Remedy Kombucha College: Lesson #2
The Benefits of Kombucha
At Remedy, we freakin’ LOVE kombucha. To help spread the love, we’ve created a little kombucha crash course to give everyone else the lowdown on everything there is to love about it!
The benefits of kombucha essentially come down to three key components: live cultures, organic acids, and antioxidants AKA tea polyphenols. Combined, these three powerhouses can help to support our all-important gut health and overall health and wellbeing. But let’s break it down in a little more detail…
LIVE CULTURES
When kombucha is fermented naturally and kept raw and unfiltered as we do at Remedy, it contains healthy, living, good bacteria aka live cultures. Every bottle of Remedy Kombucha contains literally billions of these mighty little microorganisms.
Live cultures can be amazing for gut health. We now know, thanks to the amazing work of scientists around the world, that good gut health is critical to overall health and wellbeing. Research has proven (and continues to explore in more detail) how it affects everything from our digestion to our mood.
Live cultures can improve gut health because they can increase the diversity of your gut flora, or gut microbiota, aka the microorganisms or bugs that live in your gut. They work together as a symbiotic community to get things working as they should and can also prevent the opportunistic growth of bag bugs. So, the more diversity in there, the better things will work!
ORGANIC ACIDS
When brewing Remedy, it’s not just magic that leads to a delicious drink with no sugar, but fermentation science! You see, the live culture is what consumes all the sugar, but in the process, it doesn’t just disappear, it gets converted into healthy organic acids, also known as short-chain fatty acids, the very same kind produced by our own gut bacteria to aid important body processes.
Without getting too technical or scientific, organic acids can help to:
- Regulate appetite
- Prevent the overgrowth of bad pathogenic bacteria
- Provide an energy source for the good bacteria in your gut
- Stabilize blood sugar levels
- Regulate cholesterol
- The organic acids are what gives Remedy Kombucha that subtle tang and good-for-you-but-still-so-damn-tasty flavor. Watch out for any kombucha or other drink that claims to be fermented without some tang – that’s how you know they’re brewing it right, and you’re getting the goodness of organic acids.
ANTIOXIDANTS
Everyone knows that a cup of green tea is good for you, right? (Just ask your gran). Well, that’s because it’s packed with tea antioxidants, aka polyphenols, which can help your body fight illness.
In kombucha making, the first and very important step at Remedy is to brew a VERY big pot of tea. That’s where these mighty tea polyphenols come in!
Not all kombucha brews will have the same amount of polyphenols. Some tea blends have less or more polyphenols depending on quality, and this can even be impacted by what season the tea was harvested.
Polyphenols also vary on the tea type (i.e green, black, oolong, jasmine or hibiscus). We use a mixture of certified organic green tea for its high polyphenol properties and certified organic black tea for its rich superior taste.
Most importantly, we test every batch of raw tea at Remedy to ensure it meets our high standards of the goods when it comes to polyphenols. We then test each batch of kombucha at the end of fermentation to make sure it meets our top-notch standards for polyphenol goodness.
If you want to check if your kombucha is chock-full of tea polyphenols, pour your brew into a glass. Tea has a brownish background colour, so watch out if you find a kombucha that’s crystal clear.
NATURALLY FREE FROM SUGAR
In addition to the good stuff that IS in Remedy Kombucha, the other benefit comes from what’s NOT in it, and that’s sugar!
While some sugar is in our diets is necessary (and who doesn’t love a little treat now and then), the negative health effects of too much sugar in diets are pretty clear; from really basic and fairly immediate effects like weight gain, through to major risks such as diabetes, heart disease.
The beauty of Remedy is that although sugar goes into the initial brew, it gets eaten up by the live cultures during fermentation to produce those amazing organic acids we keep raving about. Remedy brews out ALL of the sugar, and we test every batch to make sure.
SO, LET’S RECAP ALL THE GOODNESS IN REMEDY!
Live cultures
Organic acids
Antioxidants
No sugar, for real
Tick, tick, tick!
