water kefir

Ill give that a shout. We have just started with the "back up" review of what we need.  I hate crappy white sugar, and we want to get bees so we have a sweetner for free. But I understand you can't use honey for kefir because of the bacteria. Thanks again!

Your welcome....

Seems you can get away with small, occasional uses of honey,
but use caution, wait until you have 'extra' grains to experiment with 

Has anyone else experienced acne while drinking water kefir? Last year I started drinking it and got a lot of acne just on my cheek/chin areas. I stopped taking it this past spring because of time/problems and my skin cleared up. I just started taking it again a week or so ago and Im starting to really break out again.

Im 35 and haven’t had problems like this for over 20 years. What gives!?

Maybe you are detoxing.  Have you been eating a lot of processed food?  It should disappear eventually if you are detoxing. 

No I really dont eat any processed food including much sugar. We use mostly honey and maple syrup for our sweetners. I eat 98% home cooked meals made from real ingredients. I had better skin when I was eating pizza and soda! The detox was my thought too.

I guess time will tell, but that is a puzzle.  Maybe even something healthy you've been eating is causing a build up of toxins in your body.  Everything is so contaminated now.

One thing you can try is to add a tea spoon of MSM (we buy the crystal for your horse type) dissolved into your drink, and take zinc pill (on a full stomach always). 

I'm not exactly sure how it works, but drinking detoxifying liquids when your minerals are low and/or out of balance will cause your skin will act up.

Hope this answers your question ~ blessings.

Thanks for the tips!

Rob S. aka Blitz wrote:
Has anyone else experienced acne while drinking water kefir? Last year I started drinking it and got a lot of acne just on my cheek/chin areas. I stopped taking it this past spring because of time/problems and my skin cleared up. I just started taking it again a week or so ago and Im starting to really break out again.

Im 35 and haven’t had problems like this for over 20 years. What gives!?

I get HORRIBLE acne from sugary foods, and possibly from yeast. The kefir is related to yeast, I think, though I've forgotten how.

In Western natural medicine, a possible explanation is that there is an overgrowth of yeast in your system and you just fed it, which makes it grow and create a beautiful environment for a (secondary) skin infection, or you are allergic or have a food sensitivity to kefir or the sugar used.

In Chinese medicine, you might be considered to have too much damp heat, and you ingested food that increases the damp heat and led to break outs. Chinese medicine would recommend more dry and cooling foods. While you would think the kefir would be cooling, the damp might be more powerful. Admittedly, there are nuances to this that are beyond my ken.

I have the least skin problems with dried fruits, honey and maple syrup - which it sounds like you were primarily using, too (but perhaps cane sugar in the kefir?) -  though I try to keep even those to a minimum for my system. Cane sugar is the worst for me (and corn syrup, but I rarely eat stuff with that any more).

I dont eat gluten, corn, dairy or soy and very minimal cane sugar. I usualy put the grains into apple juice overnight and the drink it. Interesting point about feeding the yeast in your guy, that thought occurred to me since candida was a small problem for me in the past.

Seems to be quite a few knowledgeable folks in here (especially Jami) when it comes to these ferment projects...

I have about 1 gallon of finished kombucha and I've been drinking about a 1/2 pint a day...

I've read from a few semi-qualified sources that you may experience a headache of some sort (which I have) and some intestine disturbances are common..

It's a changing of the guards in your gut I imagine, more good, less bad bacteria.

I've had a few 'orange' stools, which I hear is also fairly common, this signifies that new bacteria are now present in the tract.

Can anyone testify to this with a little more concrete scientific information?

Cheers -

Hi George,

The 'side effects' are from the detox your body is going through, you can also get light headed or feel a drop in energy as well. It's all part of the cleaning.
This should clear up as your body gets free from some of this build up of toxins.

Sorry I don't have any scientific sources to quote just now, but you can google detoxification side effects for some interesting facts.
Also Dom's Kefir website is full of interests tid bits.

All the best

Jami, any reasons why you recommend not using maple syrup? I have been using it for few months now and the kefir grains seem to be multiplying very well.

Nope All I'd add would be to make sure it's organic.

I know people who even use honey now and then in small amounts and have great success.
Like all beneficial bacteria/yeasts you want to pay attention to how your cultures are doing in the medium you put them in. If they do fine that's your main indicator of how your ferments are doing.

Thanks Jami, it definitely is organic. The place I get it from actually still make it the old fashion way with buckets and wood fired boilers. My wife and I actually much prefer the taste of the water kefir made out of maple syrup over the one made with raw sugar and that is one of the main driver for us to use it.

Anybody tried the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhinia) berries for flavouring? I hear that you can make great "lemonade" out of them, so perhaps it would go well with water kefir.