Health and Wellness

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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The Amazing Benefits of Bifidobacteria

By Donna Schwenk / September 21, 2024

Everybody Needs Lots of Bifido Bifidobacterium is a genus of beneficial bacteria that reside primarily in the intestines. Bifidobacteria play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy gut and overall well-being and keep your immune system strong. I am hearing more and more that many people have diminished bifidobacteria. If you don’t have enough bifidobacteria,…

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What Do Your Gut Bacteria Eat? The Essential Guide to Nourishing Your Microbiome

By Donna Schwenk / September 14, 2024

You are what your bacteria eat. It sounds like a science fiction movie, that deep within our gut is an entire ecosystem which is affecting both our cravings and moods to get us to eat what they want. . .

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Kefir and Respiratory Health

By Donna Schwenk / September 7, 2024

Benefits of Kefir Kefir has long been used for its ability to support respiratory health, especially during the cold and flu season. I have seen this personally work well after respiratory infections and also through those who shared with me through many emails that they have gotten off of their asthma inhalers. It was one…

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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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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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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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Why Magnesium is Essential for Good Health

By Donna Schwenk / June 1, 2024

The Mighty Mineral That Powers Your Body Magnesium – my favorite Mineral Magnesium is needed for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body. I first realized its importance to me when I had my third child. I wrote about it here. The Mineral That Saved My Life I firmly believe that many of us…

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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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Histamines and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / March 9, 2024

How to deal with Histamine flare-ups is a common question I get, and especially since fermented foods can either help or worsen symptoms. It occurs when there is a buildup of histamine in the body. […]

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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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When You’re Trying To Get Better…

By Donna Schwenk / February 24, 2024

The Special Superfood Smoothie Scroll down to check out the video 🎥 and 🫙 recipe! If you’ve been sick and not feeling well and trying to recover, or you are just trying to reset your gut, this is a quick and easy smoothie that starts the ball rolling in the right direction. It is fantastic…

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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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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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Kefir and Cholesterol

By Donna Schwenk / September 16, 2023

One of my good friends told me her cholesterol had gone up since drinking kefir, and then she said, “That’s my good cholesterol! It went through the roof and my doctor is very pleased.” I got a few emails this week from people expressing to me that since they’ve been consuming kefir […]

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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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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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Kefir And Your Blood Pressure

By Donna Schwenk / May 27, 2023

In 2001, I was battling hypertension and diabetes. It was then that I started drinking kefir and I noticed an interesting occurrence. It seemed that when I drank a glass of kefir every day my blood pressure would go down; and not just a little, but quite a bit. It would put me in the normal range. . .

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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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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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The Mineral That Saved My Life

By Donna Schwenk / January 21, 2023

My family has a history of high blood pressure. I struggled with high blood pressure on and off for years and was told to just expect to take medication for it. This made me fighting mad, and I didn’t want to accept it as predetermined destiny that I had no choice over. I wanted to know why I had a tendency for this and what was happening inside of me that was causing all of this. […]

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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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Jicama if You’re Sicka-ma! 📹 Video

By Donna Schwenk / November 5, 2022

If you are looking for an easy cultured veggie that your family will love, then you have to try Jicama if You’re Sicka-ma. […]

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How to Make Yogurt with Lactobacillus Gasseri

By Donna Schwenk / October 29, 2022

The Microbe L. Gasseri Lactobacillus gasseri (L. gasseri) is a very important microbe that lives in the genital, urinary, and digestive systems of the body. It also has the special ability to live in the upper gastrointestinal area similar to Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri).  L. gasseri is also believed to offer other specific health benefits.…

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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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Sleep Problems and Your Gut

By Donna Schwenk / September 24, 2022

Sleeping is fundamental to our wellbeing and health, and I have my own experiences with sleep and health. In 2001 when my daughter Holli was born eight weeks early and weighed in at four pounds, I was a woman on a mission to help her. Babies born this early don’t get the mom’s immunities and Holli was no exception. . .

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Cultured Veggies ~ Saving Lives

By Donna Schwenk / August 20, 2022

Forget everything you think you know about vegetables and let me tell you what happens when you culture them. Grow your own probiotics in a jar of vegetables, and you’ll be shocked and amazed at all they can do. I feel like I’ve been standing on the top of a mountain singing the praises of…

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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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Feeding Your Microbes — Wellness is Made in the Gut

By Donna Schwenk / June 25, 2022

The microbes that have made your body their home are quite impressive, and most people are unaware of the magnitude of microbes that reside within them. One hundred trillion microbes is a tremendous amount, and let me better explain just how much this is. . .

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Oxalates and Why You Need Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / June 18, 2022

 Oxalates and Gut Health Oxalic acid is an organic compound found in many plants. In fact, all plants produce oxalic acid at various levels. It is their natural defense against insects and other pests. The terms “oxalic acid” and “oxalate” are used interchangeably in nutrition science. Foods like spinach, beets, chocolate, and almonds are all…

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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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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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Living Longer on Yogurt and Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / April 9, 2022

Yogurt And Kefir Yogurt and Bifidobacterium I love to eat and make kefir as well as yogurt. Lately, I’ve had yogurt turn my world upside down. I love kefir with every fiber of my being and have it every day, but there were bacterial strains that kefir didn’t have that I wanted. Bifidobacteria is a…

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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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L. Reuteri — The Bacteria You’re Missing and the Superfood Yogurt I Love!

By Donna Schwenk / March 12, 2022

The Journey – Finding answers Before refrigeration in 1927, everybody fermented their food. It was what people did to keep their foods safe and preserved. They would ferment their milk and their vegetables. They also made drinks teeming with good yeasts and bacteria – water could be risky since it wasn’t always clean. They would…

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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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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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Hesperidin: The Amazing Flavonoid in Orange Juice

By Donna Schwenk / February 5, 2022

Hesperidin’s Amazing Benefits I am very fortunate to have many fruit trees on my property. I have several varieties of orange trees and I am constantly trying to find ways to use the oranges, but never did I realize how powerful oranges and their juice can actually be. Orange juice contains special compounds that have…

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HMOs and Bifidobacterium — Why They’re So Important For Your Gut

By Donna Schwenk / November 6, 2021

One of the most important Bacteria In Your Gut For years I’ve been looking for a way to increase Bifidobacterium. I’ve been wanting to discuss this all-important gut bacteria, but first I wanted to figure out how to significantly produce more of it since it diminishes with age. The more Bifidobacterium you have, the more…

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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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Why You Should Eat Berries Every Day — 50+ Recipes

By Donna Schwenk / September 18, 2021

Berries and I have a love affair. I eat them every morning for breakfast with kefir and for snacks too. I recently began adding a red berry phenol powder to my smoothies to get even more benefits, and what a difference it has made. I have over 50 recipes in this article and even more…

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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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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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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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Eating Cultured Foods For 20 Years

By Donna Schwenk / February 13, 2021

Featured Image PositionClick to adjust the image position. Visitors will not see this. The Call  Finding My Way To Cultured Foods  You have to fight through some bad days to find the best days of your life I have always had a sense of urgency about my life. I never knew why this was, and…

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Kiss Me ~ I’m Cultured 💋

By Donna Schwenk / February 6, 2021

Flashing back to 2001 and my first few months of making kefir, my husband was really leery of it. “Milk sitting on a counter for 24 hours . . . are you sure about this?” he said. He always tries my crazy creations, but it takes him a little bit to wrap his head around it and this one was no exception. […]

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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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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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IBD: Crohn’s, Ulcers, & Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / September 19, 2020

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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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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Can Fermented Vegetables Help with COVID-19?

By Donna Schwenk / July 25, 2020

In my own personal experience and those whom I help through my website, we have all seen tremendous help and healing from eating fermented foods and especially when dealing with any kind of virus. […]

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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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Does Your Body Need a Miracle?

By Donna Schwenk / May 9, 2020

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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You and Your Housemates Share the Same Bacteria

By Donna Schwenk / April 18, 2020

It was the summer of 2003. A friend came into my kitchen and asked what was on my counters. I excitedly told her about my beloved cultures and I watched her face change expressions. “These jars have been brewing for days on your counters?” […]

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Help Is On The Way

By Donna Schwenk / March 21, 2020

It’s March 18th, 2020, and the novel coronavirus has everybody staying home and worried about the future. This day also happens to be my 60th birthday so I’m making my own healthy birthday cake and baking a loaf of sourdough bread. […]

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Anti-Viral Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / March 7, 2020

There is a lot of fear flying around about the flu and especially the coronavirus. If I can help you understand what happens in your body and how it works when you get the flu, or what it can do to protect yourself, then perhaps it will […]

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Fermented Foods and IBS

By Donna Schwenk / February 15, 2020

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is usually identified by a group of symptoms: abdominal pain, bloating, and a change in bowels that can alternate between diarrhea and constipation. […]

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How To Make The Probiotic That Inhibits Candida

By Donna Schwenk / November 16, 2019

I love kombucha and not just because it tastes fantastic but because it has a special probiotic called Saccharomyces boulardii (S. boulardii). It is an incredible probiotic and when you make kombucha you can get lots of this powerful probiotic yeast. […]

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Fibromyalgia and Fermented Foods

By Donna Schwenk / September 14, 2019

Fibromyalgia is one of the fastest-growing disabling conditions. It affects 2-4 percent of the population and has no known cure. It seems to affect mostly women, and I see it cropping up everywhere. […]

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Will Bacteria Keep You Young?

By Donna Schwenk / August 31, 2019

I remember the day I learned that the human gut held as much as six pounds of bacteria. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known this and wanted to know more about my trillions of microbes. Could I help them grow and thrive, and in the process live a healthier, longer life? […]

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The FODMAP Diet for SIBO, IBS, and Probiotic Foods

By Donna Schwenk / July 27, 2019

We all know that food choices can drastically impact health symptoms. So, it’s no surprise that diets are continuously developed for different health conditions or symptoms. IBS and SIBO sufferers have a difficult time finding things to eat that don’t flare symptoms. […]

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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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10 Natural Miracles I Found To Lower Stress

By Donna Schwenk / March 2, 2019

Stress is an alarm clock. It’s your body trying to communicate with you, sending you alert notices; but so few of us listen and I am no different from you. This is a very personal subject for me. Stress made its presence known to me in 2016, but I didn’t listen. I just ignored the signs. I was working like crazy for years and adding more and more pressure to myself. . .

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Personal Reasons My Family Eats Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / February 16, 2019

Everybody I know leads busy lives, but did you know there is always help for you? My family had a lot of big changes in 2017, but a constant through it all was the way each member of my family used and ate cultured foods. Maybe this could be the answer for you, too. But first, the journey. . .

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Easy Ways To Heal Your Microbiome

By Donna Schwenk / February 2, 2019

I talk a lot about your body and what your body is made out of. Those 100 trillion microbes (which is more than ten times the cells in the body) that call you home are your constant companions. Most of you don’t even know your microbes because you can’t see them, but they know you and work their darndest to keep you alive each day. . .

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Can Your Gut Heal Your Joints?

By Donna Schwenk / January 19, 2019

When I first started with cultured foods almost two decades ago, one of the first things I noticed was the relief of joint pain in my knee. This was in the very beginning of drinking and making kefir every day. If I quit drinking kefir, it only took about three to four days before the pain would return, so I kept drinking my kefir. . .

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Can Sourdough Change the Gluten-Free Diet?

By Donna Schwenk / January 12, 2019

About ten years ago I went to a class on “How to Make Sourdough Bread.” My daughter had gluten intolerance and we found that she could eat sprouted bread without the side effects created by regular bread. I had heard that sourdough bread achieved similar results to the sprouted bread, and I wanted to try it. What I learned shocked me. . .

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My Personal Christmas Story – That Changed Everything

By Donna Schwenk / December 22, 2018

This is one of the most personal blogs I have ever written. I wrote it several years ago, but what I didn’t know was that the pain was the catalyst that changed everything in my life. I hope it will help you, inspire you, and encourage you to never give up, even when things look like they are going in the wrong direction. . .

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Overeating During the Holidays? Cultured Foods Can Help

By Donna Schwenk / December 15, 2018

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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Got an Acidic Stomach? The Surprising Remedy

By Donna Schwenk / November 10, 2018

In 2017, we moved across the country from Kansas City to Southern California to be closer to our two older children. Our family – Ron, me and our three kids and our son-in-law – are thick as thieves. I’ve always lived far away from my mom and dad and sisters who mostly reside on the east coast. […]

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Symptoms of an Unbalanced Gut

By Donna Schwenk / November 3, 2018

Sometimes I wonder how I got here. Symptoms of disease struck my life almost two decades ago and it broke me. Those symptoms shook me to my core and I didn’t know that my body was desperately trying to get my attention to help me heal. And heal I did. With a grateful heart, I’m here trying with all I know to help you too. . .

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Is Kefir the Answer for Acid Reflux?

By Donna Schwenk / April 14, 2018

One of the first things I noticed when we started drinking kefir was the help my husband received with eliminating his acid reflux. It was quite surprising to me since he popped antacids like they were candy. . .

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Your Kidneys Might Need Some Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / February 17, 2018

I’ve received several emails from people who have been greatly helped by cultured foods in regards to kidney health. More and more medical research is showing great benefits to using probiotics for kidney health […]

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I Stopped Eating Cultured Foods ~ Here’s What Happened!

By Donna Schwenk / February 10, 2018

I’ve been eating cultured foods for almost sixteen years. I eat them most every day with very few exceptions. When I first started eating cultured foods, I had diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, and felt discouraged and depressed […]

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Autism and Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / November 25, 2017

Her name was Mary and she changed my life the day I met her. It was the very beginning of my journey with cultured foods, and I was in hiding with my newfound knowledge. People didn’t understand what I was doing, and the thought of letting food ferment on your counter […]

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My New Book “Cultured Food in a Jar”!

By Donna Schwenk / August 22, 2017

Cookbooks — I have a lot of them, 229 to be exact, and as you can see from the picture of the bookcase in my living room, I have quite a collection. My daughter Maci said to me, “I have a lot of cookbooks too, but you know which one I use the most?” […]

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Kefir is Your Ally Against Toenail Fungus

By Donna Schwenk / July 15, 2017

So, do you want to know why you have certain persistent problems with things like ringworm, toenail fungus, and athlete’s foot? All of these are caused by a fungus that can spread and grow like crazy and last for years and years. […]

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The Real Reason Men Need Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / June 14, 2017

My husband was the last one in my family to try cultured foods. I experimented on my children first. My kids were sick and I wanted them to be well, so we all ate cultured food; and much to my surprise, everybody got better. […]

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What Are Cultured Foods? Restorative Foods for the Body

By Donna Schwenk / April 8, 2017

Cultured Foods and LACTO-Fermented Foods are the same thing. The “lacto” in “lacto-fermentation” comes from the bacteria “lactobacillus.” Many strains of lacto-bacteria and yeasts are involved in culturing or fermenting foods. […]

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Six Easy Ways To Store Your Cultured Foods

By Donna Schwenk / March 25, 2017

Having lots of fermented foods in your fridge is the same as having a medicine cabinet stocked with natural remedies. We reach for these foods not only to keep us healthy and disease free but also when we find ourselves struggling with a virus, stomach ache, or any other kind of ailment that requires extra body support. […]

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Can I Eat Probiotic Foods While Taking Antibiotics?

By Donna Schwenk / February 11, 2017

I routinely talk about each member of The Trilogy (Kefir, Kombucha, and Cultured Vegetables) and how each member has specific things your body needs to help you change your life. But here is even more good news about this trio. […]

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Probiotic Soup Secrets

By Donna Schwenk / January 28, 2017

Soup can not only comfort your mind and your gut, but soup also has secret healing modalities that perhaps you’re not aware of. I think combining soups with cultured foods can help cure what ails you in a myriad of ways, but soup can stand on its own as a powerful kitchen medicine. […]

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Cultured Classes in Your Kitchen

By Donna Schwenk / November 19, 2016

I was taking my daughter to acting class this week, and I got a text from one of my team members. He told me to get a box of kleenex and to read the email. I stopped the car to read the email, and with tears streaming down my cheeks I was reminded once again how thankful I am for all the struggles that have brought me here. […]

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The Foods That Made Me Change My Life

By Donna Schwenk / November 13, 2016

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. I resisted it, fought it, and finally changed when I could do nothing else. […]

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Get Dirty – Get Microbes – Be Happy!

By Donna Schwenk / August 28, 2016

Several years ago I found myself with much to do. With my daughter getting married and a deadline for my new book looming, not to mention the fact that both my husband and I have our own businesses . . . it was intense at our house. I started feeling the pressure and found myself in tears a lot and feeling completely overwhelmed. […]

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Starter Cultures ~ The Science Experiment

By Donna Schwenk / August 13, 2016

So, let’s talk about starter cultures! I would like to clear up some confusion involving starter cultures and ratios. In my first book, Cultured Food For Life, the recipe for kefir called for 1 cup of milk to 1 tablespoon of kefir grains. […]

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Probiotics and Your Skin

By Donna Schwenk / March 13, 2016

Face Care Products Made with Kefir and Kombucha If you have been following Cultured Food Life for a while, you know by now that cultured foods are good for your gut. But what about your skin? Did you know that what you put in your body can greatly affect your skin’s glow and health? Fermented…

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Foolproof Kefir

By Donna Schwenk / November 15, 2015

I love kefir grains, but I didn’t start my journey making kefir using kefir grains. I started with the powder kefir and was very glad I did. I was pretty much a wreck at that time in my life and I needed something easy and foolproof or it wasn’t going to happen. […]

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Mercury Needs Wisdom

By Donna Schwenk / November 8, 2015

I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I felt off, kind of loopy in the head and couldn’t think straight, and not myself. I was tired and wanting to rest a lot and didn’t want to exercise. This was not like me, and it scared me. Then I got a cold. […]

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Your Microbes Want This Coffee

By Donna Schwenk / April 18, 2015

When we were healing my daughter’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) many years ago, I didn’t realize that, along with cultured foods, we were including a powerful addition that made a huge difference in her recovery. I actually discovered many years after she healed, and it has opened an entirely new world for me. […]

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The Jury Case and Carpal Tunnel

By Donna Schwenk / March 1, 2015

My husband was called for jury duty this week and found himself in jury selection for a case involving a very popular restaurant. The complainant was a woman who said she got carpal tunnel syndrome on the job, was treated, and then six months later was fired. My husband was picked as Juror Number Two. […]

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My New Love – Probiotic Soup!

By Donna Schwenk / January 18, 2015

It’s January and it’s cold here in the Midwest. All I want is hot tea and soup. It’s hard for me to want a cold smoothie when I am craving warmth and comfort, but high heat kills the probiotics in my cultured foods. […]

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How to Travel With Kefir and Be a Pioneer

By Donna Schwenk / May 7, 2014

This last month my husband and I had our 30th wedding anniversary. Ron and I and our three kids are a tribe and we’ve always done everything together. This was the first vacation we have had alone since our honeymoon which we spent on a houseboat in Lake Powell, Utah. […]

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Can Rejuvelac Help with Alcoholism?

By Donna Schwenk / November 16, 2013

Have you heard of the fermented probiotic drink called Rejuvelac? The first time I heard of it I was just beginning with all things fermented and this drink intrigued me. […]

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Should Babies and Children Have Cultured Foods?

By Donna Schwenk / July 6, 2013

Having babies is a big event. For me, it was life-threatening and life-changing. My third pregnancy was actually the catalyst for this blog, my website, and my books. My pregnancy was a scary event – things quickly went from bad to worse and they delivered my baby 7.5 weeks early to save my life and hers. […]

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The Dog That Kefir Saved

By Donna Schwenk / January 16, 2012

Some of the best friends I have today came to me through cultured foods. I meet people who are looking to be well – they either come to one of my classes or they find me through friends to purchase kefir grains. […]

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