Live Well: Tea's benefits come from bacteria, not mushrooms
- Details
- Created on Friday, 03 September 2010 01:37
- Written by Nathan
By JEN MULSON, THE GAZETTE
I had a bit of an addiction problem last summer. I’d hit the bottle once, twice, maybe three times a day. I couldn’t get enough. I needed more and more to quench the thirst.
Kombucha had a hold on me as soon as I took a sip of the vinegary, fizzy, fermented tea with all sorts of health claims attributed to it. It made my face scrunch up and I ogled with delight the floaty strands of kombucha culture lurking at the bottom.
What is it?
Kombucha is a fermented tea originally used for medicinal purposes. According to its Wikipedia page, the earliest recorded details of the drink come from Russia in the 19th century. Kombucha companies call it an ancient Chinese tea. It’s often mistakenly thought to be made from a mushroom, but it’s actually a live colony of bacteria and yeast called a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast). The culture is added to black or green tea and sugar, and allowed to ferment.
The resulting mixture produces a small bit of alcohol and also contains vinegar, B vitamins and other naturally occurring probiotic organisms and acids. These are the goods that may help out the health of your belly and make you feel strong and energetic. Another plus: It’s only about 70 calories a bottle.
What does it do?
You name it, kombucha is said to help: immune system health, cancer prevention, and improved digestion and liver function. Does it return gray hair back to its original color? Allegedly it does.
How do you use it?
Many people choose to brew it at home. After all, this stuff doesn’t come cheap. A bottle can run you close to three bucks at local natural-food stores. You can buy starter kits online or find somebody who’s already growing the “mother” SCOBY, and adopt part of it to grow yourself.
Michael Lanning, a Colorado Springs resident, hooked his family on kombucha several years ago and brewed it for about six months. His roommate would eat the “mushroom,” he said, and his sister would not only drink the tea, but bathe with the kombucha “mushroom.” She was diagnosed with Stage 3 malignant melanoma during this time, Lanning said, and told she had one year to live. She didn’t do radiation, but began drinking wheat grass and using kombucha. The cancer disappeared and six years later she’s alive, attributing her triumph partly to the fermented tea.
The potent potable can be found at health food stores, where cases of it are sold every week, according to Mountain Mama store manager Greg Kreger. He said he’s seen an increase in its popularity, and heard that people sometimes drink it the morning after having one too many alcoholic drinks for its detox effect.
A caveat
Keep in mind, kombucha is controversial, as many things in the health and wellness arena are. The brew made serious headlines this year due to its underreported alcohol content. Stores including Whole Foods Market yanked some lines of the tea from shelves, worried it contained more than the 0.5 percent a beverage can have without being considered alcoholic. Those companies are working out the details and are still weeks away from relaunching new products that fit the guidelines. Other brands are still available.
The end of the affair
About a month into my own kombucha love affair, its power over me faded. It started to make my belly hurt. And I’d feel a wee bit tipsy after a few sips. It was, in all honesty, my own inability to imbibe moderately. The recommended dose is a mere four ounces per day, not the whole 16-ounce bottle.
However, I gave it another shot during the writing of this column, and lo and behold, the old spark was still there. Kombucha and I have reunited, and it feels so good.
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