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Kombucha: Fizzy Goodness · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: should know the podcast. Although Jerry's not going to be
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: around for long, everybody, so savor her, relish her, smell
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: her hair. Yeah, all the stuff that you like to
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: do to people you like.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Awkward start for one on the booch.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I should probably hold on. I should probably explain Jerry's
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: not going to be here for this recording session. She's
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: always going to be around around Oh sure, okay, I
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: just want to make sure people weren't like, where's Jerry going?
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: What'd you guys do to Jerry?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I don't need email like that now?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Who does?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So, Chuck, you already let it slip. What our topic
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: is today, which I'm surprised.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: That's right. The butch aka kombucha, which is some people
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: call it kombucha ti, but everyone calls it kombucha really
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in practice. But you know, we're talking about the beverage,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the sort of odd tasting fizzy sweet teed probiotic drink
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that is very popular right now that I don't drink.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Emily drinks it every day, No surprise there, although she's
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: switching brands now. We'll get to that later.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Okay. I can't wait to hear it because I drink
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: it almost every day too.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't like the flavor, so I just don't
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: drink it. That's just a simple one for me.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Well, you don't like anything vinegary, so of course you
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: don't like kombucha.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't like mustard, you don't you don't
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: like white vinegar, I don't like pickles, you don't like
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: apple cider vinegar. You don't like red wine vinegar.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: M I mean, I'll take a little bit of that
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: or maybe some balsamic vinegar on a salad. Oh, But
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: other than that, vinegar is a tough sell for me.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Okay. But or the reason we're talking about vinegar is becau.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Kombucha has a kind of a vinegary thing going on.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: It's very tart, it's very acidic. And you said something
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: in there that I don't think I fully realized. Although
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: I kind of knew it was one of those things
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: where I had all the information, I just never put
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: it together into a cohesive hole. Okay, But kombucha is
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: fermented sweet tea. Yeah, and I mean, of course there's
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: other stuff in there, but to make kombucha and it
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just be raw, pure kombucha. All you need is sugar
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: tea and then something called the scobie, which we'll talk
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: about soon. And you put those things together, let them
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: sit in a glass jar with the lid off and
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: a little bit of muslin over the top and a dark, warm, dry,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: very important place for I don't know, a week, two weeks,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: you're going to have kombucha.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it sort of belongs alongside other things like
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: yogurt and sour kraut, where the the microbes are a
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: big part of the appeal of these things that you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: can put in your body.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Can we can? I just call out the sentence
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: that Olivia wrote because it's hilarious. Sure she's she wrote
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that kombucha is a food in which microbes are a feature,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: not a bug. It was definitely worth a hat tip
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: at least.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the Volkswagen Beetles with the license
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: plate that's his feature?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: No, it's always very I don't get out that much though.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Uh So you'd mentioned scoby. Scoby stands for it's an
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: acronym se o BI stands for a symbiotic colony of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: bacteria and yeast, because that's exactly what it is. If
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you look at a scoby, you might hurt it called
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: a mother or a mushroom, like the mother, Like, what's
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: it called like a mother? Yeah, But if you look
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: at a scoby, it looks disgusting. Uh. It looks like
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: something out of a science lab, like out of a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: petri dish. It's round and sort of pancakey and gelatinous,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and it looks like brain matter or something. It looks gross.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It looks like the muffin top of a jellyfish, but
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: just the muffin top part.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Sure, that's that's another good way to put it's kind
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of gross too.
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  Speaker 2: And that that mother, that mushroom, or that scoby is
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: what I saw far and away, at least in America.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: It's most people who grew brew kombucha call it a scoby.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: There's a specific term for it, a solid phase cellulosic pellicle.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And when you dig into it microbal microbially, it's astounding
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  Speaker 2: what it actually is. It's like a really unique kind
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of thing that seems to only grow in kombucha from
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: what I could find.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's what it is actually, or how it
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: functions at least in kombucha. It's sort of the fuel
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: that drives that fermentation process that take that sweet tea
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: from just regular sweet tea to the fermented, bubbly, weird
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: tasting thing that you enjoy.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's really insolvable, like you can drop it
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: in just about anything and it will hold its shape.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It has a lot of tensile strength, apparently it can hold.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So it's cellulose made of little tiny fibrils and there
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: I think one hundred times thinner than the cellulose fibrils
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you get from a plant. Plants are lousy with cellulose,
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: but this cellulose is extruded from bacteria, little tiny, tiny
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: little things of cellulose that end up getting woven together
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: to create this large structure that can hold I think
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: one hundred times the amount of liquid or water that
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: plant cellulose can and it's a hundred times thinner than
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: plant cellulose. And it's being extruded pooped out of these
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: little bacteria that are building this thing over the course
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: of weeks.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, Like, if you've made one
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: that was the size of a hammock, you could put
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a house on it.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Easy, I'm just kidding.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I haven't done a math on that.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: No, it's in there somewhere, though, So Chuck, I think
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: we should we'll hold off on how to make it
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: a batch of kombucha, although it's not that hard. But
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: it turns out that that that symbiotic colony of bacteria
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: and yeese, it's a pretty good descriptor because that's what
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: is in that scobie. And there have been studies of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: what's in there, and what they found is that there's
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: an ever changing cast of characters. Yeah, but that there
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: seem to be a couple that are really responsible for
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: forming the scobie and then in turn creating kombucha. One
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: is a bacterium called chould.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: You want me to do this? Sure, get Koma gatti
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: bacteria bacter.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's okay, yep. And then that's the
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: stuff that forms that cellulose that gives the scobi its structure.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: And then inside there's some yeast, and specifically the yeast
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: from the.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Genus Bretons bretton nomosis.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Sure, and those are the ones that actually seem to
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  Speaker 2: do most of the fermenting.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we have, well, at least in this case,
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: there was some Oregon State University researchers named Keisha Harrison
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: and Chris Curtin, who a couple of years ago looked
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: at one hundred and three scobi's that are used by
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: brewers here in North America. That yeast they call it brett,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and it's sort of an used to be used a
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: lot for old ales in nineteenth century England apparently huh,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: not used a whole lot for beer anymore because it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: tastes funny except for like lambs, and also used in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: barrel aged red wines. And I think in wine you
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: just don't want too much of it. And then beer nowadays,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: like I said, unless it's a lambic, they usually try
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: to get rid of it, things like a contaminant in
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: beer these days.
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  Speaker 2: Even so, it sounds old timey, I guess then the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: breat and that actually kind of dovetails with kombucha's image.
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  Speaker 2: It has an image of being like an old timey,
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: super old timey ancient, I guess is a better word
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  Speaker 2: brew ferment to brew that a lot of people say
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  Speaker 2: dates back to all the way back to two twenty
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  Speaker 2: one BCE, which is when supposedly the emperor of the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: Chin dynasty started brewing it himself, and that it was
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: considered an elixir of life, a tonic for immortality. The
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: thing is is like, if you talk to anybody in
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: the kombucha community, they'll give you that story. But it's
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: just a story, like there's really hazy when you start
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: to try to trace the LINEA.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Butcher's that's right. Uh yeah. There was another tale
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  Speaker 1: about six hundred years after that, from the fifth century CE,
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  Speaker 1: about a Korean doctor and this is possibly a name
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  Speaker 1: origin because this doctor was named Kambu Kombu who brought
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: a medicinal t to emperor. Would that be in Kio?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I think so, yeah, all right of Japan and said
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  Speaker 1: and some people say, well, that's clearly where the name
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: came from. Other people say, well, I don't know about that,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: because there's also this Japanese fermented tea from back in
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: the day that was derived from kelp that was called
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: kambu and then cha is t so kombucha, But there
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: is no seaweed in in kombucha as we know it now,
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  Speaker 1: So I don't think anyone really knows the exact origin
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of the word.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: No, but it is possible that that kombucha that seaweed
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: fermented seaweed ta just got used for the wrong thing
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: and it's kind of went off on that lineage of
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: history and that's where it came from. Again, what we're
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: talking about are stories. There are some ancient documents that
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I think mentioned that Korean doctor Kambu. Yeah, but still
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: it's just not definitive. To get definitive, you actually have
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: to go to Russia and Ukraine in the late nineteenth century.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, surprising.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: That's finally where you can definitively start to trace the
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: history of what we call kombucha.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was kind of surprised to see it there too,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: But apparently after World War One they were lousy with
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: the stuff. It started to spread around Europe. Apparently in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the Westfalia region of Germany, became very popular for a
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: little while. In Italy in the middle of the twentieth century,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: it became so popular that a couple of things happened
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that there were people mixing it with holy water to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: use as sort of like a tonic and a fokrimony,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: which priests there did not love. And there was a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: song that you can go listen to, you know, you
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: can go to YouTube and listen to it from nineteen
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: fifty five by a guy named Ronato Kerazone, and the
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: song was called Stu Fungo Chinza or the Chinese Fungus,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: and it was a popular song. That's I listened to it,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and it's not very good.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: No, it's got a lot of didd like mixed in
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: with it. But it's also kind of like a mambay thing.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: It's a it's a mess. So strangely enough, Stu Fungo
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Chinese did not kick off the kombucha craze in the
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: United States or in the West. It really was kicked
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: off by a Swiss study from the sixties. And I
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: do mean Switzerland, not Sweden. I apparently swapped the two
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: when I was talking about the oldest periodical in existence
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: in the Farmer's Almanac episodes. So sorry to everybody who wrote.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: In yeah, we we know that those are two different
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: places and they're not even close together.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: No, so it was inadvertent, No, exactly like I mix
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: up the names. I'm not actually confusing Switzerland was writing
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: like I know that much, so This was a Swiss Switzerland,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Swiss study from the sixties that said, hey, this kombucha
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: stuff that they're making over in Russia that's associated with
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Russian grandmothers. This stuff is it's like yogurt, man, but
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: you can drink it. It's like drinkable yogurt. And we
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: don't mean.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Keffer, no, we don't did. It's still popular actually in
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: some parts of Russia. It remained popular throughout Soviet Russia.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: They were you know, they didn't have like, you know,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: American soda and stuff like that, so this is a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: fizzy drink they could make, which sort of sub for that.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: It seems like prisoners would brew it there. There was
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: even a case here in the United States in twenty
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: fifteen where arms dealer Victor Bout was brewing it in
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: a prison in Illinois. And we'll get to the alcoholic
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: content later, but the prison officials basically said, like, you're
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: making booze. You can't do that. So they added some time.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: And apparently like kids in Russia these days, or not kids,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: but younger people are kind of on kombucha that they
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: rejected when they were younger because they were like, we
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: want American tasting sodas, and now there's a newer trend
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: where they're like, oh no, this is sort of like cool,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: this is the old Russian version, and they're back into
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: brewing it again.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so it got exported somehow to the US.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: It blew up in the US, and we exported it
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: back to Russia, and now Russian hipsters are into kombucha.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Even though it was their grandparents like homebrew, and I
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: think it was also not just they wanted coke and
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: pepsi and probably mostly coke. They associated it with their
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: grandmother giving it to them as if it were almost
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: like medicine or a health tonic, and nobody surrounding and
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: drinks a health tonic. No, you rarely do. And this
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: kind of had that association with it too that got
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: stripped of it. Even though it's considered a healthy drink.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Health tonic is really stretching how it's considered in the
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: United States. So it got kind of repackaged and gussied
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: up and turned into a really fun beverage that kids
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: are really into and that will just make you immediately
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: cooler if you're seeing out in public drinking it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, as far as the Chinese connection, It sort of
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: depends on who you're asking. It sounds like it may
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: have been regional because there was this writer what was
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: her first name, Zong is her last name for Folk
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Life magazine.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Her first name, Chuck is precisely Laura.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Laura. Okay, Well, she wrote about this in folk Life
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Magazine and asked her immigrant Chinese parents and they were like,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. She said, well,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: let me ask my friend who still has a bunch
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: of contacts in China, and her friend got in touch
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: with her people in China and they're like, I don't
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. But then there was another
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Chinese American writer named Betty Lou and her father a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: like recalled, you know, fond things about kombucha from Shanghai
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: and these big neighborhood batches. So I think theirs was
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: green tea and honey though instead of black tea and sugar.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So maybe it was a variation, a regional variation.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they called it hong cha June. Yeah, not kombucha,
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: but it does sound similar, and if you stop and
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: think about it's just how it's a simplicity of what
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: kombucha actually is fermented sweet tea. It's entirely possible that
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: cultures that have tea and have had tea for hundreds
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: and thousands of years and stumbled onto this, you know,
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: independently and just called it different things, made it with
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: slightly different ingredients. But it seems very clear that the
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: kombucha we drink today was exported from Russia and Ukraine
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and before we break, I think we should cover
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: this last little bit that's super interesting about how it
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: regained popularity in the eighties here in the US though.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Was it was for AIDS patients. There was specifically one
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: AIDS patient. He was a act up New York member,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: an activist named Sander Katz who had this kombucha and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: it you know, those AIDS drugs early on at least,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: were really rough on the stomach, and it helped him
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and it helped him keep his food down. It kind
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of settled the stomach, and then it got passed around
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the gay community. And I think he found out about
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it from a friend in like nineteen ninety four who was,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you know, a home brewer and went on to write
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: a book called Wild Fermentation in two thousand and three,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and so it was the AIDS community of the Northeast
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: United States.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It really kind of got it going again here. Pretty cool,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: very cool. You want to take a break, then let's
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: do it. Okay, we're taking a break. Everybody's starting now.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: All right, So now we are back in the United States. Uh,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: kombucha these days, well, for a while before sort of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: this this modern time that we find ourselves in. Who
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: was spaceship just flew by? Uh? Someone should ask Chris
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Christie about that?
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that was crazy.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Did you see that?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Terrible question?
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was pretty funny about it, though he's he
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: is a likable guy. Uh So, kombucha for a while
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: was and it and it's still sort of popular with
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: hobbyists because brewing in general, and home brewing is really
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: regained in popularity with beer and meat and all kinds
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of crazy things.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: I also, I think there's a suspicion too among people
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: who make kombucha that the stuff that's mass produced just
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: can't hold a candle to the stuff you would make
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: on your own.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Probably, But that's how it was for many many years,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: starting in the eighties, until about the midish nineteen nineties,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: when a guy who we're going to talk about a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: little bit now that you may have heard of named
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: George Thomas Dave or GT. Dave started brewing kombucha at
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: home and his bell airhouse as a teenager. As legend
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: has it, he got his scobie from a friend who
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: got it from a trip to the Himalayas and his
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: mom was drinking this stuff Dave was making going through
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: cancer and claimed that it helped her beat cancer, which
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: was officially part of the company's lore until they were
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: forced to remove it after a lawsuit in twenty ten
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: about deceptive health claims. But he is the maker. If
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: you've seen Synergy kombucha in the store, it's the biggest
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: player out there. And that's the one Emily drank until today,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and that's that's Gt. Dave.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've ever seen kombucha in the store, you've
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: seen Gt. Synergy. I mean, it's just there's such so
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: many different flavors of it, and like the it's just
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: it's clearly been around longer. It's got its thing down path.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: And like you said, this guy was brewing this when
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: he was in high school and he started in ninety five.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: In two thousand and five, he took it National, and
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: you can say that pretty much is when kombucha really
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: started to make headway. Didn't take off like a rocket
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: quite yet. If you go back and look at the
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: dates on a lot of the research articles that you'll
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: find on kobucha, I'm like CNBC or Forbes or whatever,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: they're like twenty seventeen eighteen, and they're all like, what
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: is this stuff? So it took a while to gain
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: some traction, but he took it out of the health
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: food store and started to get into grocery stores, and
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: that was what really kind of laid the foundation for
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: kombucha to be introduced to America as a whole.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: That's right. And the sort of unfortunate part that has
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: come out more recently is that Synergy is going through
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: a few different lawsuits right now because allegedly it is
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: even though this is a drink that is touted is
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: being made with love and good vibrations, there are some
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: lawsuits going on now because allegedly it is a terrible
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: place to work and Gt. Dave allegedly would purposefully hire
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: undocumented workers so they could be taken advantage of with
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: brutal work hours, no breaks to eat, no breaks for breaks,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: go to the bathroom super fast and get back to work.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: It's so hot in there that you're sweating into the beverage,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: and then you have to go to a freezing place
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and your clothes freeze up. Just some sounds like some
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: pretty bad stuff happening there, allegedly.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Well you say allegedly, but you don't have to say
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: that anywhere because as of I think this month, California
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: judge said, nope, this is all true. I'm ruling against Gt. Dave.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, yeah, that was a lawsuit from that's long standing,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: but there are I think some new ones, and he's
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: been denying this the whole time. Basically, I think his
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: quote was something like, I don't want to paraphrase it.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Well I guess I have to paraphrase it, so I'll
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: have in front of me. Sure, But basically like, yeah,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you know, lawsuits are just the cross eye bear, you know,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: when you get popular like this, that's just how things go, right.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: That this is he just dismissed them all as frivolous
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: in that quote, like indirectly basically, although these are have
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: been brought by multiple people in multiple lawsuits over multiple years. Yeah,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: so yeah, this judge apparently does not like him, and
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the judge is in charge of all the cases and
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: apparently has said before that Dave lies through his teeth
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and is totally not credible, and if you put him
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: on the stand, I'm going to tell the jury not
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: to believe him.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Like this.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: This judge has said this like in court. So he's
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: having a rough time of it for sure.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course I told him this. She was like, oh, well,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I guess I'll find a new brand.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: Well, there's so many great brands out there too, Like
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of Like if you are
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: into kombucha or you're about to be into kombucha, after
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: listening to this, you are in a beautiful time to
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: be into kombucha because there's a lot of good brands
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: that you could find in just about any grocery store.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: And yes, indeed, it is a golden age for kombucha
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: We love our golden ages. Sure, there's another big player
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: in KeVita k e v I t A because Pepsi
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: bought that one in twenty sixteen. And you know, anytime
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: in the beverage industry, it's a tough racket anyway, So
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: you're you're probably looking to cash out to a larger company.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Is the exits strategy generally for beverages? Sure, I watch
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of Shark Tank, that's what they say. Okay,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola got into it a little bit because they
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: own Honest Tea.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: I just got that name.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Oh Honesty. Yeah, but I don't think they make that anymore.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: But they do have some sort of Australian kombucha Coca
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Cola does, called Organic and Raw Trading Company.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: They don't like to talk about it, though, I don't
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: think they do. So it is a golden age and
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: that's kind of reflected in the market. It's like a
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: two and a half billion dollar industry, which is not bad.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: But no, it's not bad. It's expected to grow to
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: eleven and a half billion within the next seven years
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: because kombucha is so good and because we're living in
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: that golden age. Apparently considered a functional beverage with energy
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: drinks and vitamin fortified.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Waters and you who yeah, because.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: It gives you great strength, yeah exactly. But one it's
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: considered a non alcoholic. But that was up in the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: air until fairly recently because there's a well known story
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: at least in the kombucha community about a I think
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: an inspector for the main Department of Agriculture who was
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: going through a Whole Foods and noticed that these bottles
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: of kombucha. This was twenty ten, so he's still like,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: what is this stuff that they were bubbling out from
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: under their caps. And he's like, yeah, not a good sign. No,
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: He's like, this is that's fermentation. These things are fermenting
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: before my eyes. That means that it's producing alcohol by definition.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: And he's like, I'm gonna I'm going to test some
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: of these and what he found exactly, he went on
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: a seven day bender, right, and when he came to
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: he said, these things should not be sold as not alcoholic.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: To me, I went on a booch bender. Not good. No, yeah,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I think if you're homebrewing it and this is you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it's a variable product. Anytime you're making something where there
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: it's like alive for a little while, it's it's going
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: to be different depending on the batch and the maker
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. If you're homebrewing it, you may
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: get up to three percent ABV. There have been cases
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: where I think the guy in Maine some of those
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: went up to two point five and that's when Whole
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Foods was like, we can't sell it, like it's over
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the point five percent threshold. So Whole Foods had to
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: pull it there.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: And this was like this this industry was still in
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: its cradle, Like this is a really dangerous thing to
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: have happen all of a sudden.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, but that's why. Kind of around that same time,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the kombucha's Kombucha Brewers International was formed, which is a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: trade organization that basically is like, hey, listen, we need
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: to sort of standardize this. Here's an alcohol test that
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: everyone should be using, and we should all be on
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: the same page about the AVV.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Right, So they really kind of swooped in to standardize
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: things and save the day. And there is there is
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: hard kombucha. Apparently they're crazy for it. In California, it
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: goes up to eleven percent, which, man, that'll knock you
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: on your duff. Yeah, But for the most part, the
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: people who make kombucha have figured out how to keep
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: it from going beyond the point five percent point zero
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: five percent.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Alcohol point I think point five.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever told this story before,
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: have I about how when I was a youngster, I
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: really loved nick at night, and sometimes on Fridays and Saturdays,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: I would go to the Open Pantry, which was a
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: convenience store across the railroad tracks from my house. Yeah,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: and I would buy some slim gyms, gets twigs, maybe
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: some starbursts, really load up. And then one of the
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: things I would get every every time was a six
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: pack of Kingsbury non alcoholic beer. And every time I'm
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: like ten, eleven, twelve, maybe oh du every time I
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: had to argue with the person checking me out at
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the at the register, like this is no alcoholic, it
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: has nothing to do with any age limit. I'm allowed
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: to buy this, And every time I was successful. I
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: think most of them were just like, Okay, if this
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: kid's gonna say that to me, then fine, you can
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: have this non alcoholic beer. And I would go home
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: and crack some Kingsbury and need some slim jough, my watch,
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Stef Troop and stuff. It was amazing, good Friday.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: You know, I do have a new answer now. And
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: when they say if you could go back in time,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: because it used to obviously be go back and kill
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Hitler and do some good for mankind, but now it's
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: go back and live next door to young Josh. So
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: we could have been kid buddies.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been fun.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I would have been older. You would have been the
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: one corrupting me though somehow.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for sure, it.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Would have been pretty funny. You would have been I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: would have been like what he six years younger? Seven?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: Uh no, I'm like five five.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: You would have been the ten year old corrupting like
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the fifteen or sixteen year old. But I would have
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: my license first and be like, yeah, I know you
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: can drive install the bad place.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go get some Kingsbury Chuck. Should we take
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: a break and come back and tell everybody how to
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: make kombucha? Because I'm ready to do that.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, let's do it, all right.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Everybody, as promised, We said that we are going to
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: teach you how to make kombucha, and it is super duper.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: S really you should also, you know, really, look if
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: you're going.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: To oh yeah, there's a that's a really good point.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: The kombucha brewing community is really supportive and helpful and
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: nice and not snipy or caddy. They're just very like,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: whatever information you need to brew your own kombucha. They'll
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: give it to you, and you could probably also make
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: friends with somebody who will send you your first go
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: b Yeah, because here's the thing. You can't make kombucha
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: without kombucha. You have to have kombucha, which I think
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Chuck and I couldn't find this. That would mean that
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: all kombucha is related in some way, shape or form,
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: because if you just took tea and sugar and water
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: and left it out to be inoculated with whatever yeast
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: and bacteria in the air, you're not necessarily going to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: attract the same yeast in bacteria those Bretts and the
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: other one that are in kombucha, so you'll make something
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: that isn't actually kombucha. So to make kombucha, you need kombucha,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: which means all kombucha is related. They have some sort
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: of shared lineage over time. Okay, that's kind.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Of like ill set up. Yeah, it is, and that
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: kind of lends itself to the hippiedippy community aspect for sure.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: So like you said, you need a scobie, and like
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: you also said, you can probably find some hippie online
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: that'll send you some.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: You can buy it too. There's everything Kombocha dot Com
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: recommends for mental holics. They'll send you a Scobe for
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: thirteen dollars and forty nine cents on Amazon.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: All right, and you get that that gross little membrane
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: looking thing. Maybe look up a recipe that you might
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: want to use. There are lots of recipes online, of course,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: But like you said, you got to have that unpasteurized,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: unflavored kombucha at the root of it. Uh And like
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you kind of tease it earlier, you put
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: that kombucha in a in a glass jar. Everything's got
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to be super super clean. Of course. You're gonna want
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: for your tea a few specific things. You want organic
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: tea because if it's not organic, then that tea you
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: get hasn't been washed yet and it's got pesticides and
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: stuff on it.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: No good, not just for you, but also for the
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Scobe because it's a living thing.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Scobey's gonna eat that stuff. You want to use
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: pure tea because you know it tastes better, it's the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: cleanest flavor, it's got the most nutrients, and you're also
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna be caffeinated. You can't make decaf kombucha
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, right.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: You literally cannot because the caffeine is one of the
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: most essential nutrients for the bacteria and or the yeast
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: they use it to they convert it into nitrogen, which
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: they use for all sorts of stuff during the fermentation
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: project process. So you cannot make kombucha without caffeine.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: All right, the thing gets your tea. You got your caffeine,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: and what else you need? Sugar?
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Yep, you want to use cane sugar. I've seen and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: all of this, Like, you can get organic cane sugar
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: for very little money even compared to like just cheap
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: white granulated sugar. Splurge for that. Splurge for good loose
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: organic tea. Use filtered water, or you can just get
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: like a gallon of distilled water while you're at the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: grocery store buying chine sugar. Just it's that whole garbage in,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: garbage out kind of mentality. It also applies to kombucha.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Too, all right, So you've got your ingredients, You've got
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: your Scoby from a guy named you know, Scooby Goby,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Scoby Scooby Bro, Scooby Bro one two three, and you
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: get your sweet teammate. You add your starter kombucha, you
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: put in your scoby and then you put it in
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: that jar like you said, with the what's it called it,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the musslim over the top, Yeah, the muslin over the top,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and then you put it in that dark, dry place
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like a cabinet or something, and let it do its
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: thing for how long? Like a week or so?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Yes, if you're fermenting kombucha, it takes seven to fourteen
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: days for the first ferment to finish, all right. Then
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: after that you bottle, and that you leave it again
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: for another usually a few days, maybe seven days, and
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it does it second ferment in the bottle, and that's
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: where the alcohol and the bubbles really start to come about,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: because those are both byproducts of fermentation CO two and alcohol. Again,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: though depending on I'm not actually quite sure how you
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: control the amount of alcohol that gets developed. I think
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: it's maybe the amount of sugar you add initially, and
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: then also how long you let it ferment to you
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: in that second fermentation. And then to stop it from
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: the second fermentation, you start refrigerating it, and that makes
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: everything go dormant.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you bottle it, that's when you're also
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: gonna you know, juice it up a little bit. If
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you want to put some ginger or some herbs, some
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: other kind of like fruity juices or something. That's where
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: you can you know, experiment with your own taste and
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: flavor profiles that chilling.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you want to use glass for everything. The
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: reason why is because it's so acidic. As we'll see that,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: it can leech metals right out of a metal container.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: So, and you can also leach lead out of the
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: glaze of a ceramic container. So you basically just want
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: to use sterilized glass, like really well washed class. And
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: you also want to keep yourself clean, and this I'm
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: sure is very hard for a lot of the kombucha
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: brewer community. Sure, but you definitely want to wash your
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: hands thoroughly before you ever touch your scobi because again,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: it's a living thing, and if you accidentally get some
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: bad bugs on it, it can grow mold, it can
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: get weak, it can die, all sorts of stuff can happen.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: So you want to be very gentle and kind with
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: your scoby and very clean too. So you want to
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: make sure you and your glass bottles are all super
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: clean before you make kombucha.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Scooby bro one two three. In this video, it's like,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: all right, this next part man is a real bummer.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: But you're gonna have to take a shower.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: Man. The hippies are not gonna like this.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Oh that's okay. They're surfing right now.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: There's one other thing you can do too, or one
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: other thing you're gonna have to do. You remove your
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: scobie from the bottle or from the glass that you
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: fermented in after the first ferment. It doesn't go into
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: the bottles, but it's reusable. It actually will grow I
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: wondered about that. Yes, so it actually will grow as
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: you're fermenting new kombucha each time, because it's sitting there
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: eating love and life. And after a while it'll grow
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: thick enough that you can just basically peel off. From
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: what I understand, the bottom layer is the youngest layer, okay.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: And there's stuff you can do with the old scobi
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: it's cellulo. Some people cut it up and dry it
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: out and give it to their dogs. Some people eat
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: it directly because it's full of probiotics, as we'll see.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: But you can also just toss it out or compost it.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I think is another thing people do, and you take
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: that younger part and just start over. It's the healthiest,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: it's the most vibrant, it's the youngest part of the Scobie.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Or you can also take that part and give it
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: to a newbie as their first go b too, if
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: you want to be super kind, as the hippies call it.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or you can rub it under your arms to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: prevent yeasts growth there gross in your armpit. Yeah. Well,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about health benefits. They have
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: done not a lot of like controlled human trials in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: these published papers. There was a twenty nineteen review at
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty three papers boots that call them
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the Booch papers, and there.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Were there were help my dream.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's fine, but there were no controlled human trials.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: So it's like you can't really point to hard science,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: but it is, you know, it is something that contains
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: good stuff, Like there are probiotics, and we do know
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that probiotics are good for your gut. We've talked about
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: them before. I take a probiotic every day now and
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: it's really helped my system out, like in a hugely
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: noticeable way. Yeah. But you know, if you read the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: bottle of a Synergy or another brand. If you're making
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that switch, you're gonna see stuff like you find on
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a pill bottle of other probiotics like Basillis coagulans or
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: lacto basillis, like these really common bacterium probiotic bacteriums. It's
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: what's going on basically.
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, So, yeah, we know probiotics are good for you,
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: and kombucha as allows you with probiotics. That's the upshot
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: of that. And there actually was one human trial very recently,
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: it came out in the last week from Georgetown University
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: that found that it actually lowers fasting blood glucose levels,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: So it could be useful for people with type two
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: diabetes to drink kombucha while they're eating a meal because
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: it will keep your glucose from spiking, according to this
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: newest trial, and it's one of the first human clinical
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: trials ever done on kombucha.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: I got two words for that, go hoyas.
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: It's been a while.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Have you ever understood what the difference between a hoya
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: and a bulldog is? Because I've never heard anything called
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: a hoya except in the context of Georgetown.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: They have never even thought about it now that I think.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: But that's their mascot. It's a bulldog, but they call
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: it a hoya like they're out of their minds.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: Is it the same? Like is it supposed to be
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: the name of the bulldog? I don't or not the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: name of But does it mean bulldog?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know. In Georgetown it does.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Because I'm seeing that the hoya is a plant.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah it is. It's called the Indian roade plant now
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: that you mentioned it, or one of the hoyas. I
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: think it's a family of plants.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Well, somebody, because we're not going to stop to look
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: this up because I'm sure the ANSWER's out there. I
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: would love a Georgetown hoyata, right and let us know.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, moving on then right?
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah? What about antioxidants.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Well, that tea that you make this out of is
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: lousy with polyphenols, depending on which kind of tea you use.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Apparently green and red have the highest amounts of polyphenols
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: in the end result in kombucha. But you can't really
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: sneeze at the polyphenols in black tea too, which is
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: traditionally the type of tea that's been used to brew kombucha.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Those polyphenols do all sorts of things, like they neutralize
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: free radicals in the body. And we did our episode
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: on whether or not free radical health theory is legitimate
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: or not. But considering that the jury is still out,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: if it is legit, then the antioxidants in kombucha are
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: really super helpful.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you could make a macha kombucha.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. I wondered that myself
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: from what I saw. You want loose leaf tea, but
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: I don't know why you wouldn't be able to use macha.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Might be interesting.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Also vitamins, there's lots of B vitamins in kombucha. Vitamins
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: are great for you. But again, because it's a variable product,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: it's not like you can say, al kambucha's have this
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: amount of this vitamin. I believe some of the leading
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: brands taut as being like, you know, it's a great
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: source of V twelve or whatever, but it's not like
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: listed out on the ingredients like exactly how much. No.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And the reason why it's, like you said, it's variable
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: because this stuff is grown, it's not manufactured, and B
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: vitamins are a byproduct of fermentation. So unless I guess
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: they test every single batch and create a new label
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: every single time. Right, they can't say accurately how much
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: B vitamins is in there, but usually it's enough to
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: knock your.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Socks right off, as will the acid. Right.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, so acids are anti microbials, and they've been found
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: to fight off stuff like E. Coli, Shigella, salmonella, cholera. Again,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: this is in vitro. This is like putting some of
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: the acids from kombucha in a petri dish with shigella
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: and seeing what happens, and those acids kill the shigella.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: So this is all just like assuming that the same
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: stuff is going to happen in the human body, because
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: again there hasn't been a lot of human trials. But
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: we know that the acids that are produced in kombucha
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: as it ferments, do have antimicrobial properties in a petri
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: dish at least.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. As far as if it could be bad
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: for you, probably not. I mean, it might upset your
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: tummy a little bit, as any probiotic could initially, at
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: least until your thumbs gets used to it. Anything unpasteurized,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: like if you're having if you're trading like homemade kombucha's
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: with friends and stuff like that, there could always be
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: a chance that there are some bacterias in there that
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: aren't great for you. I think you can get a pasteurized,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: like professionally pasteurized kombucha, but that would kill off the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: live culture. So it's kind of like, what's the point.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it still has the acids in it,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: so it's gonna have some benefits. But yeah, the kombucha
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: brewing communities, like what, you don't want to kill off
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: all of this beneficial bacteria. You know.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: It's very anti booch.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: It is super anti booch. I say, before we wrap Chuck,
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: we we name check a few other brands because I
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: love a few. So health Aid is really really great,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: Lady Apple, I would point people too, all right. Two
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: twenty one BC, I think is made in Florida. They
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: make a lavender one that's just amazing, and their kombucha
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: is real mild. It's not nearly as tart, and it's
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: not nearly as fizzy as most other kombucha's. It's not
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: quite as dense, so it'd be a good introduction to kombucha.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Hum is another great one, and then Big Easy, Butcha,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: all of those make really good kombucha, and you can
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: usually find all of those brands in just about any
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: grocery store.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: That's great. I'm going to pass those along to Emily.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Do you take a probiotic in a dish or is
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: this sort of covering your basis here?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: I take mine intraveniously, okay, just a slow drip. I
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: don't actually take a probiotic. I'm really terrible at keeping
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: up with supplements on a daily basis. I kind of
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: take them when I think of it. I hear probiotics
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: definitely fall into that category for me.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gotten good at it with my diverticulate problems.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: So I've a friend of mine sister said you should
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: take this probiotic every day, and it really has changed
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: my toilet routine.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: What's the Do you know the brand and or what's
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: in it?
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Oh? I can picture it in my head. No, but
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I could always follow up if people are interested. It's
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: sort of just a good all around probiotic and it
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: is right in my tummy.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Nice, that's awesome.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Goodway.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I don't take probiotics, but I use so
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: much fermented stuff every day that it's kind of tantamount
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: to it.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we should do one eventually. On the other thing
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: that I don't enjoy, which is kimchi.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Oh man, I eat that almost every day too. There's
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: I know you love all us I do love it.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: And if you're nowhere near an Asian market, there's something
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: called Cleveland kimchi and you can find that in like
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: you're I think you're produce section, along with like tofu
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. And it's it's really good for
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: package kimchi.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: You could make that too at home, could don't you
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: berry kimchi?
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: I think so? That sounds very familiar.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: All right, we'll have to look into that. That'd be
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a good topic.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, So while we go off and think about kimchi,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: let's all just wait a second and pause for a
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: listener mail.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Should I read one? Or are we really pausing?
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Go ahead and read one.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, guys, recentish listener discovered you during second year
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: of the pandemic. You've gotten me through a lot, including
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: graduate school in the beginning of my most recent career transition,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: which brings me to the point of this email. At
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a really difficul time, shifting my career trajectory from engineering
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: to veterinary medicine in the sense of making such a
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: major time commitment to pursue more schooling after completing a
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: master's degree. I desire to learn far outweighed my concerns, though,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: so I applied a needless to say, I was extremely
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: nervous going to VET school through the interview process. It
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: was an absolutely wild coincidence that you released her podcast
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: The Large Equine History of Veterinary Medicine the day before
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I had my two interviews. That episode reminded me of
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: how much I love this field and how fascinating it is,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and I accepted this as a happy coincidence at Comma
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Nerves a bit allowed me to go into my interviews
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: the next day with a high sorry with the level
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: head and renewed faith in my decision. I was accepted
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: to both programs I interviewed for that day, as well
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: as a few have awesome. Fast forward to today, my
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: second day of veterinary school, and you released how We're
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Learning to Talk to Animals. I have now accepted that
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: you're somewhat my guardian angels, as you're shepherding me through
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: this very exciting and very scary transition. Aside from those times,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the podcast has given me so many laughs, fun facts,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: and overall sense of calm and what can be an
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: overwhelming world. And I know you heard a lot, but
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I'm officially joining the ranks. You have made such a
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: positive impact on my life. Please keep doing it. Can't
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: wait to see what the future scenarios that you hold
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: my hand through. Sending love. The sign offs are getting
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: so good. That is from Gabby.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Thanks Gabby. I remember that email. I responded to her
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: say congrats.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: It's crazy, love it, love it.
• 46:30
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• 46:33
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• 46:41
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