This story could be good for your gut
Can kombucha improve gut health?
Fermenters and kombucha brewers in Atlantic Canada have grown over recent years, and some consumers say the tangy fermented foods and the bacteria contained within them are helping with stomach health.
The tradition of fermentation goes back hundreds of years, according to St. John’s Fermentary owner Sondra Nurse.
“People used to ferment bread and fermented kefirs, yogurts and sauerkraut; kombucha is just one version of (fermentation),” Nurse says.
“It’s an aerobic ferment, which means it’s a bacterial ferment, not a yeast ferment like wine, for example, or beer.”
On Prince Edward Island, Amy Smith and Verena Varga own Heart Beet Organics, an organic farm, café and kombucha taproom. Smith says, they initially began fermenting some of their vegetables because they had too many cucumbers.
“We kind of started diving deep into exploring what vegetables could be fermented and started making sauerkraut and kimchi and pickled hot sauce,” Smith said. “Around the same time, one of our customers at the farmer’s market brought us a SCOBY so we could start making our own kombucha.”
SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) is the bacterial starter used to ferment kombucha, similar in purpose to a starter used to leaven sourdough bread.
The SCOBY is usually added to a tea base, then additional flavours are added.
Nurse uses local ingredients, like Newfoundland blueberries, partridge berries and bakeapples, to flavour hers. Smith and Varga use different products from their own farm for flavour.
POTENTIAL HEALTH BENEFITS
The byproduct of yeast fermentation is alcohol, but the fermentation process used in the creation of kombucha or other pickled items creates things like acetic acids, probiotics and B vitamins, says Nurse, who is also a certified holistic nutritionist.
According to Nurse, the benefits of kombucha and other pickled products are primarily found in the digestive tract.
“It helps with your digestive enzymes, the enzymatic activity is what actually helps you break down your food,” Nurse said. “Then, also, probiotics are your good bacteria that naturally live in your gut and are basically in charge of how you absorb nutrients.”
One of the reason Smith likes to ferment is that it makes it easier for the body to digest different foods.
“The more we read about fermentation, the more we discovered it’s actually a much healthier way for your body to metabolize vegetables,” Smith said.
“Once they’ve been fermented, it’s easier for your body to absorb the nutrients from fermented vegetables as opposed to just eating them raw.”
BETTER HEALTH?
In P.E.I., Smith says customers who buy their fermented products report they have experienced alleviation of digestive
issues.
“We started hearing kind of anecdotal stories from our customers who were telling us they’d been having digestive issues or painful digestion and that the kombucha and the sauerkraut and the kimchi’s and things were actually helping with their digestion,” said Smith.
“One customer, in particular, spent years working with a doctor trying all kinds of different medications to deal with his painful digestion, and none of the drugs his doctor prescribed made him feel any different. Then he started drinking our kombucha; he found the pain went away.”
Another of Smith’s customers reports kombucha helps with canker sores in her mouth.
Nurse also knows people who have had issues with bloating, gas, indigestion, heartburn and acid reflux who have experienced benefits from these kinds of products.
“It sort of acts similar to apple cider vinegar. So, apple cider vinegar is acidic outside of the body, but once you have it in the body it’s actually alkaline so it helps people with a plethora of things,” said Nurse.
“It helps people with digestive upset, bowel movements and getting your microbiome (healthy stomach bacteria) back up and running, which helps your immune system.”
According to Nurse, another benefit of kombucha is as a replacement for soft drinks or alcohol. Drinking kombucha cuts out the sugar and chemicals in those products, while still being fizzy.
“It’s such a great replacement for things like soda. Where it is fermented, it’s naturally effervescent, so it’s kind of like a healthy fizzy soda,” she said.
“It helps people who have so many issues with being addicted to soda essentially. Especially in Newfoundland, we have so many issues with people drinking way too much soda, and it causes a plethora of health issues.”
NOT FOR EVERYONE
Smith does say that while kombucha and fermented products do help some people, it’s not guaranteed.
“If you go online and you read about it, you can find all sorts of articles that are kind of about both sides, right?” Smith said.
“Some articles will say ‘it’s a panacea, it will cure cancer and every disease under the sun’; then there’s all sorts of articles that say ‘that’s all hooey.’ But, what we know is what we hear from our customers and we know it’s definitely helped a lot of them.”
She’s careful to be clear with new customers that results aren’t guaranteed.
“We say that every person is different and some of our customers have had great success with it and somebody else may not notice any difference at all.”