Tag: bacteria

  • Grow Your Own Probiotics In A Jar

     Forget everything you think you know about vegetables and let me tell you what happens when you culture them. Grow your own probiotics in a jar of vegetables, and you’ll be shocked and amazed at all they can do. I feel like I’ve been standing on the top of a mountain singing the praises of cultured vegetables for fifteen years and some have listened and others not, but I knew one day there would be a tipping point and that day is almost here. My life was dramatically changed from a jar of cultured vegetables that was teeming with billions of probiotics. It continues to amaze me and fill me with wonder but the help it provides can far surpass the things I have seen in myself and countless others. My everyday life is made better by eating a spoonful of these amazing vegetables. We keep a jar in our fridge at all times . . . okay, like at least six or more jars to be truthful. I like variety, what can I say? They will last for months on end.

    I’ve seen them help myself and countless people with stomach distress, be it food poisoning or a virus or stomach rumbles. I’ve used it on my whole family for years and years. Nothing works as fast or better than a spoonful of juice or the veggies. It will make you a believer if you just try it the next time you have stomach distress of any kind. But that’s not all it can do.

    Asthma and cultured veggies

    I’ve gotten letters and stories from people whose lives have been changed in dramatic ways. One such story was from a woman who found herself in a terrible wind storm. She had severe asthma and couldn’t get to her inhaler. She just so happened to have a jar of cultured veggies in a cooler in her car. She opened the jar and swigged the juice, and within minutes she could breathe again. She was so shocked and amazed that it worked and will never underestimate the power of these vegetables again. She became a believer in this food that works like medicine.

    Saving thousands of infants

    There was a new study done 1 on the special probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum). These probiotics are made abundant when you culture your veggies. It has an impact on saving thousands of infants from sepsis, which is often a deadly massive immune response to bacterial infection that gets into the blood. Six hundred thousand infants die annually from sepsis, primarily in developing countries, and researchers have been trying to find a way to stop it for the last twenty years. Dr. Pinaki Panigrahi, a pediatrician at the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health who led the study, was searching for answers.They screened 280 bacteria strains until one day they found the healthy strain Lactobacillus plantarum isolated in the diaper of a healthy Indian baby. They started giving infants Lactobacillus plantarum, the kind of lactic acid bacteria found in fermented vegetables and found in my veggies starter culture Cutting Edge Culture. They also added the prebiotic fructooligosaccharide (in Prebio Plus) “to promote growth and sustain colonization of the probiotic strain.”  After one week of giving the babies the cocktail of pro- and prebiotics, deaths and sepsis dropped by 40 percent, from 9 to 5.4 percent. 2

    Respiratory infections dropped

    But something else happened that they didn’t expect. The probiotics also began to help with other types of infections, including those in the lungs. Respiratory infections dropped by about 30 percent. “That was a big surprise, because we didn’t think gut bacteria were going to work in a distant organ like the lung,” Panigrahi says. They actually stopped the trial prematurely since it was working so well. “We were planning to enroll 8,000 babies, but stopped at just over 4,000 infants,” Panigrahi says.

    Pascal Lavoie, a neonatologist at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, says, “These beneficial bacteria can push out harmful bacteria in the baby’s gut by changing the environment or simply using up resources. They also produce a compound that strengthens the wall of the intestine. It acts as a barrier to prevent the bad bacteria from going through the wall into the blood. The probiotic bacteria can jumpstart a baby’s immune system. Probiotics can be much more powerful than drugs.”

    Something you should know

    These veggies are powerful, but here is something you should know – this particular bacteria (L. plantarum) is a transient strain of bacteria, which means it doesn’t last more than a few days in the body, so you’re going to need to consume them often. This is not a problem since one jar can last months on end in the refrigerator, perfectly preserved and getting more flavorful with time.

    Visit The Cultured Veggies recipe page.  

    All of them are loaded with Lactobacillus Plantarum. Make them, eat them, and they will make you a believer in their power! You’ve gotta have a jar in the fridge to give you the help you need. So let me teach you how easy and delicious they are to make.

    Don’t forget to get your basic supplies needed to make your own healthy probiotics.
    Mason Jars
    Thanks to Donna Schwenk for this amazing post! “Cultured Veggies ~ Saving Lives”, September 9, 2017.

  • ‘Dirt Is Good’: Why Kids Need Exposure To Germs

    I was told that Grandma use to say “little dirt never hurt anybody.” It seems the more we try to sterilize our world infection,virus and bacteria the worse off our kids get. While we claim that health care is better and more advanced our children are sicker and suffering debilitating illnesses at an alarming rate. Has our fear of illness and bacteria actually weaken our kids immune systems? 
    ‘Dirt Is Good’: Why Kids Need Exposure To Germs

    As a new parent, Jack Gilbert got a lot of different advice on how to properly look after his child: when to give him antibiotics or how often he should sterilize his pacifier, for example.

    After the birth of his second child, Gilbert, a scientist who studies microbial ecosystems at the University of Chicago, decided to find out what’s actually known about the risks involved when modern-day children come in contact with germs.

    “It turned out that most of the exposures were actually beneficial,” Gilbert says. “So that dirty pacifier that fell on the floor — if you just stick it in your mouth and lick it, and then pop it back in little Tommy’s mouth, it’s actually going to stimulate their immune system. Their immune system’s going to become stronger because of it.”

    Gilbert is now the co-author of a new book called Dirt is Good: The Advantage of Germs for Your Child’s Developing Immune System. Presented in a Q&A format, the book seeks to answer many of the questions Gilbert has fielded from parents over the years.

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

    • Transcript

    • Interview Highlights

      What are some things that parents get wrong?
      Some of the main things are over-sterilizing their environment, keeping their children from ever getting dirty. So going out into the backyard and playing in the mud, and then as soon as they’re filthy, bringing them in and sterilizing their hands with antiseptic wipes, and then making sure that none of the dirt gets near their faces. Also, keeping them away from animals. The dogs and cats, sure, but also, other animals. It’s fine to wash their hands if there’s a cold or a flu virus around, but if they’re interacting with a dog, and the dog licks their face, that’s not a bad thing. In fact that could be extremely beneficial for the child’s health.

      What about hand sanitizer? Good or bad?
      Usually bad. Hot, soapy water is fine. Even mildly warm, soapy water is fine, and it’s probably less damaging to the child’s overall health.

      How about the five-second rule? The idea that if something falls on the ground and is there for under five seconds, it’s clean.
      The five-second rule doesn’t exist. It takes milliseconds for microbes to attach themselves to a sticky piece of jammy toast, for example. But it makes no difference. Unless you dropped it in an area where you think they could be a high risk of extremely dangerous pathogens, which in every modern American home is virtually impossible, then there’s no risk to your child.

      Wash a pacifier or lick it if it falls on the ground?
      Lick it. A study of over 300,000 children showed that parents who licked the pacifier and put it back in — their kids developed less allergies, less asthma, less eczema. Overall, their health was stronger and more robust.

      Are things like allergies an unintended consequence of trying to protect our kids too much?From Birth, Our Microbes Become As Personal As A Fingerprint

      Absolutely. In the past, we would have eaten a lot more fermented foods, which contain bacteria. We would have allowed our children to be exposed to animals and plants and soil on a much more regular basis. Now we live indoors. We sterilize our surfaces. Their immune systems then become hyper-sensitized. You have these little soldier cells in your body called neutrophils, and when they spend too long going around looking for something to do, they become grumpy and pro-inflammatory. And so when they finally see something that’s foreign, like a piece of pollen, they become explosively inflammatory. They go crazy. That’s what triggers asthma and eczema and often times, food allergies.

      Give us some advice. What should I allow my child to do?
      Oftentimes, it’s hard to get your kid to eat a healthy diet. I would strongly try to encourage the consumption of more colorful vegetables, more leafy vegetables, a diet more rich in fiber as well as reducing the sugar intake. But just generally, allow your kid to experience the world.

      Read an excerpt of Dirt Is Good
      Disclosure: While this author holds that bacteria is good – he is also pro vaccines.