier beverage into their lifestyle.

Okay, next question. When I buy something like GT's kombucha or some of these other kombucha strains at the grocery store, they taste much sweeter than what we make at home and they seem to have a relatively high calorie count. When you look at the nutrition label, like, you know, 35 calories, and that's per serving. And there's two servings in a bottle or sometimes as high as 70 calories. You're getting basically as many calories as a can of soda when you drink. One of these kombuchas that are at the grocery store now, is that sugar? Sugar that has not been fermented by the bacteria because it didn't ferment long enough. Is it sugar that they've added after they've made the kombucha? Or why is it that these taste so much sweeter and have such a high calorie count?

Well, you're hitting on, you know, the nation's current addiction to sugar, which has been created by the processed foods industry. We think of sodas and things like that as simulacrum. Basically, these are imitation foods designed to imitate natural foods that give a nutritional benefit, and yet these foods deliver zero nutritional benefit. So, for instance, carbonation. Carbonation is a natural byproduct of the fermentation process that instinctually humans understand means that B vitamins are present because yeast is present. And when we look at soda, soda has added carbonation. Kombucha has healthy acids that detoxify the body. Sodas have fake acids that destroy the body because it removes healthy elements from the body. So they, on the surface of it, if you tested the ph or there, so that you might think, oh, these things are identical. But the fact that the sugars are pre digested, that you have bacteria in a living form, and that you have these trace amounts of vitamins and minerals in a living form, it far outweighs any kind of calorie count you're looking at on the can itself. That's the first thing I would say is.

Wait, so what you're saying is that when they list sugars or calories on the label, does that mean that they're listing sugars and calories that were added as a process of fermentation?

Well, so there's a couple different things that might be going on with commercial kombuchas. And not all commercial kombuchas are made the same way. It's very similar to Kraft beer. You know, you can have how many different kinds of hefeweizen, and they all taste different. Right. So kombucha is a very similar product in that way. It's a craft product. It's brewed, it's fermented. What we see, this natural variation in the sweetness that we're seeing is because they're trying to create a product that fits a Mainstream palate. Not everybody is ready to dive into the, you know, apple cider vinegar, sour end of the kombucha spectrum. And so having these, what we call bridge brands, having these bridge brands that help with a slightly lighter profile or slightly sweeter profile allows people to get into the habit of kombucha, to get accustomed to the healthy bacteria present. And what most people find, especially if they're making it at home, is that whereas before maybe they liked it on the sweeter side, over time, they tend to make it more and more sour because that is actually what the body craves. You know, we crave sour, we crave bitter. These are the things that keep our body functioning properly. The sweets are just supposed to be the little sprinkles on top. But unfortunately, the way our system is set up, those sweets have become pervasive. And that's part of what is creating so many digestive issues. So the sugar calories you're seeing on those commercial bottles, sometimes it's coming from stevia or other things that are added after the fact to make the product more palatable. Most time, if they're, especially if it's an unflavored, those sugars are simply reflecting the remaining sugar from, from the fermentation process. And again, it'll look how it tastes sweet.

The remaining sugar that wasn't actually fermented by the bacteria.

Well, and here's the thing, Ben, is do you know much about food labels or how they're made?

Yeah.

Well, so they don't actually test the product itself for those components. They look at the ingredients list and they pull known quantities and make a calculation based on that. So you, if, if in kombucha, we list out that it's made with tea sugar, da da da, da, da. There's no accounting for the fermentation process. And so you may be seeing sugar counts, sugar grams that are higher than what's actually present in the bottle, because it's going, it's not testing that specific product.

Interesting. So they're getting a list of all the ingredients that went in to say, like, GTs kombucha. Let's say like one really popular flavor is like the trill GTs kombucha. They're seeing what went into that. They're seeing that they put, okay, X amount of sugar in here to ferment the bacteria. They're putting that amount of sugar on the nutrition label. But much of that sugar that you see on that nutrition label might actually be fermented.

See, this is, and I can't say from one brand to another how exactly their labels are made, but what I can say is that there's not a uniform like lab that everything goes to and that those exact values is what's passed on to the lab label.

Okay, got it. So there's really noso.

It's kind of nebulous. Yeah.

I wonder if it'd be interesting to get to see someone do this experiment. If you're listening in, you may want to do this. Figure out how to get like a burn calorimeter or some other way that you could just take a bottle of Kombucha off the shelf and test how much of the sugar is really truly present as sugar versus how much of it is just stuff that's already been fermented by bacteria.

I mean, and this is like lab type stuff where lots of testing has to be done and it all has to be centrifuged out and figured out, you know, the weight of this and that, you know, so it's a very complex process, which is why we don't see it done very much. But this is my point being, like, let's not get hung up on the sugar grams on the kombucha bottle. Let's be excited that we're drinking a kombucha and not a soda and not a sugar laden juice that might be pasteurized. You know what I'm saying? Like, you're reaching for something that's good for you if it tastes good to you too. I mean, provided your body is having a positive reaction to it and you're not seeing your health get out of control, I think it's safe to assume that those are things we don't need.

Are you pretty familiar with all the different brands that are out there all over the grocery stores?

Yes. Okay, so as you mentioned, Kombucha Bars International is a nonprofit trade association that Alex and I co founded to bring all of the kombucha bottling companies together to strategize, to have a safe space to talk about the issues that concern the kombucha industry.

So if you were going to go to the grocery store and get Kombucha and it wasn't something that you'd made yourself at home, what would be your top brand brands if you were just gonna buy one from like Whole Foods or Sprouts or Nuggets or some other organic grocery store?

Well, first of all, I always love to find out what the local brand is. So whenever I'm traveling somewhere, if I hit the local health Food store or the co op or wherever. I want to grab what's local because, you know, living in la, I have a lot of access to different kombuchas. But because it's that craft product, you know, every brand tastes different. So I always love to taste what's local. And then in terms of, you know, favorite brands, like here in la, I really love health Aid. They've got a. They do farmer's market juices. They have a beet kombucha. I really like the savory flavors. In Wisconsin, I really like nasala kombucha. And if I'm in the Southeast, I like bucci. It has a little more of the tang to it. You know, I have to admit, I'm a sour girl. So for me, the more. The more tartness, the better, at least for my. For my taste buds. That's what I like.

Okay, got it. So you like to look for the local, you like to look for the tart.

And then if I don't find it, you know, GT's is great to reach for. I particularly like the over 21 brand, it with the black label. But, you know, in a pinch, the under 21 stuff is good too, because, you know, more often than not, if I can grab a kombucha, there's almost nothing else on the shelf that doesn't have added sugar in it. Even iced tea seems to have sugar in it wherever I go.

So just a few more questions here for you. Number one, what is the biggest mistake that you see people make when they're making their own kombucha at home?

Home?

Is it not sterilizing the equipment properly so you set yourself up for some kind of an infection or food poisoning? Is it not fermenting long enough? Adding too much over adding not enough? Like, what would be the biggest mistake that you see?

There's a couple of them. So the first one would be trying to use one culture in too large of a batch of sweet tea. So just like when we scale our cake or cookie recipe or whatever recipe we're making, we need those ingredients to remain in the correct ratio, or we end up with, you know, a baking disaster. The same is true with kombucha. If we put one culture that's intended for 1 gallon into 2 gallons of sweet tea, there's an off chance it might survive. But you're asking that culture to do an awful lot of work in converting all that sugar and acidifying the brew before other microorganisms colonize. So. So not having the correct amount of kombucha and starter liquid is one mistake. A second mistake is not adding enough sugar. Because like you said, people are like, oh, well, I'll just reduce the amount of sugar and then it won't have as much sugar. The problem is the sugar is not for you. And if you don't give the yeast and bacteria what they need, they can't then create the healthy acids that makes you feel good. And then the third thing I'd say is heat. That temperature range is very specific, that 75 to 85, with 78 to 80 being our sweet spot. All of the information for, you know, the quantities of the sugar, the temperature, all of this comes from the numerous amounts of studies that have been done on kombucha since the 1850s. So kombucha has been very prolifically studied for hundreds of years, well, 150 years or so. And. But a lot of those studies take place outside of the United States. And so the information that often gets quoted is, oh, there's no studies on kombucha, which just isn't true. So a lot of this information comes directly from those studies in terms of what those ideal conditions are. So you want to have enough culture and starter liquid, you want to give it the right amount of sugar, and you also want to make sure it has the right temperature. Now here I just want to address the issue because you mentioned a couple times about is it dangerous, can you contaminate yourself, things like that, because sometimes there, there is that misinformation that goes around about kombucha. So kombucha has several defense mechanisms that makes it very easy to make at home. First, let's think about it from a logical perspective. How could something like this funky little pancake get passed around for hundreds of years if it was so easy to make you sick? It simply wouldn't. People wouldn't be handing it out to their friends if it was something that then, you know, they might get sick from. So some of these defense mechanisms are. The first one is the ph. The ph of kombucha is very acidic. It's a 2.5 to 3.5 is what we typically see for kombucha. Even According to the FDA's website, something that has a Ph of 4.6 or lower, considered a very safe food because there's never been an instance of botulism. So it's a very safe food for that reason. Also, there have been studies showing its antimicrobial properties. So it'll kill things like E. Coli and salmonella on contact just because of the acids, and they're able to break those cell membranes. So that low ph is really important. And that's why our starter liquid coming from the top is really vital, because that's what helps the to acidify the brew and protect it. The second defense mechanism is the scoby itself. It creates a lid. So it's a lid that not only prevents other microorganisms from trying to land in this huge pot of sweet tea that any organism would want to consume, and then as the layer grows across the top, it literally grows so that it covers the entire surface. So your wife may have started with, you know, a starter that was really small, but if she moved it to a larger vessel, then the scoby would grow to that size of the vessel. So that lid also then prevents evaporation and creates an anaerobic environment for the other fermentation process to occur. So it's low ph, it's the scoby itself. And even the trace amounts of alcohol are naturally antimicrobial and act as a preservative. So all of those things working in concert make kombucha very safe and very easy to make at home.

Wow. And that's kind of the last thing I wanted to to mention was making this stuff yourself and all the resources that you have. And obviously, I'm going to put a link to all this stuff over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kombucha but tell me about some of, like, the kits and the packages that you have for people who want to start making their own kombucha. Like, what would you recommend as far as all the different things that you have over on your kombucha web store?

Well, here's what I would say. If, you know you love kombucha and you're serious about making it, it go to continuous brew. It might feel like a large investment, but it's the same as when you're getting your dehydrator or your Vitamix. Once you pay for the piece of equipment, it makes that process a lot easier. So the continuous brew process is the easiest, safest, healthiest way to make kombucha. It's easy because you don't. You pour everything right out of the spigot. So instead of having to handle the culture all the time, potentially contaminating them, you know, you expose them to more risk by handling them more often. Now we don't. We don't touch them at all, except once every three to six months when we Clean the vessel. And it's easy in the sense that when you drain some of that kombucha off, you top off with your sweet tea and then it only takes a couple of days for that to turn into kombucha. You can drink. So it's fast because once the vessel is set up, that fermentation process happens on a much more rapid schedule. The additional benefit to the continuous brew process is by leaving that 75% of kombucha in the vessel. There are other healthy acids created later in the fermentation process. At the 15 day mark, and again at the 30 day mark, we see those acids peak. Now, if we were doing 30 days in our gallon jar, you probably wouldn't like the way that tasted. And now you've defeated your purpose. But in the continuous brew process, because we're tempering it with the sweet tea, we get the full benefit of those healthy acids expressed. Plus we were moderating the flavor with a little bit of that sweet tea. So you have a delicious drink full of good health benefits. And it's just a lot easier. It streamlines the whole process. So instead of having to lift your jars and pour them in through the funnels and this and that, everything comes right off out of a spigot. It's super easy. All of our vessels are going to make delicious kombucha. The only one that'll have a different flavor is the oak barrel. So we have modern porcelain vessels. We have stainless steel with stainless steel spigots. And yes, they're, they're corrosive resistant and they're perfectly safe for brewing kombucha. We also have the oak barrel in two sizes, which lends a lovely flavor to the kombucha. It mellows the acidic bite a little bit. And many people comment, they love the oaky flavor, sweet. And then there's a handmade stoneware vessel with an all wood spigot. So we've tried to accommodate a variety of people's needs. Some products are made in the usa, some are handmade, some have wood spigots, you know, so we're trying to offer a selection of products so that anyone can be successful with this hobby. And then if you found that kombucha is maybe not where you should start. We have other cultures. We've got water kefir grains, milk kefir grains, and then we also have jun. Have you ever heard of jun, Ben?

No. It's jun or June.

Or June tea is how they sometimes spell it.

How do you spell it?

J U N rhymes with fun is how we call it. But basically, it's a raw honey, green tea ferment. So the kombucha culture is uniquely adapted to work with tea and sugar. And if you expose it to raw honey, the naturally occurring bacteria will compete with your kombucha culture, and you end up with off flavors. And, I mean, frankly, it just smells gross. Jun is a culture that looks very similar but behaves slightly differently because it's a different colony of bacteria and yeast. But it feeds off green tea and raw honey and creates this very light, floral, lovely alternative to kombucha. So if people find kombucha is a little too intense, you might want to try the jun. If you find both of those are too intense for your gut at this time, start with the lacto ferments and ease your way into the essential factor. Ferments.

Wow. This is so cool. All right, well, I'm gonna put a link to all this stuff over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kombucha if I can twist Hannah's arm into sending me that maple bacon recipe, I would freaking love to have that published exclusively at BenGreenfieldFitness.com and if she sends it, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Hannah. I will also put that in the show notes as well over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com so now the pressure's on Hannah. Oh, my God. Everybody's gonna wait for it with bated breath. Okay, so, Hannah, thank you so much for coming on the call today and sharing all this stuff with us.

Well, thank you, Ben. You know, it's always fun to talk to a fellow fermentation foodie. How many more Fs could I fit in there?

Yeah, exactly, fellow.

So do you feel bacteria powered, Ben?

Do you like.

Exactly. Do you feel like that the bacteria powers you up?

Yes. And when I am traveling, because I'm a little bit more careful about drinking fermented foods or drinking fermented beverages and eating fermented foods from which I'm unaware of the actual source, I can feel a difference. And I really don't like just popping a probiotic pill versus just eating all these different ancestral fermented foods. So I know that for those of you listening in, it can seem like a drag to make your own stuff. But you know what? Getting in touch with nature, getting in touch with your environment, getting in touch with your microbiome and how you're actually feeding that, rather than relying upon your local grocery store to determine what your microbiome is going to be like. I think it's really cool to take all of that into your own hands. And our household has certainly been a lot more healthy since we started doing it.

So I'm beaming. I'm excited. I love this.

Cool.

Yes. Yes.

All right. Well, Hannah, thank you so much for coming on, folks. If you're listening in, head over to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kombucha that's K O M B U C H A Kombucha for the show notes. And until next time, this is Ben Greenfield and the Kombucha Mama signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com visit BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more.

Cutting edge fitness, nutrition and performance advice. Sam.