145 cal/cup (depends on brand)
8.3g protein
Milk kefir is rich in calcium, protein, vitamin D, B12 and riboflavin
My trendy colleagues at the food tech company I used to work for introduced me to kefir, expounding its benefits while drinking bowls of it for breakfast. My relationship with it was rocky in the beginning. It contains a lot of probiotics and, together with how it's fermented, it "reduces bowel transit time" - in other words it can give you the runs when you're not used to it. And when you have it in between two cups of coffee because you don't know any better (coffee having mild laxative effects), trust me kefir can give you the sprints!
The plus side of this adventure was seeing (feeling) first hand the touted effects of a newly proclaimed "superfood". It really does what it says on the tub in terms of digestion. And despite some embarrassment at the office - i.e. me rushing out of it - I felt great. Lighter and comfortable in a way I hadn't in a while.
Over time, I built up both a tolerance and a taste for it. I've found it a great replacement for yoghurt with fruit for breakfast and I love that I can get all the nutrients of milk without the pain.
It's also served me well in learning to listen to my body better.
With the bowl-guzzlers telling me to drink up, a Belurusian friend serving me beer mugs of it with dinner and bestie filling the fridge with deliciously flavoured and cutely packaged daily servings, I thought I had to push through, so to speak, and keep increasing my intake.
On a particularly explosive morning, after I'd absentmindedly had that second cup of coffee, I realised that I needed space. Something of a fairweather friend, I now have it just a few days a month when I'm feeling up to it and the urge to purge. Timing is everything. Kefir is not my everyday, but listening to the ebb and flow of my body's needs has given it a place in my forever.
The key difference between kefir and yoghurt is that kefir contains a much wider range of helpful microorganisms. As a start, it is fermented with and contains both bacteria and yeast whereas yoghurt is only fermented with bacteria.
The gastrointestinal system, or gut, is a group of organs that includes the mouth, oesophagus, stomach, pancreas, liver, gallbladder, small intestine, colon and rectum.
Traditionally, kefir is made with dairy milk (cow, sheep or goat) and traditionally, the dairy industry has been ravaging the planet. For us, rather than avoiding the industry as a whole, we aim to be part of the change towards positive impact by supporting sustainably pasteur-farmed dairy. And fortunately the kefir most readily available in the UK is made by environmentally conscious producers striving to have just such a positive impact. Our current favourite yoghurt-like one is Yeo valley and for a thinner milk-like version we use Biotiful.
The great thing about kefir is that there are options for everyone. While dairy kefir gives you the benefit of all the nutrients packed into milk, you get the same probiotic benefits with kefir made from alternatives like coconut milk, plus the benefits of those alternatives. You can even make your own straight-up probiotic drink called tibicos, which has almost no calories and no environmental impact, by adding kefir grains to sugar water!
