Yakult and Kimchi Experiment

Introduction
After the discovery that the Ginseng shop is actually a kimchi emporium I decided to embark on an experiment. Drinking Yakult every morning and eating kimchi with every meal.

Timescale
All of July 2011

Why Yakult every morning?
I've looked at and sampled all the other alternatives to get lactobaccilus into my body and yakult looks like the best.

Meiji LG21 comes in a delicious Aloe flavour but LG21 is for fighting stomach ulcers and gut cancer. I am looking to strengthen my gut and have no symptoms of ulcers or cancer. Don't think I need Lactobacillus Gasseri OLL 2716.






Bulgarian yoghurt and its double whammy of Lactobacillus Bulgari 2038 and Streptococcus
Thermophilus sounds like it fits the bill, but the way it is sold in sugary yoghurts or with a little packet of sweet-and-lo stuck to the top, it's sending out the wrong message and I don't trust it.

Caspian Sea Bacteria Yoghurt is the gloopy one, contains Streptococcus cremoris and Gluconobacter, but is it getting through my stomach acid to the gut?

Kagome "Rabure" no idea what's in this which is why it didn't make the cut.

Takahashi Dairy Keffir Yoghurt contains all sorts of stuff. When I found it I went out and knecked a 400g tub and straight away had to rush to the bog. Saving this one for another experiment involving a kefir starter kit.

Morinaga "Bihidasu" is too sweet. The recipe must be related to Activa and Danone. Although the blurb sounds good: "It helps in the production and absorption of B complex vitamins, blocks the growth of harmful bacteria by lowering pH in the intestine through production of acetic and lactic acids and boosts the immune system".
It also is from the Bifidobacterium family of gut bacteria and lives in the large intestine. A place where the Yakult and kimchi Lactobacillus strain does not live.

Acidophilus yogurt-R1 1073 contains Lactobacillus bulgaricus 1073R which is supposed to protect you from influenza. Well I haven't had a cold for 3 years so I'll pass on that.

Koiwa Farm "100% raw yoghurt" or "Jersey Yoghurt" is just yoghurt, come on, is that going to beat Yakult? A product specifically designed to beat stomach acid and get into the gut?












Yakult
Contains less sugar than yoghurt.
Is the biggest selling probiotic drink in Japan and in the world
Has more bacteria in it:

"Probiotic products are required to contain at least 1 million beneficial bacteria per gram. Few yoghurts contain  this  much  bacteria  but  Yakult contains  100 times  more  than  the  minimum  amount.  That’s an impressive 6.5  billion, live  beneficial  bacteria in one tiny bottle" - still, it doesn't matter how many live bacteria are in the bottle if they all die in the gut right?
Contains Lactobacillus casei Shirota which is exclusive to yakult.
Survives through the stomach into the gut:

Here's more from the same yakult FAQ page.

So that's why Yakult is chosen to try first.

Why Kimchi with every meal?
Other probiotic foods that I can get my hands on either come in jars or are not Paleo.

Sauerkraut comes in jars, I tried making it myself and failed.
Natto is a legume, shame cos I love it.
Kefir is not in my possession right now, and the supermarket kefir infused yoghurt is not Paleo.
The ginseng man on my street sells over fermented kimchi, brimming with life, 100 times stronger than the supermarket.
Contains Lactobacillus kimchii which is good for you and that.
"Lactobacillus family exist happily in the small intestine, whilst some such as the Bifidobacterium family prefer the large intestine. Others can be found in the mouth and other areas."


How did it go?
Farts
Straight away I noticed more farts. A neolithic diet means lots of smelly farts. When I changed to a Paleo diet last year one of the first things I noticed was the farting had gone. No more "easing one out" at my desk and hoping it's an SBD that people will politely ignore. No more filling lifts with gas, gambling on nobody getting in and knowing for sure that I was the one who "cut the cheese". One of the godsends of the Paleo diet: no more farting. Leave ginseng man kimchi in the fridge in a tupperware box overnight, and in the morning the Lactobacillus kimchii has fermented more increasing the amount of gas in the container causing it to bulge. Same thing happens in my body. Kimchi for breakfast, lunch and dinner puts kimchi all through my intestines filling it with great Lactobacillus kimchii. This is alive and releases gases as part of it's lifecycle causing the need to "pump". It's not like a Neolithic pump though, oh no. For starters they are few and far between; a good string of pumps in the morning and you're mostly good for the rest of the day. And Lactobacillus kimchii is so clean and good they don't stink. The change from no pumps to some pumps is also good feedback, it let's me know that something is going on in there.

Poo
The odd spicy brown trout gets chucked downstream every now and again because kimchi is spicy.
I noticed that poo went up a grade. Poo is made up of bacteria, and when you have more in your system you can make up a better poo. Strict low fiber Paleo makes smaller dense ones at about type 1 or 2 on the bristol stool scale. This can lead a Paleo dieter to resort to more fiber intake and become an addict to fiber. One thing I have noticed from drinking yakult every morning and eating kimchi with meals is a transition towards the middle of the bristol stool scale without having to resort to the evil menace that is fiber.

Appreciation for a New Food Group
I was never bothered about these fermented foods before, and there are so many here in Japan. It's great to try different kimchi, kateki, and other fermented foods.

Conclusion after 10 days
Advantages
Better poo.
Didn't really notice an increase in energy, or any other good effects. I was expecting a bit more to be honest, but I won't give up on probiotics! I have plenty more experiments lined up in this department.


Disadvantages
Both Yakult and Kimchi contain a strain of Lactobacillus that only lives in the small instestine.
Some farting.

Last Night's Discovery: The Local Kimchi Man

After a failed attempt at creating sauerkraut, and my research on probiotics was leading me to believe that all "probiotic" labelled yoghurt is a trick to make us drink low fat sugar laced yoghurt containing man made bacteria strains that die as soon as they hit the acid in the stomach,  I was at a loss last night for a way to get my gut bacteria up to speed. Then I went out to check if they had any raw dairy type products in the overpriced organic supermarket that I live opposite and they had closed early as usual. It was a long shot anyway, whenever I go in that place I realise why I never go in there; it's a white elephant of expensive brown rice, pointlessly low concentrated servings of supplements I don't need, and silly macrobiotic diet stuff. I've only ever bought a can of coconut milk in there, and now I buy coconut cream for a quarter of their price online. So I went back across the road to grab a few baked sweet potatoes off the cart outside maruetsu and took a detour to see what actually goes on at the weird ginseng shop.

The Weird Ginseng Shop

Nobody is ever in there, it seems to sell only ginseng, how is this guy making any money?
Those are the thoughts that have always gone through my mind when walking past the weird ginseng shop on the way to the station. Beef stew was on a low heat upstairs so I had hours of time to kill before dinner - let's check out the produce that the weird ginseng man is peddling I thought to myself.

Got through the shop's broken door and was SHOCKED. The bottles containing ginseng in the window are only put there to keep people away! The inside of the shop is full of fridges at different temperatures containing cylinders full of rotting vegetables. Ginseng man was watching telly in the back room and came in to say hello. I know that all the "kimuchi" that the japanese supermarkets carry is just spicy cabbage so I asked the weird ginseng man if his wares were "発酵" (fermented) or what. I said "mate, is all this stuff hakkou or what like?" and he said "whay aye man, it's totally kosher. I've got fermented garlic, fermented, daikon, fermented squid, fermented potato, you name it lad, I've fermented it." I looked around and he's got some hot pot liquid in bags on the top shelf there, a tall fridge with fermented wares in circular plastic tubs already to go in case there's a rush (which there never is), the chest fridges full of stuff on the go, and a central display of different types of dried korean seaweed. Putting two an two together I reckon he might be one of those "hangul" fellas, but his face wasn't flat and box shaped, it looked more contoured like a japanese bloke.
He spoke the Emporer's pretty well, so the jury is still out on him. We had a bit chat about his affliction, I mean, who could be so obsessed with fermentation that they open up a whole shop dedicated to rotting vegetables? The guy is obviously addicted to rotten stuff. Then he talked me through the levels of spicyness of his rotten veg. The level starts with the 'only slightly hakkou' cucumbers, all the way up to the inedible 'tougarashi' kimchi. I darted for a regular container of kimchi in his tall fridge and he stopped me in my tracks. "Nah nah mate, I'll do you a fresh bowl straight from the cylinder" he gans. "That'll be a fiver". Not bad I thought so I handed over 5 sheets and he started off back to watch the telly. I couldn't believe the lack of sales ability in the ginseng man. Gullible foreigner comes in off the street, obviously fascinated by the wares being peddled, asking questions, picking up everything and that, he could have taken me to the cleaners. "Hang on mister ginseng sir, can I have some more" I piped up. And I took him for a couple of kimchi stuffed cucumbers at 100 yen a pop an all. Thought I'd start off down on the low end of the spice spectrum, with two of his least spicy offerings. With that I was out of the shop, and gave a sigh of relief that I had found a local probiotic dealer who will be able to grace my table every dinner time with all different kinds of bacteria from a plethora of different rotten vegetables.

Are these yoghurts the japanese
equivalent of the crap Activa and
Danone peddle in England? Or do they
have some kind of use? 

Now, rather than being fooled into throwing money straight down the drain by buying dairy products from Danone and Activa that have been stripped of healthy natural bacteria during the pasteurisation process, then are infused with laboratory created strains of bacteria that die on stomach acid contact, I will safely be able to transport good probiotic bacteria through my duodenum into my small and large intestine via the delicious vehicle of authentic, natural korean kimchi.

This one is so sweet, more like cramola
foam than yoghurt.

Thank you weird ginseng man, I will see you again tonight.

Prebiotics and Probiotics

Here's a bunch of questions I'm asking myself about Prebiotics and Probiotics. Using this page to take notes as I find the answers around the net.

ALL DISEASES BEGIN IN THE GUT 

-Hippocrates,460-370 BC

(Pinched from Robb Wolf's blog post)

Q: What are these and why do people take them regularly? Surely once your gut flora is up to standard you don't need to keep supplementing to keep it that way. I can imagine taking this supplement after a long fast or illness involving diarrhoea or constipation, but why take it all the time?


A:
Prebiotics
Prebiotics are considered a 'functional food', typically carbohydrates (although not in all cases), that stimulate the growth or activity of good bacteria in the digestive system. 


Probiotics
Probiotics, like lactobacillus, are living organisms in the gut, they are the good bacteria that live in the gut and contribute to the process of digestion. These same bacteria are found naturally in certain foods like sauerkraut and yogurt.


Prebiotics stimulate growth of bacteria, probiotics are the bacteria.


Q: If they are both good for digestive system bacteria, then why are probiotics not allowed on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet?
A:


Q: What Prebiotics and Probiotics does Robb Wolf supplement with, does he cycle them and why does he choose those particulare products?
A1: Now Foods Super Enzymes & Florasmart Probiotic (6 billion).
A2: 
A3: 


Q: Japanese conbini's sell "LG21 - Meiji Probiotic Yoghurt". Do these kinds of product make it to the intestine? Or is it all marketing and do any probiotic bacteria get killed by stomach acid before they can make it past the duodenum? 


A: 
Firstly LG21 is not Paleo and that sucks. 
Also LG21 stands for yogurt containing Lactobacillus gasseri OLL2716.
Japanese scientists have done lots of research into LG21 with rats and had lots of favourable results ranging from prevention of gut ulcers to prevention of gut lesions. But who are these scientists working for? Meiji?




Q: When to take probiotics?


If you are increasing your intestinal bacterium or balancing then the dosing times needs to be when your GI tract is empty. Ie first thing in the morning or at bed time. Taking them with a volume of water and when the stomach environment has less acid ensures the probiotics pass through the stomach, the digesitive juices prone 3 feet of small intestine. After all your looking to colonize the rest of the small intestine and large bowel, that remaining 30 ft of intestine, the less acid environment you create for those capsules, the better the chances the flora will eventually take hold. Its accepted that about 10 percent of the amt of probiotics taken at any given time will make it into the intestine. The survivors are lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, the strains are killed off by the acid environment. AGAIN The more neutral environment the better the odds that more strains make it.
This especially true 
1- if you have undergone a strong course of antibiotics for pseudo-membranous colitis or C diff infection.
2- Had a prolonged case of traveller's diarrhoea or actually developed dysentery.
3-Under treatment for H pylori and looking to add a layer of protection to the existing healthy intestinal flora.
Your looking to get as much flora deep as possible as quickly as possible.

If you taking them For Digestion :
Ideally you need to take them an hour before meals. As the soon as the brain thinks of foods, see food, smells food the stomach starts the production of acids, and the stomach begins to churn itself in preparation for the expected incoming meal. The constant acid production over time leads to gastritis and gastric reflux disease. That acid of course over time reduces flora in the stomach itself. Using pro biotics is thought to help balance the colonies. Most researchers are saying that this maybe incorrect as the duration studies were showing that once the dosing stopped, the colonizers stopped.

Digestive enzymes:
If you taking them to return digestive function AFTER a course of proton pump inhibitors or extended usage of H2 blockers like pepcid.
Then you need to take them close to your meal time / more like at the start of your meal or during your meal, this includes snacks. The idea is to have the enzymes work the next hour ( basical what it takes for a meal to be cleared from the stomach and pass onwards.) involved in the multiple stages of food breakdown. Eventually the need for them dwindles as natural enzyemes return to a more optimal level as stomach environment matures again. This can take up to two years for those that had a train wreck of stomach problems.

I think i recall Robb Wolf is a believer that the north american diet is more alkaline based. And overtime the base causes a push to neutral environment in the the gi tract. Thus leading to poor absorption of food nutrients.

2- taking them for candida control or something else other than digestion improvement. Then I think the frequency will be less according to what your taking to achieve.

A lot of the probiotic research comes out of the uk, looking at the use of probiotics to counter the increasing numbers mrsa colonized intestines due to extended / multiple exposure to antibiotics. The us researchers are leading towards its place for crohn's/ colitis/ Irritable bowel management since these groups are subjected to long courses of antibiotics and steroids.

Digestive enzymes seem to have the place in the alternative medicine pathway. Supposedly increased digestion can cure alot of things.

Overall, they are not overall type of supplement, they do a specific thing for specific problem. With that in mind, take them according to what you're trying to achieve.


Q: What foods help like probiotics?
A: Some kind of fermented food is important. Kombucha is a really strong one. Eat small amounts of kimchee as a condiment daily. There's also Biolacto fermented veggies and other options. Kefirs and other recipes in the Body Ecology book that Dr. G keeps raving about.



There are many relatively Paleo-friendly probiotic/cultured foods. These can range from kimchee to sauerkraut to cultured veggies to kombucha.


Key thing on all of them is that they are not pasteurized, or that they are cultured after pasteurization, and that there is not too much salt in them (salt inhibits bacterial growth).



Some store-bought sauerkraut is pasteurized. Which means they heat it really high to get rid of the bacteria (the bacteria you actually want). Raw Sauerkraut is unpasteurized sauerkraut.


Japanese "kimuchi" is not fermented, only korean "kimchi" is prepared using fermentation and contains probiotics.


here's a good probiotics link on paleOZ.com

link to a web page explaining types of bacteria

kefir

Q: What is kefir and where do I get it?

A kefir grain, yesterday

Kefir is like this mysterious grain that somebody created back in the middle ages in Arabia. Nobody knows how the first grain was made, but since then it has been grown, broken, passed around and grown more until now kefir is used to make kefir yoghurt and milk all over the world.



Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species.


It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir, which dominate, control and eliminate destructive pathogenic yeasts in the body. They do so by penetrating the mucosal lining where unhealthy yeast and bacteria reside, forming a virtual SWAT team that housecleans and strengthens the intestines. Hence, the body becomes more efficient in resisting such pathogens as E. coli and intestinal parasites.


Kefir’s active yeast and bacteria provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy. Because the curd size of kefir is smaller than yogurt, it is also easier to digest, which makes it a particularly excellent, nutritious food for babies, the elderly and people experiencing chronic fatigue and digestive disorders.

You can get "keffir yoghurt" in Nissin World Delicatessen. I haven't checked out National Azabu for their yoghurt offerings yet, but I was surprised to see this today so I bought a couple.

I couldn't wait so I sat in the park on the way home and chugged one of them. It might have been the "20% off" sticker on the tub, but as soon as I got back to the office it was pants down and a case of chutney-bot.

So what does the Japanese say?

"Kefir yoghurt contains live yeast so expels gas. Not to worry though, because this container is capped off with a strong aluminium seal. Take care when opening because little bits might spit out."

Kinds of gut friendly bacteria in kefir is written in this post about probiotics.

Nothing important written there then.