![]() ![]() Scientists note that there is little to no evidence that kombucha could help fight various cancers, and some experts advise that people with compromised immune systems should avoid the drink.) (The story of Laraine's survival was once on the company's kombucha labels, but it was removed after a series of 2010 class action lawsuits alleging deceptive claims about the beverage's health benefits. "I became curious and certainly motivated to understand what this bizarre tea was - because in my mind, it didn't cure my mom and I've never said it cured her, but it certainly helped her," he tells CNBC Make It. When the doctors asked if she had been consuming anything out of the ordinary, Dave says his mother told them about kombucha. According to GT's Living Foods lore, Laraine Dave's doctors were surprised to find that her cancer had not spread, putting her on the path to a full recovery. Then Dave's opinion about kombucha "completely shifted" in 1994 after his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. "They were just kind of enamored with how it made them feel," he says. (While there is little or no scientific research to prove that kombucha can boost drinkers' energy, kombucha that is rich in probiotics can benefit your digestive system, according to the Cleveland Clinic.) But Dave's parents' brewed batch after batch, convinced it improved their energy, sleep and digestive health. Laraine and Michael soon started brewing their own kombucha, a process that involves a combination of tea (green, black or both), plus sugar and the Scoby culture, which brewers often recycle from batch to batch - in some cases using the same Scoby for years.Īt first, Dave found the drink too vinegary and tart for his teenaged tastes. It's a gelatinous blob that resembles the top of a mushroom, forms when bacteria and yeast are fermented and serves as the key ingredient in any batch of kombucha.) (A Scoby is "a colony of bacteria," according to Dave. His parents, Laraine and Michael Dave, were introduced to kombucha by friends who gave them a Scoby acquired on a trip to the Himalayas. all that stuff as part of my everyday diet" even back then, Dave says. They were also dedicated health nuts with a penchant for introducing their children to new age foods. Magnin) were heavily influenced by Eastern philosophies and spirituality, with the family even taking spiritual vacations to Indian ashrams. Growing up in the wealthy Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, Dave's dad (a lawyer) and mom (who worked at department store I. This makes it a good source of probiotics, which have many health benefits.Kombucha is a fermented, carbonated drink with living micro-organisms that dates back more than 2,000 years in Eastern Asia and has been long associated with a variety of health benefits ( some more dubious than others).īut "the word 'kombucha' didn't really exist" in Americans' vocabulary when Dave first started his home-brewing operation 25 years ago, he tells CNBC Make It. Kombucha is a type of tea that has been fermented. ![]() These bacteria can improve many aspects of health, including digestion, inflammation, and even weight loss ( 4, 5, 6).įor this reason, adding beverages like kombucha to your diet might improve your health in many ways. ![]() Probiotics provide your gut with healthy bacteria. Although there’s still no evidence for the probiotic benefits of kombucha, it contains several species of lactic-acid bacteria which may have a probiotic function. The fermentation process produces acetic acid (also found in vinegar) and several other acidic compounds, trace levels of alcohol, and gases that make it carbonated ( 2).Ī large number of bacteria also grow in the mixture. This blob is a living symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, or a SCOBY, and can be used to ferment new kombucha. This is why kombucha is also known as “mushroom tea.” It’s made by adding specific strains of bacteria, yeast, and sugar to black or green tea, then allowing it to ferment for a week or more ( 1).ĭuring this process, bacteria and yeast form a mushroom-like film on the surface of the liquid. Kombucha is thought to originate in China or Japan. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |