Re: Apple Cider Vinegar discovery!
Originally Posted by
Bruce
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She read about its miraculous powers in a book called "Folk Medicine" by D C Jarvis MD.
There's no doubt to my mind that real, proper ACV with the mother in it, is a healthy substance.
The more you research natural cures, plants, herbs and so on the more one specific recurring theme crops up. That theme is . . .
Fermentation !
It seems that the human body works best when it is given a constant supply of fermented foods. It is the natural yeasts in natural foods that our gut needs and having a healthy gut is imperative to all health. Without it, you are not extracting the nutrients from foods efficiently which leads to deficiencies of certain things, and / or over abundance of other things.
Some examples:
We know for example that people who find it difficult to tolerate ordinary bread, the crap on supermarket shelves, tend to find that they have no problem with "proper" long fermented bread. This includes loaves fermented overnight or longer and loaves made using natural wild yeasts (i.e. sourdoughs). Grains are NOT a bad thing, not a bad diet item. They have been used for 1000s of years. They KEY to eating grains, is that they are long fermented.
We know also that fermenting vegetables is incredibly healthy. Even a simple sauerkraut, which is nothing more than shredded cabbage sprinkled with a little salt and left to ferment in its own juices, is highly beneficial. It has 10 times more lactobacteria than those pathetic little pots of Yakult and Actimel (which are also packed with sugar !)
We know also that to make the drink Cider, one has to have natural yeast to kick off the fermentation process. This is a key and standard process of Nature.
So no surprise then that Apple Cider Vinegar has strong health benefits. But I stress yet again, it HAS to be the right ACV. It has to be the cloudy stuff with nasty looking bits of mother yeast floating inside it. The other types of ACV which are virtually clear and used in chutney making and other cooking are not the same, they are processed and likely have all the goodness taken out.
So once again, it is those natural yeasts in the cloudy ACV that are providing the benefit.
It's worth understanding how different natural yeasts and bacteria require different environments to thrive. The natural yeasts on wheat grains are able to survive in a very acidic environment whereas bad bugs and bacteria can not.
So when you mix a little flour and water together and leave it in a jar for 3-5 days you surely have good and bad bacteria in that jar, but due to the acidity that arises from the water interacting with the flour, the good bacteria have a better time of it. They flourish in the environment, multiplying and replicating every 90 mins whereas the bad bacteria are slow and sluggish to do so. Eventually the good bacteria vastly outnumber the bad, and since all the bacteria are vying for the same food source (the starches/sugars in the flour), the goodies quickly triumph due to their numbers and the baddies naturally just die off.
This same process or situation is present everywhere.
In our own guts there is a myriad of yeasts and bacteria. Most of us never really knew about it until many years ago, the yoghurt manufacturers started selling and advertising special bio-yoghurts filled with lacto-bacteria. Initially it all sounded very gross but over time people came to understand what it meant. Unfortunately, whilst those manufacturers in the one hand, gave us healthy bacteria laden yoghurt, in the other hand they had succumbed to the pressures of the sugar conglomerates and like every other manufacturer, piled their little yoghurt pots high with sugars. Why? Simply because when you eat such a product you think, "hmmmm that was actually quite nice" and that makes you buy more. In fact all that has happened is your brain has been totally fooled by the sugar which has stimulated your pleasure receptors. So unfortunately those tiny yoghurts are imo not helping anyone and infact likely to be complicating matters.
For those who like the full info:
Actimel Original pots each contain close to 3 full teaspoons of sugar (2.6)
Yakult pots each contain close to 2 and a half (2.3) teaspoons of sugar.
So the lessons here are simple imo. Seek out foods of all kinds that are naturally fermented. That includes "real" artisan breads from a dedicated bakery like sourdoughs and rye breads. It also includes all kinds of fermented vegetables such as saurkrauts and in particular the Kimchi's so loved by the Koreans. It's VERY easy to make your own sauerkraut, just cabbage, salt in a jar left for 3-4 weeks.
ACV likewise, with the natural "mother" yeast in it is surely also healthy. That yeast will grow and thrive in your gut and thereby outnumber and conquer any bad yeasts in there.
Hope this was useful.