kombucha or water keifer

[greif]

Hi

Which tastes better kombucha or water keifer? I would like to start brewing to get our family some good probiotics. I had a bottle of gt brand plain kombucha which thought tastes really good but my son did not like it which I was surprised. I can add fruit juice to if needed . Are the probiotics better in either one?

Are the sugars completely used up ? I want to reduce the amount of sugar he intakes as my wife gets him soda and juices and I don't want him to be drinking that garbage

Thanks
Gary

[DebB]

Hi Gary - I *love* water kefir. I've never had kombucha, so I can't say. But - I was either putting in too much sugar or perhaps it needed to ferment longer because a friend was visiting who is diabetic.

She tested before and after drinking the water kefir and it made her blood sugar raise significantly. So as much as she loved it, she knew she couldn't have it. After that little experiment, I stopped drinking it too.

Yes, I could have used less, etc. so that it wasn't as sweet - but the sweet was what I enjoyed about it. Just being honest.

[greif]

Thanks, was wondering about the sugar

[DebB]

I got thinking about another option perhaps - coconut yogurt. It's fermented young Thai coconut water and meat. If you do a YouTube (or Google too) search - I just searched on YT for "coconut yogurt donna gates" and had several. You could search "coconut kefir" as well.

Now - we used to make this a lot a couple years ago. It's thick like yogurt or sour cream. My husband loved it. Personally, I didn't care for it because it wasn't sweet enough for me.

We used water kefir grains. But we could only use them 1 to 2 times, then they had to be put back into the sugar-water solution that you store extras in in the fridge. Because there's not enough sugar in the coconut water to keep them growing and multiplying like they do in sugar water kefir.

You can also buy the packets of started from Donna Gates. Probably elsewhere too, I'm not familiar with that method though as we always just used water (not dairy) kefir grains.

[walnutty]

I love kombucha! But I have never had water kefir, so I can't say...lol...

I also have only ever had GT's brand kombucha. The Gingerade and Strawberry are to die for...Ü...

[Supa]

I have to admit I now love kombucha too. The GT's gingerade and the gingerberry are addictive and the bottles are really nice keepers for juice and the second ferment of water kefir. I started experimenting now with water kefir for making a ginger beer type concoction and I am really excited. Did I mention I love ginger? Yeah I think I did :)