Kefir - flat belly food

Kefir is a creamy, yogurt-like smoothie that you can drink straight from the bottle or jazz up with fruit, granola, and other fun add-ins. The taste can be addictive, but it’s not necessarily sweet like the foil-lidded yogurts you’re used to. It’s actually tangier, more reminiscent of Greek yogurt (love Chobani!) or sour cream. Besides containing less sugar and more protein than conventional yogurt, kefir is packed with probiotics (a buzzword meaning “beneficial to life” which you’ve surely read about), bacteria that help maintain the natural balance of organisms in the intestines. Standard yogurts only have one or a few strains of these live and active cultures — for instance, I’m looking in my fridge right now at a Berries N’ Cream Yoplait Light, and it only lists Lactobacillus acidophilus. Next to the Yoplait is a bottle of Lifeway Lowfat Pomegranate Kefir, which contains a whopping 10 strains (Lactobacillus Lacti, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Bifidobacterium Longum, Bifidobacterium Breve, Lactobacillus Acidophilus, Saccharomyces florentinus, Streptococcus Diacetylactis, Leuconostoc Cremoris, Lactobacillus Plantarum, Lactobacillus Case.) (Interestingly, other very popular yogurts that tout their probiotic activity, like Dannon Activia, only contain one strain of live/active cultures, Bifidus Regularis™ — a strain which Dannon selected and named.

Some other yogurt versus kefir differences that highlight kefir’s nutritional powerhouse status:
Calories: 100 (6 oz. of Yoplait) versus 160 (8 oz. of Lifeway kefir)
Fiber: 0g versus 3 grams
Protein: 5 grams versus 11 grams
Calcium: 20% Daily Value versus 30%

Besides its satiety-inducing protein, Men’s Health’s EIC Zincenko said he named kefir to his list of flat belly foods because its probiotics may speed weight loss. Research from the University of Tennessee has shown that consuming three to four servings of dairy products a day may help men and women shed more pounds than cutting out dairy (a common, but erroneous, weight loss tactic.) For the real 411 on kefir and weight loss, I weighed in with Jennifer Ventrelle MS, RD, a registered dietitian at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and owner of the private practice Weight No More:

There’s been a lot in the media over the past few years about low-fat dairy and weight loss. Is it true? Can adding a few servings to your diet help with weight loss and if so, how?

There have been some studies that have shown to reduce belly fat in people who consumed 3 servings of low-fat dairy products daily. The effect was not found to be as great for those individuals who got calcium from supplemental sources. The thought is that when there is more dietary calcium in the cells, fat is more likely to be burned instead of stored. 

Do you recommend products like kefir to your weight loss clients? What do you like about kefir in general or in particular?

Yes — I do recommend this product. I tell them to get the low-fat versions and talk about the benefits of not only calcium from this product, but the probiotics as well. I do caution my clients, however, since this product is slightly high in sugar, to be sure to limit their intake to 1 cup in a sitting... especially for my diabetic clients. One benefit is that it is also high protein. I tell my clients that it can be a great snack on its own! 

Besides helping you into your skinny jeans, kefir can also be used medicinally to treat and soothe a variety of health care issues.

Immune system-boosting: For individuals being treated with medications such as antibiotics, kefir can help by replenishing protective intestinal flora which can be destroyed during treatment. (Antibiotics go after “bad” bacteria in the body but may also kill the “good” bacteria in the large intestine in the process. The result: stomach discomfort and diarrhea.) According to a November 2008 study published in American Family Physician, up to one in five individuals on antibiotics stop taking their medicine before completing the full course of therapy due to diarrhea. But, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University said, physicians could help patients avoid this problem by prescribing probiotics. A single-month supply of supplemental probiotics can cost between $8 and $22; a 32-oz. bottle of kefir costs about $3.00. 

Lactose intolerance: Probiotic cultures “predigest” some of the lactose in dairy products, making kefir a terrific milk product for people suffering from lactose intolerance. A recent study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association examined people struggling with lactose intolerance and found that kefir can actually improve lactose digestion. The reasoning? Kefir’s live, active bacteria cultures help break down the sugars in milk. The researchers asked 15 adults to try five test foods: 2% milk; plain kefir; raspberry-flavored kefir; plain yogurt; and raspberry-flavored yogurt, each following a 12-hour fast. Study participants reported having little or no symptoms associated with lactose intolerance after eating both types of yogurt and kefir. In fact, drinking kefir reduced flatulence frequency by more than half when compared with milk. 

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: IBS is not a disease, per se, but a grouping of symptoms including abdominal pain or discomfort, cramping, bloating, gas, diarrhea, and/or constipation. Dietary changes are often suggested as a first-line defense against IBS. After all, why take medication if adding or subtracting certain foods could help? Many studies show that adding certain types of yogurt — specifically, those containing the bacteria lactobacilli and bifidobacteria — to your diet may alleviate the symptoms of IBS. These “good” bacteria are normally found in the large intestine, but adding them to your diet can help with gas, pain and bloating, while reducing the time it takes for food to move through the intestine, says Mayo Clinic gastroenterologist Michael Picco, MD. This, in turn, may be helpful in people with constipation; probiotics may also decrease the frequency of loose stools, improving IBS-related diarrhea. In one recent UK study, IBS sufferers who received a probiotic preparation made up of multiple strains of Lactobacillus Acidophilus, Bifidobacterium Lactis and Bifidobacterium Bifidum reported significantly greater improvement in the severity of their symptoms, fewer days of pain and improved quality of life compared with those who received a placebo.

Probiotic-rich foods like kefir have also been shown to be beneficial in treating yeast infections, infant colic, bad breath, hangovers, and Traveler’s Diarrhea.

Drink up!

Design your ideal smoothie and find out your Kefir-ality here

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Kefir

Kefir milk contains live and active cultures. It's much like yogurt, but drinkable. Kefir will not cause diarrhea in healthy adults, but can cause diarrhea if you’re lactose intolerant or allergic to milk. Kefir may be used to treat occasional bouts of diarrhea, because the cultures in the milk help maintain a healthy digestive system. If you develop severe diarrhea after drinking kefir, call your doctor for further assessment. Do not continue drinking kefir if it causes diarrhea.

Kefir Diarrhea Treatment

Kefir's cultures are also called probiotics. These healthy bacteria live in your gut and help maintain digestive health and regularity. Probiotics can decrease the severity of diarrhea and shorten its duration. Diarrhea is a symptom of various conditions. Do not take kefir or any other food to treat diarrhea without talking to your doctor first. Kefir contains the same probiotics as yogurt, and should be purchased plain for best results.

Diarrhea from Milk Allergy

Kefir is made from milk, so if you are allergic to milk, you should not drink kefir. If you have a milk allergy and drink kefir, you are at risk of a severe allergic reaction. Diarrhea from a milk allergy is not caused by the digestive system, but begins with an immune system reaction. The proteins in milk trigger the immune system to defend the body, because the immune system mistakes them as harmful substances. This reaction causes the body to produce chemicals to protect itself. The chemicals cause inflammation and irritation in your digestive system, respiratory system and skin.

Diarrhea from Lactose Intolerance

Kefir contains the milk sugar lactose, and can cause diarrhea in some individuals. Not all dairy products contain the same amount of lactose. Kefir contains relatively little lactose. The live cultures in the beverage produce some lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose. This reduces the amount of lactose in kefir. If you are moderately lactose intolerant, you may be able to drink kefir without developing lactose intolerance symptoms. Lactose intolerance will causes diarrhea, gas, bloating and nausea within the first two hours of drinking the beverage.

Warning

If you develop diarrhea, do not use over-the-counter anti-diarrhea medications, unless directed by your doctor. These medications may cause further complications. If you want the benefits of kefir but you cannot drink milk, purchase probiotic supplements that are dairy-free.

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Kefir and IBS?

Hi, I was recommended kefir by an allergist to help my gut recover from a course of acne antibiotics I was on for a long time. I have been taking milk kefir for the last 2 weeks with no problem but yesterday I experienced painful cramps and then horrible horrible diarrhea (about 4 hours after my breakfast kefir smoothie). At first I had no idea what caused it. Today my body was on the mend and I had no episodes of diarrhea since last night. However, I drank kefir and within half an hour the diarrhea returned, although nowehere near as bad as the previous day.

Answers include:

Exactly the same thing happened to me, and I've read about myriad others online who've had the same experience. I'm pretty sure I know what causes it, it's an intolerance to the proteins in the milk, which I didn't realise I had. There's both casein and of course the whey protein the kefir makes. Like you I was going really well on kefir for a while, and then bang, stomach pain and terrible diarrhoea. Some research I did confirmed that it's a classic sign of milk protein intolerance, and also in my case confirmed by a couple of realty bad cases of constipation as well, once with kefir and always when I eat a lot of Greek yoghurt (which is very high in milk protein).

Apparently you can re-balance the gut to make it tolerant of these proteins, so that has to be done first before you go back to milk kefir. You can also make kefir from non-dairy milks in the meantime, although for nut milks just need to be aware that nuts can be irritating to people with guts out of balance.

Also things started to go bad with kefir for me after I'd made a couple of really strong batches, with strong separation of curds and whey. Not sure if that was your experience or history too, and it may just have been coincidental for me, the gut reaction may have been on its way to happening anyway.

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