Year: 2019

Nourish Kefir on the BBC World Service
Last Thursday was an exciting day for us here at Nourish Kefir.  We were delighted to welcome visitors; Radio presenter Manuela Saragosa and producer Clare Williamson from the BBC World Service radio.

The Food Chain

With listeners from around the globe, programme The Food Chain investigates all the current trends, interests and quirks related to food consumption, production and uses.
Clare and Manuela visited Nourish Kefir to learn more about kefir cultures and to discuss the possible connection between the gut and the brain.  As the UK producers using actual live grains we were able to impart our expertise about real kefir.

Gut Feelings

I shared my own very personal experiences about going from ill health (I suffered for more than 10 years with IBS and crohn’s disease) to well again –  directly as a result of drinking kefir!  It is quite an extraordinary journey.  Some people find it difficult to believe that such a simple thing as kefir –  a fermented milk drink could cure my symptoms of crohn’s disease and IBS.  But it’s true – it did.  I was transformed with my healing, it changed my life.  If you have ever suffered with bowel problems, for a prolonged time as I did, you too would be grateful for the relief that kefir can bring.

The programme is of course an edited version of everything we talked about.  It is a fascinating episode with contributors from Cork University, Ireland and McMaster University, Canada who discuss our gut micro-biome and predict a rise in the use of foods with live bacteria being more widely used to treat mood as a wholistic part of gut function – which all makes sense to me…  You can listen to the full interview about the gut brain connection here
If you have any comments we would like to hear from you…

The older I get, the more I learn about the connection between mind and body (and soul).
Today the first call to Nourish Kefir was from a customer who occasionally suffers with stomach upsets and constipation and she wondered if the kefir would help?
We discussed the connection between the occasional burning sensation in her stomach and her anxiety attacks that she agreed happen around the same time as her digestive issues.
When some part of our body is in pain – I believe from my own experiences (and many knowledgeable authors have written about it) that there is a connection between our mind and body, that the body is trying to give us a message that something isn’t working about our lives.  Maybe we are not living true to our values and our needs.  Perhaps we are giving too much to others – who keep taking, and all the while we haven’t realised that our own needs are not being met?  We are running on empty.  We somehow hope or expect the ‘others’ in our lives to notice this about us, and to reciprocate and give us the love/care/attention back.  But for many this just does not happen.  And so we keep on giving/ or even keep ignoring our own needs until one day we don’t have anything left to give.  Then when we are empty – our body starts to hurt!

Later this morning – the second person I spoke to had terrible back pain and was taking co-codamol painkillers to try and keep working through it.  What he really needed to do was go home and rest.  And I’m sure that’s what his back pain was trying to tell him.  In Louise Hay’s book – You can Heal your Life – she writes that back pain is connected to not feeling the support you need.  I bravely said this to him and he immediately agreed.  He explained that he is exhausted from running around doing so much for other people.  They haven’t noticed that he is not superman – and that he also needs to rest and be taken care of – or just given time off to look after himself too!

My journey to kefir was a journey of self love.   Kefir has been a big part of my healing – because I got so ill that I had real physical symptoms – that turned into crohn’s disease as well as IBS – for 10+ years!  If I had not found the kefir I would have continued to have deteriorating gut and physical health.

So my first act of self love was to force myself to drink as much kefir as I could.  I had to take a leap of faith for sure that this extra sour tasting, thick milk was not going to make me worse.  I also had to keep drinking it when my gut was doing it’s clean up act – and elimination was part of that.  Somehow I just had a good feeling about the kefir – and I am so grateful that I embarked on that journey.  The kefir transformed my gut health over a few months – helping to dissolve the pain of the previous 10 years. But that was just one step in taking better care of me.  I am still on that journey.  Maybe we all are to greater or lesser extent?  I’m still having to learn to make more time for myself and to work out what my needs are – to make sure I’m not running on empty and that there is joy in my life.

If our bodies are communicating to us with pain, then I would also suggest they communicate to us with feelings of joy too – when we achieve that state of balance and harmony that makes us love our lives!

 

International Women’s Day on 8th March 2016 was an exciting day for me as I had been invited to a reception at No 10 Downing Street.
Inside the room was buzzing with women from all over the UK, most hoping to get an opportunity to talk to the then Prime Minister David Cameron –  we only just managed a nod hello!
I was expecting the event to be full of business women, but it was quite different.  There were scientists, teachers, nurses, carers, women who started support groups dealing with trauma – slavery, bereavement and other really tough issues. As well as women championing breakfast clubs for children and families with great hardship unable to afford breakfast.

To be celebrating International Women’s day at Downing Street with these wonderful, inspirational women leading extraordinary lives; committed to the greater good was an honour.  It was a bit of a thrill for me (got my photo) and I felt very fortunate to have been invited in the first place.

Having a business is hard work.  But being able to choose to make kefir with life kefir grains (which I believe to be the best quality) is my way of having a business that provides goodness to our customers…

On another level though, we are not just a business, we are our own micro community of people working together, and reaching a larger community of people we hope will benefit from drinking Nourish Kefir.

International Women’s Day

Get 15% off goats kefir in March..

Order today to get next day delivery to your home or office

We have been growing kefir grains in goat’s milk for over a year now.  We developed what we think is a light, refreshing and slightly tangy goats kefir that will delight people who cannot digest cow’s milk – or they just prefer the taste of goats milk!

From the feedback we have had so far – if you like goats cheese – you will love our goats kefir 🙂

We think it hits the spot and hope you will love it too!  We made a very short video about it
Let us know what you think of it too…

Available in two sizes: 250ml and 500ml
The voucher code to use at the checkout is NEWKEFIR to ensure you get your 15% off goats kefir in March

Sadly it is not made with organic goats milk… If we could source it in the UK we would use it to ferment our grains.  We talked to the leading goats milk producers in the UK.  They told us an interesting fact about goats – that apparently they like to be in-doors!  Organic certification standards require goats to be outdoors for a certain number of days a year… that it seems our beautify British goats do not seem to want to do!

Nourish Kefir is Highly Commended as Best Food & Drink by Health Food Business Magazine.

We are delighted to be recognised in these Health Food Sector awards.  Independent Health Food Stores do a great job of supplying a diverse range of wonderful organic and natural foods and supplements so beneficial to maintaining our good health and nutrition.

In Health Food Business magazine’s annual awards they asked retailers to vote for their favourite products across several categories.  Nourish Kefir drinks entered and were Highly Commended in the Best Food and Drink category, which is a great accolade to achieve among many fine health food products!

We sell our range of authentic drinks and kefir starter cultures almost exclusively through this retail sector in the UK and Ireland – see our stockist list for shops  as well as some online retailers, so you will not find us in supermarkets.  We feel it is important support the independent health food sector (many of whom are small businesses just like us) and shop local when we can!

We are passionate about fermenting real kefir grains and are dedicated to making authentic, traditional kefir here in our dairy in South London.

Although Kefir is essentially a fermented milk drink, real kefir (what we produce) is more complicated in terms of explaining why it is different to supermarket kefir.  Why it’s more complicated is all to do with the kefir grains – which are a complex micro-organism comprising of different types of good bacteria and yeast!  Unless you are really into kefir it can be a bit mind boggling!  But as far as taste goes….for everyone who’s tried Nourish Kefir and loves it, and comes back for more; they can taste the difference and feel the difference to their gut health!

Regarding Health Food sector awards, and other awards in general… actually we don’t enter many – maybe we should?  What do you think – let us know?

 

Nourish Kefir new products for 2019…

Have you seen our Nourish Goats Milk Kefir – yes we’ve been growing a selection of our precious kefir grains in goats milk for the past year.  And experimenting with our fermentation techniques to get it right… and the result – well you tell us what you think?
Goats milk kefir does taste different to cow’s milk kefir.  For a start it’s much runnier, and it’s an ever so slightly savoury taste.  The more we tried it the more we loved it – and we hope you do too!

Also – we’re launching the most amazingly yummy Organic Madagascan Vanilla Kefir!  What’s amazing is that it’s free from added sugar (or sweeteners) and tastes absolutely delicious!  Yes that’s right, it’s not sweet – it’s creamy and fresh and we know you will love it!

And – we’ve launched a smaller size Nourish Kefir Starter Cultures pack – it’s the “give it a go size”.  Ideal for having a go at making your own delicious kefir at home, with different types of milk and all the tummy loving bacteria, at a lower price!

Where can you find this delicious new offering?  At your fabulous Independent Health, Organic and Fine Food Stores across the UK and Ireland.  You can also buy them all here for home delivery!

Our promise to you – all our products are made by us, from scratch, with real kefir grains.  They are authentic kefirs.
Why do we do this? Because all the science behind the health benefits is related to kefir made from kefir grains.