Search Results: kombucha

Ginger Kombucha – The Anti-Inflammatory Drink

By Donna Schwenk / October 12, 2024

Ginger is powerful medicine! I have been consuming ginger every day and found it to be very effective in helping with any kind of inflammation – especially hay fever in the springtime. Ginger is anti-viral and anti-inflammatory as well as being a powerful antiseptic and antihistamine.

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Help! My Kombucha Is Too Sour

By Donna Schwenk / July 27, 2024

In the early days of making kombucha, I would often let my kombucha go too long and it would lose its bubbliness. There were a few times it turned so sour that it made me squint and gasp. I honestly thought I had killed my uvula. You know that little thing that hangs down the back of your throat. […]

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7 Tips for Summer Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / July 13, 2024

Kombucha is a must-have in the summertime! When the body is exposed to excessive heat, the liver can become stressed and kombucha can help! Drinking kombucha can keep you cool and hydrated in the summertime. It can also help your liver which is one of the organs most vulnerable to excessive heat. . .

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10 Ways to Use Your Over-Fermented Kombucha!

By Donna Schwenk / March 23, 2024

Kombucha is a wonder drink. This fermented tea has been around for centuries and is legend in many countries such as China, Russia, and Korea. There are even stories that Genghis Khan drank it often and gave it to the men in his armies. […]

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Kombucha vs Kefir Soda: What Is the Difference?

By Donna Schwenk / March 16, 2024

Kombucha & Kefir Soda Kombucha and kefir soda are both fermented probiotic drinks, and boy, are they delicious and good for you. They are bubbly, living, raw beverages that tend to have minds of their own. They ferment differently in the winter than in the summer, so understanding the process can make a huge difference.…

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Kombucha – Healing My Addiction

By Donna Schwenk / March 2, 2024

Many years ago I was addicted to diet cola. I know, I know. It is terrible for you. But still, I couldn’t stop drinking it. I had drunk it for years and when I first started eating cultured foods they made me want to conquer my addiction. But try as I might, I couldn’t stop drinking it. It would call my name, so I knew it was an addictive substance. . .

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Is Kombucha Good For You?

By Donna Schwenk / June 3, 2023

Is kombucha good for you? Is it alcoholic? As of late, kombucha has been getting a lot of press. Kombucha has become a 0.6 billion dollar industry and is expected to reach 1.8 by 2020. It is causing quite a stir in the beverage business. Its popularity has grown strictly by word of mouth and is growing at an incredible rate. . .

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More Reasons I Drink Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / August 6, 2022

Kombucha is an amazing drink. Sales have grown to be over 600 million dollars, and this was all done strictly by word of mouth. […]

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Making Winter Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / January 15, 2022

Kombucha is a wonderful probiotic drink and something you should really consider drinking daily during cold and flu season. The special probiotic yeast in kombucha (Saccharomyces boulardii, which cannot be killed by antibiotics) can help you stay healthy when viruses are all around you. […]

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Kombucha FAQs

By Donna Schwenk / April 10, 2021

Kombucha – My Favorite Drink Kombucha has been a part of my life for over twenty years. It was the second cultured food I made, and down through the years I’ve learned so much about this probiotic drink it continues to amaze me. Kombucha has a special probiotic called Saccharomyces boulardii (S. boulardii). S. boulardii…

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Day 1 (side view)

Eight Days With Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / January 23, 2021

Watching tea turn into kombucha is quite a thing to behold. You give it the ingredients and let it work its magic. Billions of microbes and yeasts transform the tea into a bubbly probiotic tea that you will love. […]

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8 Ways To 2nd Ferment Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / August 8, 2020

There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t drink regular sodas that are laden with high fructose corn syrup, dyes, and chemicals that are hard on the body.  Kombucha  provide minerals and probiotics, and it is easy and fun to make. Replace your drinks with kombucha and you will have fewer cravings for sugary soft…

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20 Smart Ways To Use Your Kombucha SCOBYs!

By Donna Schwenk / May 30, 2020

So, you all keep asking . . . What do I do with all these SCOBYs?! If you are anything like me, you have a pile of SCOBYs in a massive SCOBY hotel just waiting . . . It feels somehow wrong to throw them away when you have taken care of them and watched them grow! […]

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Kombucha Bread and Muffins

By Donna Schwenk / April 11, 2020

Five-Ingredient Bread If you want a fast and easy probiotic bread, then you’re in for a treat with Kombucha Bread. The naturally-occurring carbonation in kombucha will also raise your bread without baker’s yeast. And since this probiotic yeast is resistant to heat, you will actually receive some probiotics too. S boulardii feeds on the sugars…

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Chai Spice Kombucha with Blackberries Video

By Donna Schwenk / July 6, 2019

Kombucha is a wonder drink and for good reason. I drink it every day and let me explain to you how it all works. Just as yeast makes bread rise, the good yeasts in kombucha make your tea bubbly. One certain probiotic yeast found in kombucha is called Saccharomyces boulardii. […]

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Did Kombucha Heal My Husband’s Eyes?

By Donna Schwenk / June 22, 2019

My husband is used to my crazy new ideas and has become accustomed to my enthusiasm for whatever happens to be my latest discovery. He goes along for the ride but never jumps in with both feet until coaxed. Kombucha was the first food he really grasped on to, and here is why. […]

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History of Kefir, Kombucha, and Fermented Vegetables

By Donna Schwenk / December 1, 2018

We all have trials and struggles throughout our lives and often these struggles have brought me to my knees. But without fail, each and every one of them has been a blessing in disguise. The pain turned to wisdom and I found myself so grateful for the struggle that brought me so much pain. . .

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My Kombucha’s Not Bubbly?

By Donna Schwenk / July 21, 2018

Bubbly, fizzy kombucha is one of my favorite things. Understanding the science behind how it works can help you create the carbonation that most people are looking for. Let me explain to you how it all works. When making kombucha, the fermenting tea will form a SCOBY on top. . .

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How to Make Bubbly Fruit Flavored Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / January 13, 2018

There’s nothing better than bubbly fruit flavored kombucha. For those of you who don’t want to spend the money to buy it, you can make it. Many years ago, a friend of mine was in a bad car wreck. He actually broke the steering wheel off with his chest. […]

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Life Changing – 20 Second Kombucha Mayo

By Donna Schwenk / October 21, 2017

Mayonnaise is a common condiment that so many of us use regularly. Mayo was said to be the invention of one of the great chefs of France. Marie-Antoine Carême was the personal chef of the Duke de Richelieu in 1756. […]

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Time-Lapse Video – Kombucha SCOBY Forming

By Donna Schwenk / April 22, 2017

This is a time-lapse video I did to show you how a SCOBY forms in your kombucha. It’s quite a beautiful thing to behold with all the bacteria and yeasts dancing around in the jar. I hope you enjoy it. […]

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When Are My Kefir, Kombucha, and Veggies Done Culturing?

By Donna Schwenk / March 18, 2017

Do you wonder when your kefir, kombucha, and cultured vegetables are done fermenting? I have a few tips to help you understand how and when they’re at the perfect place with lots of probiotics and will taste the best. […]

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What Kind of Sugars Can I Use in Kombucha?

By Donna Schwenk / October 15, 2016

When you’re brewing kombucha, you need to feed the microbes so they can make probiotics. Sugar is the fuel source for these hungry critters. Always remember that the sugar is for those little microbes and not for you. […]

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Kombucha Apple Scrap Vinegar!

By Donna Schwenk / October 8, 2016

Apple cider vinegar has many health benefits. Kombucha vinegar is very similar and has many of the same properties. This recipe uses the convenience of kombucha to speed up the process of making vinegar and uses apple scraps to give it that tangy apple taste. […]

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Jun! New Culture or Honey Kombucha Hybrid?

By Donna Schwenk / July 3, 2016

For some of you, this culture is old news . . . for others, you may have never heard of it. Jun is a cultured food similar to kombucha but supposedly its own separate thing. It is brewed with a SCOBY culture that is light in color and is made using green tea and honey. […]

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Probiotic Mocktails! Kefir, Kombucha, and More!

By Donna Schwenk / June 5, 2016

A recent study, published in the journal PNAS, suggested that bacteria in the gut may play a role in alcohol addiction and the risk of relapsing after rehab. The study was done on 60 alcohol-dependent individuals. […]

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Kombucha Margaritas! 4-30-2016

By Chris Johnston / May 2, 2016
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What Kind of Tea Can I Use to Make Kombucha?

By Donna Schwenk / April 3, 2016

The legend goes . . . in China, 2727 BC, the Emperor Shen Nong, who was known as “the divine healer,” was boiling his water to clean out impurities. The pot was underneath a tea bush and several leaves fell into the pot. The pot had such a wonderful fragrance, color, and taste that the emperor quickly told everyone of his findings. […]

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Kombucha Treats For Your Dogs

By Donna Schwenk / August 1, 2015

Scoby treats 2I get an overabundance of kombucha SCOBYs (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). Every time you make a pot of kombucha you get another SCOBY. So what to do with them? I usually just put them in my garden. The plants love the B vitamins in the kombucha SCOBYs and they seem to nurture the soil and keep the bugs away. […]

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Video – How to Make Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / May 17, 2015

Here is one of the very first videos I ever made. The first half of the video explains why I started drinking kombucha and how much it helped my family and me. The second half shows the process of how to actually make kombucha. I hope you enjoy the video and you will learn not only how to make kombucha, but why you should. It’s still my favorite beverage and I’ve been making and drinking it for 18 years. […]

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Kombucha Margarita and Strawberry Too!

By Donna Schwenk / May 10, 2015

Last year on my thirtieth wedding anniversary we took a cruise to the Caribbean and stopped in Cozumel, Mexico. We took a Salsa Salsa class where we made lots of salsa, guacamole, and Margaritas. We had so much fun and since I don’t really drink, but loved the taste of Margaritas, I wanted a kombucha recipe to enjoy instead of all the alcohol. […]

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Donna’s Kombucha Starter

By Chris Johnston / May 7, 2015

Donna’s Kombucha Starter This is a live kombucha scoby and 1 cup of starter liquid. I highly recommend getting a live kombucha starter (one that has been used actively and isn’t dehydrated). I really want you to be successful and if you have my starter, I know you will. This starter has been made with…

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How to Second Ferment Kombucha

By Chris Johnston / January 31, 2015

There’s nothing better than bubbly fruit flavored kombucha. For those of you who don’t want to spend the money to buy it, you can make it. Many years ago, a friend of mine was in a bad car wreck. He actually broke the steering wheel off with his chest. He was in the hospital and completely…

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It’s Not the SCOBY That Makes Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / January 11, 2015

Kombucha, pronounced kôm-bo͞o-CHA, is a beverage produced by fermenting sweet tea with a culture of yeast and bacteria. The good bacteria and yeasts eat the sugar out of the tea and make probiotics and then produce naturally-occurring carbonation. You don’t get tons of sugar because the bacteria eat it […]

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Kombucha

By Chris Johnston / October 14, 2014
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What is Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / October 14, 2014
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Fizzy Blender “Juiced” Apple Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / October 5, 2014

My daughter Maci got married and moved to a farm with her husband. She has a couple of apple trees and she’s making tons of recipes with apples in them. Before her husband, the love of her life was kombucha. She has been making gallons of super fizzy apple kombucha and discovered something special. […]

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Kombucha Always Brewing Method

By Donna Schwenk / February 22, 2014

Kombucha is growing in popularity and for good reason. The detoxifying power of kombucha is enormous. It has been recognized for its ability to counteract liver cell toxicity. As you drink kombucha, you will notice a flushing of toxins from your body as it filters toxins through the kidneys and the bowels. […]

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What is Kombucha?

By Donna Schwenk / January 24, 2010

What is Kombucha? So what exactly is kombucha? Kombucha (pronounced come-boo-cha) is a living health drink made by fermenting tea and sugar with the kombucha culture. It has been around for hundreds of years. If you are concerned that it is made with sugar, you needn’t be. The sugar is consumed by the culture leaving…

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How to Make Kombucha

By Donna Schwenk / January 10, 2010

Gather Your Materials  Materials Gallon Jar or non-lead-based crock. Linen or cloth napkin that will fit completely over top of jar or crock Rubber band to go around neck of jug or crock 1 cup raw sugar or white sugar – Check out these options. 4 to 5 tea bags: black or green tea, organic is best 3 quarts filtered water,…

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Does Your Body Need a Miracle?

By Donna Schwenk / January 18, 2025

Do you believe that healing requires a miracle, or do you believe that our trillions of cells govern themselves and create the bodies that we have? So how does the eye know how to focus or the muscle know how much energy it will need during your walk today? […]

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Whey – The Liquid Gold in Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / January 4, 2025

Don’t throw out your kefir if it separates into whey and curds. Your whey, although less appealing to many individuals, is a superfood which contains a lot of healing properties. There is something known as “The Whey Cure” which was used throughout history. In fact, Hippocrates and Galen, two founding fathers of medicine, frequently recommended whey to their patients to heal them. This whey was often referred to as “liquid gold.” […]

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Best of Cultured Food Life 2024: Our Top Articles!

By Donna Schwenk / December 28, 2024

Wishing you love and happiness for the year ahead  Our Most Popular Articles of 2024 Here We Come – 2025! I’m so excited for another year of connection, discovery, and sharing the incredible benefits of cultured foods with you. As we step into 2025, I can’t help but reflect on how these foods-kefir, yogurts, kefir…

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Reasons to Have Fermented Foods During the Holidays

By Donna Schwenk / December 14, 2024

As the holiday season hits, we spend more time with friends and family. One thing I have noticed is that there is more and more talk about the health issues that so many are struggling with. Extended family whom I don’t talk with often mostly talk about how sick they are and all the medications they’re on. . .

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Sourdough Cinnamon Swirl Bread

By Donna Schwenk / November 30, 2024

When I was growing up, my mom always made a Christmas braid on Christmas morning that was filled with cinnamon and nuts and covered in frosting. […]

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Cultured Christmas Gifts

By Donna Schwenk / November 23, 2024

It’s the holidays and we’re all needing all the help we can get. One of the wonderful things about cultured probiotic foods is how fun it is to make them a part of your everyday life […]

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The Connection Between Gut Health and the Immune System

By Donna Schwenk / November 9, 2024

Immune support From Fermented Foods Our bodies are amazing ecosystems, and the gut, often referred to as the “second brain,” is at the center of it all.Your gut is like a secret garden. It’s home to trillions of microorganisms working together to keep you healthy. When this garden flourishes, your body thrives, and your immune…

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Probiotic Pumpkin Recipes

By Donna Schwenk / November 2, 2024

Why You Should Be Eating More Pumpkin (And Loving It!) 15 Pumpkin recipes! 🍂 Jump to the recipes! 🍂 I love, love, love pumpkin. It has many healthy qualities and a creamy consistency that makes it a wonderful treat, especially around the holiday season. I use pumpkin in multiple ways, but some of my favorite…

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IBD: Crohn’s, Ulcers, & Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / October 19, 2024

I’ve seen cultured vegetables, kombucha, and kefir help with so many gastrointestinal disorders, and I’ve even witnessed firsthand my son healing from an ulcer that was causing him severe pain every time he ate. […]

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Fermented Foods: Immune Fuel for Flu Season

By Donna Schwenk / October 5, 2024

Fall through winter is the time of year they call “flu season.” People are really afraid of it but I have often said, “The flu should be afraid of me!” When you build up the good bacteria in your body, you create an army that goes with you everywhere you go and touches every person you come in contact with. . .

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Kefir Soda FAQs

By Donna Schwenk / August 31, 2024

Super Soda Imagine sipping on a refreshing, bubbly drink that’s not only delicious but also brimming with probiotics, enzymes, and vitamins. That’s the magic of Kefir Soda! At Cultured Food Life, we’re all about bringing the incredible benefits of fermented foods into your everyday life, and Kefir Soda is one of our favorite ways to…

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Can Cultured Foods Hurt Me?

By Donna Schwenk / August 17, 2024

I get a lot of people writing me letters indicating that they are afraid they are going to get sick from eating cultured foods. They don’t understand cultured foods and how they work; preconceived ideas and the media have created fear, a lot of fear. […]

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Tips That Nobody Else Talks About

By Donna Schwenk / August 10, 2024

Years ago when I was young and raising my kids, I was often influenced by well-meaning friends and family. They scared me to death with the latest news they had heard and would say, “Don’t eat this and don’t let your kids do this and did you read that story about how bad this is for you?” […]

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7 Ways To Change Your Gut

By Donna Schwenk / July 20, 2024

Gut Health Gut health is more important than you can imagine. Having a healthy gut means your gut contains large amounts of healthy bacteria and immune cells that ward off infectious agents like bacteria, viruses, and fungi. But that’s not all!  A healthy gut also communicates with the brain through nerves and hormones, which helps…

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Brain Health and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / June 22, 2024

How your gut and Brain work together Fermented foods are truly magical when it comes to nurturing our microbiota-gut-brain axis. These living foods don’t just taste amazing-they transform our health from the inside out. They do this by modulating our immune system, strengthening our gut barrier, and even regulating our neuroendocrine system – fermented foods…

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9 Ways to Use Extra Kefir Whey!

By Donna Schwenk / June 15, 2024

If you’re making kefir, and especially kefir cheese, you’re going to wind up with a lot of whey. Whey has been called liquid gold, and it has been used throughout history to help with many diseases. In fact, Hippocrates and Galen, two founding fathers of medicine, frequently recommended whey to their patients to heal them. […]

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Super Healing Summer

By Donna Schwenk / June 8, 2024

It’s summertime!! And all kinds of things can happen in the summertime that otherwise might seem impossible. Let me explain a few things that happen in the summertime that can help you be healthier, heal from all manner of diseases, and support good health! […]

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Enzymes and Your Gut — You Aren’t Just What You Eat, You’re What You Digest and Absorb

By Donna Schwenk / April 20, 2024

Eating cultured foods have not only supplied my body with billions of probiotics but also tons of digestive enzymes. This is one of the many reasons I eat them so often. Having plenty of digestion enzymes is one of the keys to optional health. Digestion when you put something in your mouth. […]

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Sugar Drops Your Immune System By 75%

By Donna Schwenk / April 13, 2024

Boosting your immune system is one of my favorite things that cultured foods do. Your gut is responsible for 80 percent of your immune system. The more good bacteria you have, the better your immune system will function. Viruses run around looking for a human host to inhabit. When it finds one, your body has special helpers designed to seek and destroy this invader.

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8 Ways To Second Ferment Water Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / January 29, 2024

There are a million reasons why you shouldn’t drink regular sodas that are laden with high fructose corn syrup, dyes, and chemicals that are hard on the body. Water kefir can provide minerals and probiotics, and they are easy and fun to make. Replace your drinks with water kefir or kombucha, and you will have…

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Asthma and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / January 27, 2024

One of the first friends I ever told about cultured foods had a little boy with asthma. Making and drinking a kefir smoothie every day allowed him to get off his asthma inhaler and live a normal life. I was quite surprised and thrilled that it worked so rapidly. He had been taking kefir quite regularly and stopped needing his inhaler. […]

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The Real Reasons Your Immune System Needs Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / January 6, 2024

Viruses, yuck . . . my family used to get them a lot. Colds, flus, you name it, we got it. But so did everybody else I knew. It’s normal, right? Well, it’s actually not. Every year at Christmas we would go to my mom’s in Virginia and somebody would inevitably get sick, and then it would spread down through the family. […]

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Does Your Bacteria Whisper?

By Donna Schwenk / December 23, 2023

I had just started my blog in April of 2010 and was afraid that nobody would be interested in cultured foods. I decided to do it anyway. I believe we are all guided to do things but it comes in whispers, not loud sounding trumpets. One such whisper came from my daughter Maci. She told me I needed a Facebook page to help people find my blog and then quickly made me one before I could protest. […]

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My Favorite Vitamin — and Why You Should Have It Every Day

By Donna Schwenk / December 2, 2023

This life is a journey and a fun one but understanding the workings of the body is really important. What if there was a nutrient that your body cries for all day long and you didn’t know it? […]

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Cranberries Have Many Healing Powers

By Donna Schwenk / November 18, 2023

Cranberries are usually eaten only around the holidays. It’s really a shame we don’t eat them all year long as they are powerful foods that can work like preventative medicine. I got all emotional when I discovered all the things cranberries can do for us. […]

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A Cold You Can Beat After A Holiday Treat

By Donna Schwenk / November 11, 2023

For many years, and way before I found cultured foods, we would travel to my mom’s house in Virginia for Christmas. It was a twenty-hour car ride from my home in Kansas City, and we would often drive all night to get there so the kids would sleep. We would always be exhausted by the…

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The Healing Crisis and Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / November 4, 2023

A “healing crisis” is something that happens when the body starts a detoxification process which is really a program of natural healing. This is a common occurrence among some individuals who start consuming cultured foods. When you start consuming cultured foods, your body is flooded with good bacteria. […]

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Probiotic Foods For Colds and Flus

By Donna Schwenk / October 28, 2023

It astonishes me that everybody doesn’t know about Cultured Veggies – they are such powerful little scrub brushes for the colon and deliver such powerful anti-virus abilities. Over and over again I have seen these veggies knock out colds and flu and even work magic on food poisoning. […]

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10 Tips For A Healthy Halloween

By Donna Schwenk / October 21, 2023

Probiotic Halloween 🎃 Halloween is always a fun time for kids and families. Let’s face it, the kids look adorable in their costumes and even I like to dress up; but it’s a sugar fest and that can present some challenges. We really need a probiotic Halloween. It’s such a fun time; but it is…

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More Recipes to Use Your Homemade Yogurt

By Donna Schwenk / October 7, 2023

Reasons to Have More Cultured yogurt  Yogurt is such a huge part of my life along with kefir and all my favorite fermented foods and drinks. I reach for it a lot when I’m hungry and want something fast to eat. I also have this thing that I do. I think about my microbes whenever…

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A Love Affair With Coconut Kefir Soda

By Donna Schwenk / September 23, 2023

Coconut Water  Coconut water makes fabulous kefir soda. I love how it tastes, and how easy it is to make.  It has 10 times the probiotics and 5 times the probiotic yeasts that kefir sodas made with fruit juices have. You can have 236 billion good bacteria in a cup! (See our lab results below.)…

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Probiotics and the Autoimmune Epidemic

By Donna Schwenk / September 2, 2023

I’m going to introduce you to your microbiome. These trillions of microbial organisms, which normally inhabit a healthy small and large intestine, are your friends. They’ve been co-creating with humans since the beginning of time, but it is likely you know very little about them. We depend on these microbes for our health and well…

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Make Your Condiments – Probiotic!

By Donna Schwenk / August 12, 2023

We all eat condiments. They are easy to make, but most people just buy them. Why don’t you let me help you make them in as little as five minutes? They will have billions of probiotics and are perfectly preserved for months. . .

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Low-Carb Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / July 29, 2023

Low carb and keto diets are very popular right now. I think we’re all different and what works for one doesn’t always work for another which is why I love cultured foods. They fit into any diet be it keto, vegan, low carb, vegetarian, paleo, or raw food diet. These foods can be mostly condiments; or some of these foods, such as a kefir smoothie, can be a whole meal. You can always find a way to add cultured foods to your diet and sometimes you only need a spoonful to flood your body with billions of probiotics that change your microbiome in a powerful way.

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UTIs, Yeast Infections, and Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / July 15, 2023

Understanding How Bacteria Work In The Body We know that more than half of all women will experience the burning urgency of a urinary tract infection (UTI) in their lifetime. Although men also suffer from these infections, the occurrence is much less frequent due to anatomical differences. If you experience discomfort when you urinate, you…

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How Your Gut Affects Your Entire Body

By Donna Schwenk / July 9, 2023

Let me tell you about Mary. She sat on the front row of one of my classes and cried throughout my class while I talked. Right after class, she came up to me and explained how much these probiotic foods I teach about had changed her life. Sick with digestion and depression and feeling hopeless, she found encouragement and hope from my books to give these foods a try. . .

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Probiotic Foods For The 4th of July

By Donna Schwenk / July 1, 2023

✨Keeping your gut healthy 🇺🇸 If you’re new to cultured foods, then let me help you understand how epic these foods are, and especially during parties. Cultured foods are loaded with probiotics, extra vitamins, and enzymes. They help your body heal by adding billions of probiotics to your gut. They rebuild your microbiome and this…

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Probiotic Drinks For Summer

By Donna Schwenk / June 24, 2023

Soda for summer Probiotic drinks are a must in the summertime. As you try to cool off and have something that is fizzy and delicious, there are two drinks I recommend.  I drink kombucha and kefir soda all the time. You can make different flavors and you can even make a float with probiotic ice…

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What to Do With Your Cultures While You’re on Vacation

By Donna Schwenk / June 17, 2023

Your cultures (kefir, kombucha, sourdough, and water kefir) are all living organisms and need to be cared for just like a pet. I love them like family, and have found ways to take care of them when I go on vacation. . .

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Benefits of Each Cultured Food

By Donna Schwenk / June 10, 2023

 The many things cultures Can Do Nothing has influenced and changed my body and life more than cultured foods. I’ve done many studies on myself and my family and, hands down, fermented foods are here to stay in my life. They create such wellness for me and mine that there is no way I’m going…

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Probiotic Tomatoes

By Donna Schwenk / May 13, 2023

I have a diverse group of people who subscribe and are members of my site. They have very different diets but all are adding cultured foods to enhance what they’re doing. I’ve discovered that consuming cultured foods is one of the keys to living an incredibly healthy life. Not only have I experienced this, but others are recognizing this as well. […]

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Cultured Foods For Your Bones

By Donna Schwenk / May 6, 2023

Osteoporosis Osteoporosis is a bone disease that occurs when the body loses too much bone, makes too little bone, or both. This results in the bones becoming weak and may break. Osteoporosis means “porous bone.” The inside of a bone looks something like a honeycomb. When someone has osteoporosis, the bone, which forms the “walls”…

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The Many Ways Cultured Foods Detoxify Your Body

By Donna Schwenk / April 22, 2023

I love my microbes and all they do for me. Not a week goes by that I don’t discover something new that my 100 trillion microbes are doing just for me. […]

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Building Up The All-Important Bifido Bacteria

By Donna Schwenk / April 15, 2023

Missing Microbes One of the most important bacteria you have is called Bifidobacteria. It is the one your mother gave you at birth. Bifidobacteria become the predominant (95%) microorganism in the intestine within a week after birth. [1,2,3] They call it the young bacteria and it is extremely important for adults too, although it often…

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Does Your Gut Help Control Food Cravings?

By Donna Schwenk / March 25, 2023

Food cravings — why do you have them? We tend to think food cravings are normal and there is not much we can do about them, but there is much more to it than this. This is a time of change. A time to look at the way we function in this world and do it differently than ever before. . .

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How Many Cultured Foods Do I Eat In a Day?

By Donna Schwenk / March 11, 2023

People have the mistaken idea that I only eat cultured foods all day long. Although there are a lot of days that I do eat only cultured foods, this is not the norm. I mostly eat them because they’re easy for me to prepare and are what I call healthy fast food. […]

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10 Ways To Heal Your Gut

By Donna Schwenk / March 4, 2023

Your gut is your largest immune organ The Microbes That Control You Your gut is your largest immune organ, with a surface area of 100-130 square feet! Inside of you are trillions of microbes that make up the body known as you. Without them, you can’t digest your food and receive the nutrients that you…

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How to Make Kefir Soda

By Donna Schwenk / February 11, 2023

Kefir Soda Starter Fizzy Fermented and Fun! Kefir soda . . . oh, how I love this probiotic bubbly drink. I’ve been making it in different ways using culture packages for over twenty-one years. For many, many years I have wanted to make my own kefir soda culture with good yeasts and bacteria. After testing…

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Winter Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / February 4, 2023

I love winter kefir! It’s often creamier and thicker than summer kefir. Kefir acts differently in the winter than in the warmer months of the year, due to cooler temperatures that make it ferment more slowly. […]

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Kefir Soda Starter

By Chris Johnston / January 18, 2023

Introduction Drink probiotic sodas and nurture your microbiome! Nothing pleases me more than to introduce you to our Kefir Soda Starter made by Cutting Edge Cultures. I’ve been making kefir soda using culture package for over years. For many many years, I have wanted to make my own culture with good yeasts and bacteria that…

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How Microbes and Your Brain Work Together

By Donna Schwenk / January 7, 2023

A healthy body isn’t the only result of consuming good bacteria – having a healthy gut also leads to a healthier emotional state. Before I found cultured foods, I was a different person – physically and emotionally. As a young woman, and all the way into my late thirties, I would get upset easily. . .

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Yogurt For Christmas

By Donna Schwenk / December 10, 2022

Cultured Cream and yogurt I am very thankful this year for the many new cultured yogurts that have entered my life. I’ve been eating kefir for over years and never expected to have particular strains of yogurt make such a significant impact on me. Kefir has over 50 bacteria, but these new yogurts have a…

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Eczema and Probiotic Foods

By Donna Schwenk / October 15, 2022

Skin Problems What’s Going on Inside Eczema is a skin condition that causes itchy, red patches on different locations of the body and affects over 30 million people, especially children between the ages of one and five. The standard treatment is steroidal creams, corticosteroids, or antihistamines but this does not address the underlying cause of…

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Healing From Food Allergies

By Donna Schwenk / October 1, 2022

“We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves.” ~Galileo Galilei It was early 2002, and my sixteen-year-old daughter climbed out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen. “How do you feel this morning?” I asked. Her response broke me. “I never feel good anymore mom. I feel bad all…

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LR Superfood Starter

By Chris Johnston / September 20, 2022

Introduction Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri) bacteria species is a superstar in the world of intestinal microbes, and you might just think you can take a supplement with L. reuteri and accomplish the task but that’s not necessarily true. Supplementation in pill form isn’t always optimum and there are specific strains of L. reuteri for humans…

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How To Make Water Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / September 17, 2022

Water kefir grains, or we call them kefir crystals, are unlike milk kefir grains as they thrive on sugars and not lactose. The special probiotic yeasts and beneficial bacteria in the water kefir crystals consume the sugar in the sugar water. They produce probiotics, new enzymes, organic acids, and antioxidants which may have many beneficial…

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The Secrets To Probiotic Sugar-Free Ice Cream

By Donna Schwenk / September 10, 2022

4 Ice Cream Secrets Making good homemade ice cream is really fun – making probiotic ice cream made with kefir and yogurt is even more fun. You can really use a multitude of ingredients. I even use my smoothie recipes and turn them into ice cream, especially when it’s a hot day. I love to…

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Don’t Be Afraid of Your Ferments — They Know How to Do This

By Donna Schwenk / July 23, 2022

Every day I receive many emails from people who are new to fermenting and want to do a good job. They are afraid they are going to do it wrong, mess it up, or make themselves sick. I know from their letters how hard they are trying. […]

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Probiotic Foods and Cancer

By Donna Schwenk / July 9, 2022

In 2010, I had just started my blog and Facebook page, and the second person to post on my page was a man named Chris asking me How to Make Kombucha. He was a friend of my older kids and what I didn’t know at the time was Chris had just been diagnosed with […]

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Probiotic Foods for Food Poisoning and Stomach Virus

By Donna Schwenk / June 11, 2022

Of all the health ailments cultured foods can help with, the one I hear the most about is either food poisoning or stomach virus (Gastroenteritis). I’ve seen it work personally on my family many times […]

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Gluten Pain: The Best Teacher

By Donna Schwenk / May 28, 2022

I have met hundreds of people who are now on gluten-free diets. My daughter used to be one of them. Gluten pain can make life difficult and become a heavy load to bear. How can this grain that has been around since time began suddenly wreak such havoc on […]

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Feeling Younger is an Inside Job

By Donna Schwenk / May 21, 2022

I was 41 when I first found cultured foods. I felt old, discouraged, and sick. I remember resting on the couch and watching documentaries about people who had changed their lives and done extraordinary things. […]

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Beet Kvass: Original, Orange, & Golden Lemon

By Donna Schwenk / May 14, 2022

Beet kvass is a fermented probiotic drink with many health benefits. I first made this drink back in 2012 to help my daughter heal her IBS and food allergies. One of the things we did was give her a cultured food with every meal, but she also had a probiotic drink with her meals too.…

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Kefir Benefits For Your Heart

By Donna Schwenk / May 7, 2022

Keep Your Heart Healthy Just recently, my dear friend’s husband died at a young age of a heart attack and nobody saw this coming. It can be so devastating to families to feel the hurt of losing someone they love. Your heart is certainly one of your most important organs, and since heart disease is…

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Can You Make Happiness in Your Gut?

By Donna Schwenk / April 30, 2022

Emotions are my best friends. They help me not only understand my present state but also how my body is doing. Researchers are discovering that an imbalance in your gut can cause mental symptoms. They call the gut the second brain, and boy are they right. […]

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Fermented Sauerkraut and Breast Cancer

By Donna Schwenk / April 23, 2022

Sauerkraut is an incredible food. I teach people to make it at all my classes. It can be life changing along with kefir and kombucha and I’m pretty intense about it. It changed my life and I have watched it change thousands of other people too. . .

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Microbes That Change Your Home in 24 Hours

By Donna Schwenk / April 16, 2022

When you and I find the courage and strength to be better in any regard we help everyone around us. This goes for every area of our lives and even what we eat – and it includes our bacteria. You have trillions of hitchhikers that live in and on you, and they play a huge role in keeping you healthy. […]

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43 Ways to Use Kefir Cheese

By Donna Schwenk / April 2, 2022

I make a lot of kefir cheese. I use kefir cheese in place of any recipe that calls for cream cheese, sour cream, or Greek yogurt. It’s very versatile, and the length of time you strain it will determine how thick it becomes. . .

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Are Probiotic Foods Stronger — Than Probiotic Supplements?

By Donna Schwenk / March 26, 2022

Many people wonder if probiotic pills provide the same benefit as probiotic foods since they seem to be marketed in the same way—healthy bacteria for our guts. However, probiotic foods work significantly better because of their construction […]

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Eight Probiotic Foods to Always Keep in Your Fridge

By Donna Schwenk / March 19, 2022

When it comes to cultured/probiotic and fermented foods, I am officially obsessed. Not everyone is going to make as many of these foods as I do; but once you get started, it’s an exciting journey! Here are the top seven probiotic foods I ALWAYS have on hand, and why. . .

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How Gut Microbes Tell Your Hormones What to Do

By Donna Schwenk / March 5, 2022

Female hormones are complex and beautifully made. But take those hormones and ignore them, and they will get your attention through symptoms of discomfort that can lead to disease and believe you me, they can wreak havoc on your life. There is no giant step that accomplishes this, just a lot of little steps that can make all the difference.

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Kefir and Diabetes

By Donna Schwenk / February 26, 2022

I remember that day quite vividly. It was over fifteen years ago. It was February and bitter cold outside. I made myself a breakfast that I thought was healthy – high-fiber cereal and skim milk. Thirty minutes later a terrible feeling came over me […]

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Fermented Foods vs Fiber — Guess Who Wins?

By Donna Schwenk / February 19, 2022

 Fermented Foods Stun Researchers Nothing has changed me more than cultured foods. I’ve consumed them for over twenty years and nothing is more convincing than your own life experience. I’ve done many studies on myself and my family and hands down fermented foods are here to stay in my life. They create such wellness for…

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Prebio Plus

By Chris Johnston / January 12, 2022

Introduction Prebio Plus is food for your bacteria. I love, love this product and so do my kefir and cultured veggies. Prebio Plus has three different strains of prebiotics, making it three times as effective as other prebiotics on the market today. Ingredients: Organic Inulin (Blue Agave Leaf from Mexico) Organic Acacia (Acacia Tree from…

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Overeating During the Holidays? Cultured Foods Can Help

By Donna Schwenk / December 11, 2021

One of the most important things I’ve learned about health and wellness is that overeating can be just as stressful on your hardworking liver as drinking too much, but most people don’t know this. Overeating or having too much fatty food on your plate can make it difficult for the liver to function smoothly. . .

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An Apple Peel a Day Keeps The Doctor Away

By Donna Schwenk / December 4, 2021

The Bacteria that keeps your gut lining intact Do you know the old English-language proverb that appeared in the 19th century that said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away “? There may be more truth to this than we know. Apples have been associated with a number of benefits that could help promote…

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Vegetable Starter by Cutting Edge Cultures

By Chris Johnston / November 30, 2021

Introduction Boost your fermented foods and nurture your microbiome! Nothing pleases me more than to introduce you to the vegetable starter, Cutting Edge Cultures. Several experts on fermentation and probiotics joined together to make the strongest vegetable starter on the market today. I am pleased to be a part of this and I can’t tell…

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20 Ways To Use Fermented Garlic!

By Donna Schwenk / November 20, 2021

There are certainly many ways to enjoy garlic, but having a jar of fermented garlic in your fridge is easy and convenient to use. You can use this in so many ways, and it is even great to hand on hand for heated recipes. […]

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Candida and Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / October 23, 2021

I get hundreds of emails about the subject of Candida, and a lot of them are asking me why so many health care practitioners don’t recommend the consumption of fermented foods if you have Candida. […]

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How To Make Your Own Vinegar — 5 Different Recipes!

By Donna Schwenk / October 16, 2021

Homemade Vinegar In the fall, I like to make homemade vinegar for Christmas gifts. It’s the perfect time of year since temperatures cool down and vinegar likes cooler temperatures (68 to 70 degrees F) rather than warmer temps to do their fermentation. I’ve had so many people ask me if they could buy a bottle…

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How to Make Kefir Cheese and Whey

By Donna Schwenk / October 5, 2021

Kefir Cheese and Whey Making kefir whey and cheese is something I do many times a week. It doesn’t take long, and the whey will culture a multitude of foods. The whey in kefir has many benefits, so don’t throw it out! One of the things I hope to accomplish with this blog is to…

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Water Kefir or Kefir Soda? Two Different Ways to Make Probiotic Soda

By Donna Schwenk / September 25, 2021

Which Is Better? Kefir Soda Versus Water Kefir I love kefir soda, but this is a slightly different process from making water kefir that is made with water kefir crystals. When you make water kefir with crystals, you make your first ferment and then you ferment it again to flavor it. This is a two-step…

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Resistant Starch — The Key To Extraordinary Health Benefits

By Donna Schwenk / September 4, 2021

Feed those Microbes and watch what Happens I’m constantly learning new things about the benefits of bacteria but especially what feeds these tiny microbes that keep us healthy and thriving. It’s been over two decades of eating fermented foods and the new discoveries have never stopped. Something I’ve learned throughout the years is that you’re…

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Your Microbes Love Coffee Just As Much As You Do

By Donna Schwenk / August 21, 2021

I love coffee, and I drink a cup every day. Some believe it’s not good for you, but I’ve gotten so many benefits from it that I just knew this couldn’t possibly be true. I have a philosophy about the foods I eat. If I eat or drink something that I know is bad for me, I can never get a positive result from it. […]

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Food For Thought — Fix Your Gut Fix Your Life

By Donna Schwenk / August 7, 2021

For many years, I’d read thousands of books that I had stacked by my bed – and thank goodness for Kindle!  I read books on what foods are best for you and tried gazillions of diets and still couldn’t figure it all out. […]

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Cooling Down With Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / July 3, 2021

I live in a desert climate – hot during the day and cool at night. When it gets hot, it’s really hot. Today it’s 100°F and I’m looking for foods that cool me down. […]

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10 Ways and Reasons to Use Your Cultured Veggie Brine!

By Donna Schwenk / June 26, 2021

Cultured vegetables are super powerful, but so is the brine they are made in. The powerful bacteria in cultured vegetables called Lactobacillus plantarum (L. plantarum) is a powerful weapon against pathogens that can invade your body and try to make you their host. […]

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The Probiotic Superstar in Cultured Veggies

By Donna Schwenk / June 19, 2021

I have been getting a lot of letters asking if you can ferment vegetables with water kefir or kombucha. You can ferment vegetables with these two different cultures, but the vegetables tend to get mushy and don’t last very long. […]

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Seven Healthy Reasons I Love Dates

By Donna Schwenk / May 8, 2021

It’s Mother’s Day and I’m thinking about my mom who lives 2,637 miles away from me in Leesburg, Virginia. My mom loves, loves dates so this blog is for her. […]

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Probiotic Salads and Dressings and Why Your Microbes Need Them

By Donna Schwenk / May 1, 2021

There are many reasons you should eat salads. They are one of nature’s perfect foods – they work like medicine. The benefits are many and they’re delicious too! Having fermented dressings is a mainstay in my house and is one of the many ways I add cultured foods to my family’s diet. . .

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Your Immune System and Seasonal Allergies

By Donna Schwenk / April 24, 2021

I have had seasonal allergies since I was twelve or thirteen years old. For months in the springtime, I locked myself inside the house and turned to drugs and steroids that harmed my immune system. This seemed to be what everybody did and I did the same because I had nowhere else to look. . .

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19 Healing Cultured Carrot Recipes

By Donna Schwenk / April 3, 2021

I was young, nine years old, and sitting in a classroom staring at my teacher’s desk. She had a thermos; and from it she poured a bright orange liquid and I would stare in wonder. I found myself obsessing about what she was drinking. I should have been working in my workbook, but I would watch her every time she went to take a drink. […]

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Milk Kefir FAQs

By Donna Schwenk / March 27, 2021

Kefir is my favorite cultured food. It has the most probiotic strains of any cultured food (over 50 strains) and is also super easy to make. It was the first cultured food I tried and it made me well in so many ways that I started on a journey to learn all I could about this magical food. […]

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Fermented Foods Can Help With Constipation and Diarrhea

By Donna Schwenk / March 20, 2021

Nobody really wants to talk about constipation and diarrhea, but it’s something everybody deals with at some time in their life. I’ve had so many people find help with these ailments that despite most people not wanting to talk about elimination, it’s something that can be your best teacher if you know what to look…

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My Favorite Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / March 13, 2021

Almost two decades ago I had a revelation. No longer could I rely on any individual to solve all my health problems even if it was a medical professional. […]

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6 Ginger Sodas That Can Do Amazing Things

By Donna Schwenk / February 27, 2021

Pain touches everyone in some way; and when this happens, all of us reach for something that we believe will help us. The older I get, the more I find that every ounce of pain is here to teach me something. […]

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Reasons And Recipes To Have More Miso

By Donna Schwenk / January 16, 2021

When people think of miso, they mostly think of miso soup, but it is so much more. It has an incredible microbial makeup and is a nutritional powerhouse and is so simple to make and use in recipes that I’ve found myself making and consuming it almost every day. […]

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H. Pylori and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / January 9, 2021

Last October, someone asked a question on my forum.

“Hi! I am a new member, diagnosed with H. Pylori bacteria in July, currently on my second round of tough antibiotics. […]

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Why and How You Should Soak Your Beans, Nuts, Seeds, and Grains

By Donna Schwenk / November 14, 2020

More and more people are eating raw and unprocessed whole foods which is a good thing – unless they’re loaded with enzyme inhibitors and phytates. […]

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You Are The One Thing In Life You Can Control

By Donna Schwenk / November 7, 2020

This is the week of the 2020 presidential election. Needless to say, whatever side you’re on, it’s been an intense week and a lot of people are struggling with strong emotions. I’m surprised to say that I’ve lived a long time (60 years) and now have some life experience that really serves me in times of uncertainty and fear. […]

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Three Foods That Can Change Your Life ~ The Trilogy and More

By Donna Schwenk / October 17, 2020

Fermentation is an art form and each individual cultured food is, in and of itself, unique. The three foods of The Trilogy each provide different good bacteria and yeasts that enhance the trillions of bacteria in the body and allow them to thrive, grow, and multiply. […]

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I Was Lost, Until I Did This. . .

By Donna Schwenk / September 26, 2020

“How do I apply all this cultured food stuff to my life? Where and how do I get started?” This is something that I hear quite often. People want to change their life and feel better but don’t know where to start. […]

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Probiotic Foods for Different Ailments

By Donna Schwenk / September 12, 2020

Probiotics have become an exciting frontier in health and wellness. Most people only think about probiotic supplements in a bottle, but today we’re talking about foods that have probiotics in them. These probiotic foods have billions more probiotics than supplements. . .

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Preserving Gut Health As You Age

By Donna Schwenk / September 5, 2020

This last year I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to live the rest of my life. My husband’s father and stepmom died and so did my dog. It is times like these that help me to reevaluate things in my life and how I want to live and be remembered.[…]

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Grow Your Own Probiotics

By Donna Schwenk / August 29, 2020

A lot of suffering in this world comes from the fear of discomfort. In my own personal life, pain has come to teach me things and get me to change. […]

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Food Care is Health Care

By Donna Schwenk / August 1, 2020

It’s pretty crazy these days listening to all the talk about health care and what to do about it. It’s causing a lot of fear and one I am well acquainted with. Do you ever wonder why your life takes certain paths and contains certain challenges? I do, and I was contemplating that this week as I listened to people debating on TV about health care. […]

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Your Body Was Designed to Heal You

By Donna Schwenk / July 18, 2020

How did I get here? I was a new mother at 41 years old, falling apart, and paralyzed with fear. I was sick with diabetes and suffered from high blood pressure. I also had a brand new premature baby girl in my lap. I knew that I was in trouble and I desperately needed help. I begged for help. […]

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The Must-Have Food Medicine – in Your Fridge

By Donna Schwenk / July 4, 2020

One day my daughter Holli came running into the room and burst into tears. She cried and said, “Help me! My stomach hurts so bad.” And then she ran to the bathroom and started throwing up. She had spent the night with a friend who had just had the same thing, so I’m pretty sure she picked it up from her. […]

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Will Eating Probiotic Foods Make Any Difference?

By Donna Schwenk / June 27, 2020

Most of you don’t know what processes are actually happening inside of you every day. There are microorganisms everywhere and you can’t see them, but they are inhabiting you and everything else. […]

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Why You Should Know About Short-Chain Fatty Acids and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / June 20, 2020

I’m constantly learning new things about the benefits of bacteria. It’s been almost two decades of eating fermented foods and the new discoveries have never stopped. […]

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