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I’m already hearing gasps of horror from some readers. Hear me out.
White Sugar Is A Demon
As we covered around Halloween, white sugar has some horrid effects on your health, particularly your blood sugar and your insulin levels. I did a whole series on Sugar and Immunity.
Because it is so crazy-inducing, I don’t allow it to be used in anything except water kefir and on special occasions such as birthdays or holidays. But even then we keep it to a low level and use natural sweeteners if at all possible.
Then Why Do You Use It?
Yet we do include white sugar in our pantry. 99% of it is used in water kefir. Why? Because my husband isn’t wild about the molasses flavor that rapadura gives when it is used in lacto-ferments. Getting him to drink lemonade made from water kefir was a major coup because he hates sour or tangy flavors and he won’t touch my sauerkraut or even consider yogurt. I can’t even get him to consider a smoothie made with a small amount of yogurt or dairy kefir. I didn’t want to push it by putting rapadura into the mix.
I’m just thrilled that he’ll even drink it. It is the only source of probiotics in his diet.
So what happens to white sugar when you use it in a lacto-ferment and why do I consider it acceptable? Because the probiotics live on the sugars in the fluid. They eat those sugars and reproduce, basically turning the sugar into more probiotics. As the probiotic content goes up, the sugar content goes down because there’s more of them to nosh on the carb from hades. When you finally drink that kefired lemonade, there’s little to no white sugar left in it, depending on how you brewed it.
I think trading a small amount of white sugar for lots of probiotics in my diet is an acceptable trade off. I react quite strongly to white sugar and I can drink a lot of water kefir with no fibromyalgia flares.
What do you think? Does white sugar live in your kitchen?
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Yes, white sugar has a place in our home. DH uses it to brew his kombucha and I use it to bake for other people. I like to bring food to church and take meals to sick people, new moms, and people who are going through a rough patch. A low sugar quick bread is familiar enough to be welcomed and consumed without being too odd to eat.
I only use white sugar for water kefir as well! Otherwise, we avoid it like the plague!!
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I quit buying it at all, but we don’t do kefir. Most sugar is used in hubby’s coffee, and he is finding the natural stuff OK in coffee. Honestly, can’t tell any difference in baking either way.
Do you use grocery store conventional white sugar? Or something organic? I’ve been worried about using non-organic thinking lingering chemicals might hurt the water kefir grains, but I don’t know if that’s a valid concern.
I need to try water kefir with your method. The method I started with was a little too much for my family. I loved it, but couldn’t drink as much as I was making. Thanks for the information.
We don’t use a lot of white sugar. I am trying to cut it out. I have it mostly out of my diet, but my kids and husband get so much at school and work, I’m walking a fine line…
We buy white organic sugar at costco just for our water kefir. It get no other use.