Choosing the best starter for your yogurt/crème bulgare

Not all yogurts are created with equal microbial benefits. This is why it is so important to make your own at home, where you can be in total control of the desired culture. Only you can make superior yogurt!

I am totally against using any kind of commercial yogurt as starter for SCDiet yogurt or crème bulgare. Why?

Foremost, because it is impossible to know what strains of microbes they have growing in there. Not only are the desired strains more than likely lacking altogether, it is too probable that it contains undesirable microbes for this food regimen. Introducing undesirable strains will only complicate and delay healing, if not result in serious setbacks. Lots of strains will cause fermentation, but it takes living L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus to provide proven benefits for human health. Without those two microbes, it may be fermented milk, but it isn’t technically yogurt at all. Talk about misleading labeling!!!

As there is no regulation on yogurt production, they can do just about anything to the “food,” along with labeling it yogurt when in fact that is biologically inaccurate. Many producers repasteurize the yogurt after fermentation, which destroys the culture, “good” and “bad.” Some makers use manipulated microbes to reduce production time, which gives the impression of good yogurt in flavor and consistency but has none of the beneficial microbial properties. Many use the wrong temperatures for cultivating the desired microbes, so even if they started with the right culture they killed it by overheating. They are mostly selling fake yogurt because it is cheaper to produce and more profitable for their company. Buyers beware!

I choose to inoculate my half and half (I prefer crème bulgare or French cream over yogurt, which uses milk) with Lactobacillus acidophilus, Streptococcus thermophilus, and Lactobacillus bulgaricus because I have observed they have the most notable positive effects on my health. I am not alone!

I have found a product that I find reliable, readily available, and microbial specific made by Lyo-San Inc. It is their “Yogourmet freeze-dried yogurt starter & crème bulgare starter.” It contains only and all three desired microbes. You can buy it from amazon.com, Lucy’s Kitchen Shop, and Whole Foods. Make sure not to confuse it with their other starter products, which contain strains not desired for SCDiet.

Please store the starter in your refrigerator.

I have a post on how to make your own yogurt/crème bulgare including a recipe and video. Search my blog under resources for quick links to the yogurt maker and dimmer switch for temperature modification from amazon.com.

What, exactly, do I eat?

It would be so much easier if I could just list foods for what I can eat. But, my reality is that WHAT I can eat must also be qualified by HOW that food is raised and prepared. When I first started SCDiet, everything needed to be well cooked, skinned, and deseeded. Slowly, I was able to leave the skins on, tolerate smaller seeds, and move from well cooked to steamed to raw for fruits and vegetables. My list was limited to beef, chicken, and a few veggies and fruits to begin with and it slowly grew. You will see that many foods legal on SCDiet and GAPS are not on my list of yes foods. That is because I do not tolerate all foods allowed on these diets. I have needed to modify the legal lists to meet my personal needs. Sometimes as needed, my list gets shorter as I eliminate peanut butter, cheeses, fruit, and honey. As time goes by, my list has grown longer overall and will continue to do so as I heal.

MEAT:
Meats are critical to my diet. I try to always buy organic meats from sustainable farms because it is the best for my health. I generally still cook most of my meats to well done as a precaution against unwanted microbes. While I couldn’t tolerate much animal fat to begin with, I am now digesting it well so I eat more of it. I prefer to broil or bake my meats, but I will sometimes use a cast iron pan. I only consume fresh or frozen meats, with the exception being fish. I will sometimes use fish that has been canned in oil or water.

beef

bison

chicken & eggs

fish

lamb

turkey

pork

COOKING FATS & OILS:
I mostly just use butter to cook with because it is my favorite flavor. It is best to cook all foods with medium heat or less. Your oils and fats should never smoke. If they do, you are burning them and destroying the good fatty acid chain and its beneficial properties. Don’t deep fry foods, ever. Don’t brown, especially not to a crisp! Use only a tablespoon or less of oil to cook with. Mix oils for cooking with half butter. I prefer to add oils to foods after they have been cooked and removed from the heat source to maximize their benefits and taste. Oils go rancid quickly. They are a perishable food. Once oil is rancid it is also poisonous. Rancid oils add to free radical cell damage, interrupt normal metabolism, and contribute to mental cloudiness. I keep my oils in the fridge to prevent early rancidity. I buy virgin, organic and cold pressed oils. They are listed here in order of heat sensitivity, olive oil as most sensitive.

lard

coconut oil

butter (if salted then without flow agent)

sesame oil

olive oil

DAIRY:
The dairy that I do best with is the dairy that I culture myself. I make my own French cream, which I can then use to make cream cheese, ice cream, and smoothies. I eat my French cream routinely, and do best when I have it daily. I have a blog post and video about how to make my French cream.

cream cheese

French cream

ice cream

yogurt

Theses are the cheeses that I tolerate best, but I only eat them infrequently and in small amounts. Every cheese has a microbial culture. I couldn’t tolerate cheddar to begin with, but now it suits me quite well. I eat cheese as a treat, not a staple of my diet.

blue

brie

cheddar

dry curd cottage

gorgonzola

gouda

havarti

muenster

parmesan

port du salut

swiss

DRINKS:
Really, I should only drink water or stock soup. In reality, I drink coffee, despite how bad caffeine is as a drug for everyone. I have found that espresso drinks and French press coffee are the things I tolerate best. Evidently, processing coffee through a paper filter takes out the natural digestive enzymes, which causes everyone to get “gut rot” from drinking too much. Americano is my favorite espresso drink because it has robust flavor and is diluted with water. It is the one food item I consume out at the preparation of another person’s hand.

water, distilled

chicken or bone marrow stock

French cream smoothies (I tend to think of them more as food than beverage)

coffee, French press or espresso

ODDITIES:
These just don’t fit nicely into other categories, but are also things I use routinely.

baking soda

honey (raw, local, wildflower)

unflavored gelatin

Celtic sea salt

VEGETABLES:
Fresh is always best, then frozen organic vegetables. I like to buy heirloom varieties whenever I can. I needed to cook veggies to the point of being soft at first, skinned and deseeded. Then I was able to leave the skins on and tolerate veggies still cooked but somewhat hard, such as steaming. I eventually progressed to tolerating them raw, and I try to choose younger vegetables that have smaller seeds so that I can eat them.

asparagus

beets

broccoli

brussel sprouts

cabbage

carrots

cauliflower

celery

cucumbers

eggplant

greens

green beans (really a legume, but treat as veggie)

kale

lettuces

onion

peas

peppers (red, green, yellow)

spinach

squash (summer and winter)

LEGUMES:
I buy dried legumes which I then rinse in water before I soak them in new water for 12 hours. I then drain and rinse them again before cooking in fresh water. This is to remove the bulk of the starches.

lentils

lima beans (also frozen)

split peas

white(navy) beans

Peanuts are not really a nut, despite their misleading name. They are a legume. I do not tolerate nuts, but I do tolerate peanut butter and use it frequently.

peanuts- roasted in shell

peanut butter-only salt added

FRUIT:
I buy organic fruit fresh, frozen, or dried without additives or preservatives. Sometimes I need to avoid just fruits high in citric acid, which I always must eat in small amounts. Other times, I avoid fruits altogether. I eat my fruits with some kind of fats if at all possible. I do not eat fruit by itself, and I never drink juice. I eat the whole fruit for maximum nutrition. As soon as I started tolerating skins, I left them on because the most dense concentration of nutrients are just beneath the skin.

apples

apricots

avocados

bananas (wait until well ripened with spots and no green left)

berries

cherries

dates (loose California)

grapefruit

grapes

kiwi

lemon

lime

mangoes

melons

nectarines

oranges

papayas

peaches

pears

pineapple (not raw)

plums

prunes

raisins (dark)

rhubarb

tangerines

tomatoes

HERBS & SPICES:
I buy only single ingredient herbs and spices to season my food, either fresh or dried. I make my own mixed seasonings which I store in small glass jars, clearly labled and dated. If they clump, I just give them a tap while the lid is still on.

basil

bay leaves

cayenne

chili pepper

chives

cilantro

cloves

cinnamon (only small amounts and infrequently)

cardomum

corriandor

cumin

dill

ginger

lemon thyme

lemongrass

nutmeg

oregano

paprika

parsley

rosemary

sage

tarragon

thyme