Peat Very Wrong On Lactic Acid / Yogurt?

[Runenight201]

Ngl, Ray Peat has secured a place in my heart for being a nuanced thinker who freed me of fear of saturated fats and made me realize that I don't need to stuff myself with pufa nuts and seeds, and I sincerely appreciate him for that. But when it comes to the gut microbiome, I am not convinced. Maybe the idea that a sterile gut would be optimal in lab conditions might be true, but in the real world trying to keep a sterile gut is utterly impossible. I am currently listening to Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, a Russian neurologist and nutritionist who devised the GAPS diet, a diet that aims to heal the gut, and found her approach very interesting. Her recommendations at times are quite similar to Rays, but she differs when it comes to fermented foods. Similar to what was said about Metchnikoff in this thread, she believes that the lactic acid from fermented dairy kills off pathogenic bacteria in the gut. She is against antibiotics because she believes they first and foremost kill the beneficial strains of microbes that control the more pathogenic strains, leaving room for pathogenic microbes to proliferate. She believes that pasteurized dairy is a dead product and possibly harmful and irritating to the gut, while raw and/or fermented dairy are life-giving and healing for the gut.

The thing is, I have been struggling with some health issues coming from my gut. I used to eat a lot of fermented foods and pufas (nuts and seeds) when I came across Ray Peat, and due to Ray, I eliminated all the fermented products and the nuts and seeds out of my diet, started adding pasteurized lowfat milk etc and followed that for a few weeks. My skin conditions noticeably improved at first, but I now attribute that to the reduced consumption of pufa laden nuts and seeds. Other issues however have become worse, my gut especially feels less tolerant to foods, and more sensitive as I am starting to notice in the last couple of days. Something about my current Peat-inspired diet doesn't seem to be working, which is why I will consider what Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride has to say. While I will stick to keeping pufa-intake low, I will slowly add in some fermented and/or raw dairy, while eliminating pasteurized dairy from the discounter and see how my body will respond. I know that this is all anecdotal, but that is what I am left with right now.

Are you going to make the milk kefir yourself or buy it from somewhere? I’m not convinced that the Lifeway Kefir you can get in stores isn’t dead food also.

 

[Can]

My experience was similar in terms of gut health following peats advice. It basically decreases beneficial bacteria whilst feeding candida which can result in all sorts of symptoms. I feel like the issues that persist when following peats dietary advice too strictly are most likely gut related. Go with your gut ?

Yea, maybe Ray and others are constituted in a way where they can tolerate large amounts of of pasteurized (& homogenized) discounter dairy, but for me, it doesn't feel good and nourishing to my body at all. People have an individual physiology that has to be respected and I think it is in the Peatarian spirit to follow ones own instincts and listen to ones body .

 

[Can]

Are you going to make the milk kefir yourself or buy it from somewhere? I’m not convinced that the Lifeway Kefir you can get in stores isn’t dead food also.

I absolutely agree, I would not want to rely on store-bought ferments. I have my own kefir grains at home that I bought some time ago on eBay and the Kefir they produce is thick, creamy and absolutely alive.

The great thing about them is that they can easily be frozen. When I came across Ray and decided to stop eating fermented foods, I froze the kefir grains and left them in the freezer for multiple months. Now I took them out a few days ago, made a few small batches of throwaway kefir (basically waking the kefir up first and discarding the milk), and now I can start adding kefir back into my diet slowly. I'll do that and follow the GAPS diet (while still following basic Peat principles like not overconsuming pufas), and see where it takes me!

 

[Sitaruîm]

If yogurt has about 1% lactic acid (Paper) then 1 gram of lactic acid per 100 grams of yogurt doesn't seem like a lot, especially if you add sugar to it, and who doesn't?

 

[Apple]

 

[lvysaur]

Different yogurts are different, and I think only the "standard" grocery store ones are high lactic.

grocery store yogurt: The worst. Causes muscle aches. Also tastes the worst, just sour. I attribute both symptoms to Lactate
strained yogurt: AKA "greek"--It's just yogurt with the liquid strained. Lactic is water soluble, so better than standard
kefir: Varies wildly. Many are just glorified sour yogurt. The "cheesy" tasting ones cause no bad effects

"fridge kefir yogurt": My accidental personal creation. Boiled milk inoculated with Lifeway brand kefir, fermented in and out of fridge for 6 days, liquid always below 60°F (you don't have to check, just take out of the fridge until goes from cold to cool, roughly 3 hours, then put back in).

On the last day, don't put it back in the fridge, let it stay room temperature overnight.

Produces a yogurt with zero sour notes. Texture was 100% yogurt, so it was fermented to completion, but tasted neither cheesy nor sour nor tangy. I was able to drink a lot of this just by itself, or with maple syrup, no ill effects. Never had anything like it before

Cold temps usually favor "agreeable" bacteria/yeast, even in beer and cheese so this makes sense. I always hated ale but loved lager

However, the reason I made this yogurt was on accident, I was really trying for kefir. I don't know why the product I'm making tastes so different from the parent kefir. I've done this before at room temperature (80°F), same parent culture, and it just produced a slightly-less sour yogurt, with none of the tangy/cheesy notes of Lifeway brand kefir.

 

[Ainaga]

That is how they discovered it, put milk in goat skin bags, and along the journey they saw that the milk changed, but in a good way that was a natural preserving fashion. This provided a way for them to preserve a milk product without refrigeration. They didn't intentionally, at least in the beginning, ferment it for long journeys, it just happened that way. Natural preserving methods using salt, air drying, fermenting, etc. were much needed in those days, it wasn't about what was scientifically the most healthy, it was born out of necessity.

since these goat/sheep skins are made from the stomachs, i believe humans discovered cheese and fermented milk even before they started milking. they discovered fermented dairy in the stomachs of baby mammals, and liked it.

 

[Ainaga]

Yes, I understand. But if you're actually milking animals, you'll have more fresh milk every day. And my point is you'll probably just continue drinking the fresh stuff the way my friend does, if for no other reason than that it's easier, unless you know you'll be facing a period where you can't milk your animals every day.

I've made clabbered milk and yogurt. Humans can get used to anything, but both basically suck compared to fresh milk.

People who glorify clabbered milk remind me of people who glorify grits. Grits are tasteless and disgusting but people develop a sentimental attachment.

the reason farmers preserve milk is their animals produce too much to drink at once. fermentation of raw milk happens naturally, without human intervention.

 

[VitoScaletta]

Ivysaur
Different yogurts are different, and I think only the "standard" grocery store ones are high lactic.

grocery store yogurt: The worst. Causes muscle aches. Also tastes the worst, just sour. I attribute both symptoms to Lactate
strained yogurt: AKA "greek"--It's just yogurt with the liquid strained. Lactic is water soluble, so better than standard
kefir: Varies wildly. Many are just glorified sour yogurt. The "cheesy" tasting ones cause no bad effects

"fridge kefir yogurt": My accidental personal creation. Boiled milk inoculated with Lifeway brand kefir, fermented in and out of fridge for 6 days, liquid always below 60°F (you don't have to check, just take out of the fridge until goes from cold to cool, roughly 3 hours, then put back in).

On the last day, don't put it back in the fridge, let it stay room temperature overnight.

Produces a yogurt with zero sour notes. Texture was 100% yogurt, so it was fermented to completion, but tasted neither cheesy nor sour nor tangy. I was able to drink a lot of this just by itself, or with maple syrup, no ill effects. Never had anything like it before

Cold temps usually favor "agreeable" bacteria/yeast, even in beer and cheese so this makes sense. I always hated ale but loved lager

However, the reason I made this yogurt was on accident, I was really trying for kefir. I don't know why the product I'm making tastes so different from the parent kefir. I've done this before at room temperature (80°F), same parent culture, and it just produced a slightly-less sour yogurt, with none of the tangy/cheesy notes of Lifeway brand kefir.

very interesting.

 

[Kray]

I absolutely agree, I would not want to rely on store-bought ferments. I have my own kefir grains at home that I bought some time ago on eBay and the Kefir they produce is thick, creamy and absolutely alive.

The great thing about them is that they can easily be frozen. When I came across Ray and decided to stop eating fermented foods, I froze the kefir grains and left them in the freezer for multiple months. Now I took them out a few days ago, made a few small batches of throwaway kefir (basically waking the kefir up first and discarding the milk), and now I can start adding kefir back into my diet slowly. I'll do that and follow the GAPS diet (while still following basic Peat principles like not overconsuming pufas), and see where it takes me!

Can- if you're still around, would you share your kefir recipe, and the brand grains you buy? I have access to whole raw dairy milk- would this work well for a kefir recipe? If given the choice between raw milk and kefir, would you still opt for kefir over milk, and why? Thanks in advance-

 

[Ainaga]

Can- if you're still around, would you share your kefir recipe, and the brand grains you buy? I have access to whole raw dairy milk- would this work well for a kefir recipe? If given the choice between raw milk and kefir, would you still opt for kefir over milk, and why? Thanks in advance-

i would do both, they are both very healthful in their own way, the kefir in smaller quantities, as a little goes a long way. whether theoritically lactic acid is bad or not for you, myself and others who drink it feel benefits from raw whole milk kefir, but in our case it's goat. we feel blessed to have both when in season, which is starting now. as you probably have heard, goat milk is possibly easier to digest than cow's, but it might not also be true with kefir, i don't know.

 

[Kray]

i would do both, they are both very healthful in their own way, the kefir in smaller quantities, as a little goes a long way. whether theoritically lactic acid is bad or not for you, myself and others who drink it feel benefits from raw whole milk kefir, but in our case it's goat. we feel blessed to have both when in season, which is starting now. as you probably have heard, goat milk is possibly easier to digest than cow's, but it might not also be true with kefir, i don't know.

Thank you for your input, much appreciated!

 

[Ainaga]

my pleasure kray

Thank you for your input, much appreciated!

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Peat diet: destroying everything you like lol — in lieu of things like Greek yogurt, I have used cottage cheese, without additives. What’s sort of comical is if you look, many of the upscale cottage cheese items at food co-ops now have probiotics added in for a bonus effect. It’s not difficult to notice these trends that are perpetuated by who knows where? At any rate, Daisy Cottage Cheese is somewhat widely available or you could make your own.

He said Greek Yogurt is ok, and what a decadent difference, from the tangy stuff.

 

[Kray]

He said Greek Yogurt is ok, and what a decadent difference, from the tangy stuff.

Hi Rinse- curious how often do you eat Greek yogurt? I eat 3-4 servings/week for breakfast, alternating days with organic cottage cheese. I had been reading another thread on straining whey from the yogurt- someone suspected added milk powder to get all the protein. I decided to call the company I buy mine from and was told no added milk/protein to yield 16g per 3/4 cup, but the high yield is from triple-straining the whey. For every 3 cups of milk used, it yields 1 cup of yogurt. It's the density of the finished product that gives the high protein content. I still don't know if 100% lactic acid can be removed, but it's nice to know it should be ok to eat Greek v regular.

Having said all that, I get in a rut with breakfast since I'm not usually ravenously hungry in the morning, so yogurt or cottage cheese is an easy start. It would be nice to find some other ideas- I'll bet you can share some!

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Hi Rinse- curious how often do you eat Greek yogurt? I eat 3-4 servings/week for breakfast, alternating days with organic cottage cheese. I had been reading another thread on straining whey from the yogurt- someone suspected added milk powder to get all the protein. I decided to call the company I buy mine from and was told no added milk/protein to yield 16g per 3/4 cup, but the high yield is from triple-straining the whey. For every 3 cups of milk used, it yields 1 cup of yogurt. It's the density of the finished product that gives the high protein content.

I still don't know if 100% lactic acid can be removed, but it's nice to know it should be ok to eat Greek v regular.

I only bought some 5% plain Fage Greek yogurt two days ago, otherwise I hadn’t bought it for years. I would bet there isn’t any lactic acid in it, as there is no tanginess at all too it, which is the indicator..

 

[Kray]

I only bought some 5% plain Fage Greek yogurt two days ago, otherwise I hadn’t bought it for years. I would bet there isn’t any lactic acid in it, as there is no tanginess at all too it, which is the indicator..

Good point to remember about tanginess. And yet- is it true that lactic acid is beneficial, per other comments in this thread? I'm kinda confused.

 

[freyasam]

I used to love fermented food and do okay on it while I was relatively healthy. Since I have ME/cfs, I cannot tolerate fermented dairy products. I haven't tried other fermented foods. If Greek yogurt is safer, that doesn't make sense to me, since I get an immediate increase in my symptoms from Greek yogurt. I guess I'm reacting to something else besides the lactic acid. Though the lactic acid makes the most sense because people with ME are supposed to already have issues with high lactic acid.

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Good point to remember about tanginess. And yet- is it true that lactic acid is beneficial, per other comments in this thread? I'm kinda confused.

I imagine everything we consume has some benefits, even the less healthy things like tryptophan, melatonin, iron and such, but I think it the overkill of having too much or not having it in the balance it needs. We also don’t take the time to prepare our foods right. Funny how we have come so far in our food chain with it being convenient to acquire it, but then when we got to the top of that mountain it all started to go downhill. Gelatinous bone broths are now replaced with powders, proper soaking of beans and grains are just starting to make a comeback, but nobody understands what that is about, and the important of freshness isn’t anything most people factor in. What is the remedy for all the symptoms that come from ignoring just those three things I just mentioned, take a supplement. These domino effects are what’s killing people’s health.

"In several parts of the world, desperately poor people sometimes eat clay, and even clay has been promoted as a health food. Almost anything becomes "food," when people are under economic and social pressure. If these things aren't acutely toxic, they can become part of our "normal" diet."
-Ray Peat


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErddLqGZM4

 

[Rinse & rePeat]

Good point to remember about tanginess. And yet- is it true that lactic acid is beneficial, per other comments in this thread? I'm kinda confused.

“Preventively, avoiding foods containing lactic acid, such as yogurt and sauerkraut, would be helpful, since bacterial lactic acid is much more toxic than the type that we form under stress.“ -Ray Peat