Making your own probiotic foods at home is a great way to supplement your diet.
Probiotics don’t just come in bottles! The process for making kefir or probiotic yogurt is really easy, and we’ve described exactly how to do it in the Appendix. Properly prepared kefir can contain many billions of colony-forming units (CFUs) per tablespoon, with several different strains. Probiotic yogurt will contain fewer CFUs but is still a useful addition to your diet. Other great options are fermented vegetable dishes like sauerkraut and kimchi, both of which are also easy to make at home.
The easiest way to make good kefir is to buy a kefir starter kit. Once you are familiar and confident with the process, the next step is to acquire some kefir grains and use them to create multiple batches of kefir. The great thing about making your own kefir is that you have total control over the amount of sugar that is left in the kefir after the fermentation process. Fermenting it for longer will give you a tangier, less sweet kefir with much less sugar to feed your Fungus overgrowth.
In general, we do not recommend using fermented foods as your only source of probiotics. It is impossible to measure the CFUs that you are getting, and you won’t know for sure which strains your product contains. In this situation, it is very important to ensure you are getting a high enough dose of your good bacteria cultures.
Probiotic-rich foods, such as kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, and kimchi, do typically provide very generous levels of probiotics but they are not measured and standardized like supplements are. Thus, it is still important to buy a good commercial probiotic that contains a wide variety of strains and is guaranteed to have a high count of CFUs.
Probiotic supplements are a sort of ‘insurance plan,’ but by all means, include probiotic foods in your plan too. Moreover, if you want to save a little money you can purchase a smaller amount of probiotic supplements and combine them with kefir, fermented vegetables, or probiotic yogurt.