The genome of kefir
Take home message Kefir grains (= kefir plant = SCOBY) can be found all over the world, but are there any differences? The dairy industry has discovered kefir in the past 10 years and you can buy kefir everywhere in …
Author: Ton Baars
Where are the humane experiments?
In the early 20th century, i.e. around 1900, doctors were convinced that raw milk was important for growing children. The discussion was nipped in the bud by the negatives of raw milk, starting with TB. And rightly so, much milk was unsafe …
Heating changes cow’s milk…
… and more drastically the higher you heat it. What are the consequences? Take home message For food safety reasons, raw milk is heated before cosumption: pasteurised or sterilised. Although we have long been led to believe, that heating ‘hardly …
Traditional cheesemaking
Take home message No stainless steel Today, everything around milk and milk processing is stainless steel (INOX). The cheese vat in which the milk is processed is stainless steel, the milk pipelines through which the milk is pumped and even …
The gut and ageing
Growing interest for the gut and its microbiome What is a healthy gut? What microbiome belongs to it? How do you steer health, and especially from what age? This kind of research is much needed, because the list of diseases of affluence is growing rapidly. Think of obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, but also the range of intestinal problems (irritable bowel, Crohn’s disease), or colon cancer. There is increasing evidence, that there is a causal relationship …
What do you call kefir?
Take home message Kefir from SCOBY versus kefir made of a commercial starter? German colleagues (Nejafati et al., 2022) looked at not only the microbial composition of kefir, but also the metabolic products of the bacteria and yeasts present in …
Symbiocene kefir
Take home message Symbiocene thinking Through the Dutch TV-programme ‘Tegenlicht’, it became clear, that a new way of thinking, a philosophy, is needed to leave the Anthropocene era behind us. We are living in the Anthropocene, the human-dominated technological age. Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albre sought new concepts to express our feelings associated with experiencing nature. Unfortunately, many of these feelings stem from human destruction of nature and the environment, urbanisation and artificial ways of …
Ultra-processed food does not saturate
Take home message Ready-made meals Ultra-processed food (UPF) are the compound packages and sauces you buy ready-made in the supermarket. Not so much the tray of pre-cut and mixed salads, but the ready-to-eat meals; add a little water, just fry …
Bulgarian-, Turkish- or Greek yoghurt?
Take home message One big family? Fermented dairy products vary from region to region, if only in name. Yoghurt is part of this family of fermented products. Lactic acid is produced by the conversion of milk sugar. Sometimes acetic acid …
Lactose in milkproducts
Lactose intolerance Lactose is milk sugar, found in a concentration of 4-5% in cow milk. People with lactose intolerance cannot digest lactose in the small intestine, so too much undigested lactose ends up in the large intestine. Here, lactose causes …
