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 …
All posts tagged: Kefir
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 …
Mummified kefir grains
Take home message A mummy about 3,500 years old from the Xiahoe cemetery in China. The red arrows point to the kefir grains lying around the neck like a chain (taken from Liu et al., 2024) Lactose conversion SCOBY we …
E.coli is suppressed in kefir
Take home message Fermentation rather than pasteurisation An important goal of pasteurisation of milk is to reduce the germ count, both total and that of specific bacteria, such as E.coli. Usually, pasteurisation is said to be ‘successful’ when the mesophilic …
Kefir – rediscovered!
Kefir, including the raw-milk variety, is on the rise. There is a revaluation of fermentation, as a measure to ‘work up’ foods: white cabbage becomes sauerkraut, black tea with sugar Kombucha and milk becomes kefir. Meanwhile, raw milk kefir from …
Vitamin K2 in fermented dairy
Take home message The biggest difference in Vitamin K2 content between fermented milk products is due to the use of thermophyle or mesophyle cultures. Thermophyle bacterial cultures produce little or no K2. Certain bacteria, such as Leuconostoc, produce a lot …
Raw fermented products
Not only raw milk, but also fermented products have an impact on health. A very old probiotic product is kefir, which is available in every supermarket in Eastern Europe, and increasingly conquering Western markets. Fermentation of milk converts almost all …
