 Hello. Welcome back to the perfected health podcast. It has been over a year and a half since the last episode. I was thinking we were never going to do it again, but I'm happy to be back with someone that has a wealth of information to share. And today, our guest is Victor Cosetto, who refers to himself as the wise traditions nutritionist. He has his own YouTube channel under the same name as well as his website, Votagenix.me, and I'll let Victor take it away. Cool. Thanks for having me here, Frank. It's a pleasure. Glad we finally hooked up. And glad you're getting your podcast back online. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And it'll be good. I should tell you guys, I actually found out about Victor over a year ago, I think around the time when I did my first key for video and I meant to reach out to him. But since I switched over to the water key for some second fermentation stuff, he actually ended up emailing me and I was like, all right, this makes it the perfect time to do this. Yeah, it's funny. You never know how things work out. I probably got to give a shout out to one of one of my guys. I think it may have been Sergio that actually prompted me to contact you and he made a contact to you too. But anyway, yeah, it took a while, but we finally hooked up. So that's cool. And Kaphir is a nice topic to get us started. So I'm excited. Yeah, it's really the most significant thing in regards to my health. And I tried some dairy kefir before Kaphir, however, I was supposed to say that my viewers always make fun of me for how I pronounce things like woman, woman. I'm from New York. It's a little bit of an accent, guys. Yeah, let's take a chill pill. So the water kefir that I've been drinking lately has by far, like it's the only thing that's ever fixed my acne, got my gut microbiome in check, fixed the dysbiosis, which is is an imbalance of bacteria. Dairy kefir, I also had success with it. It's just I wasn't tolerating the high calcium content and some other components of the dairy. Either way, I think there are both excellent, excellent things that everyone should be drinking in their diet. And Victor has the most in depth knowledge that I've ever seen on it. You got a nice little, thank you, a little background on it, too. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, this makes it easy for us to talk about it. Actually, when I just pulled this out of my video, I think it's really cool. Like, you know, when we talk about kefir, a lot of people, it might just be thinking we're talking about stuff you buy at a supermarket. But of course, you're making you a water kefir at home. And then I always like to explain to people context is important. When I talk about kefir, please understand what I'm talking about. And so actually, well, this is what kefir looks like. And then the context, when I talk about kefir, I'm talking about using those grains, they're not really grains, of course. They're it's a more of a scoby, right? The symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast. And then hopefully, if we're talking about dairy, kefir, hopefully we're talking about using raw milk. And then even doing a second fermentation and aging it, aging it or ripening or aging means just letting it sit like in the fridge for a day, two days, three days, even a week to further burn off any extra lactose or sugar in the case of water kefir. And I know you've got a pretty good process locked down for your water kefir, Frank, right? So yeah, let's simplify that even further. Let's take it really, really basic. So kefir is really just a bunch of bacteria and yeast that has formed this colony, and then it consumes different macronutrients and micronutrients in whatever source you put it. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, I think unfortunately, too many people don't know about it, right? So a lot of people get confused. So it's good. I think if we explain it in many different ways, like sometimes I just tell people, yeah, it's just like a super yogurt drink. Yes, the ultimate probiotic. It's the. Yeah, exactly. Right. The ultimate probiotic. So the in fact, not only is it the ultimate probiotic, but I could argue that it's like the ultimate nutritional drink. You know, we talk about like superfoods and stuff, or we'll talk about like liver or other things that are super nutritious or just milk, right? Well, milk, I mean, it's designed to support life, right? And now we supercharge that by making it into kefir. Yeah, a lot of people always talk about fat soluble vitamins, but the real important thing that I have noticed, you know, over the last few years, especially is the importance of B vitamins and bioavailable amino acids and just the significance of protein and growth. You know, even something as simple as bone growth or child development, you know, people think bones are made of calcium and minerals, but it's actually mostly protein. Almost every single cell in your body is primarily composed of protein as well as fat and kefir tends to have those nutrients in the most bioavailable form. Yes, exactly. Exactly. It's just it's got everything you need. Great balance. Like you said, bioavailable. You just I mean, I really can't think of something better from a nutritional perspective also, because when we do the second fermentation, meaning like we're adding fruits, we could add vegetables, we could add like any superfood we want and then actually ferment that. So, you know, you're unlimited basically in what you can provide your body in a safe and bioavailable format. And even even logistically, meaning making it easy to consume stuff and hopefully making it delicious. Yeah, let's start really simply with how to make kefir and what you're actually consuming when you drink kefir. Right. So again, talking about the raw milk kefir or kefir, yeah, I use different pronunciations to. So talking about the raw milk one, we just want to get milk, ideally raw milk and as much as I hate the commercial milk, I mean, we know it's toxic, you know, this pasture, pasteurization, homogenization. Every supermarket has organic now and every supermarket, at least organic. Right. Right. Right. But unfortunately, they're still right, denaturing it right with their ultra high pasteurization and such. But still, if we take that and then we put the kefir grain, right? Again, these things right here, we put that into the milk anywhere from a five to one or 10 to one ratio. It's going to depend on temperature, et cetera. But we put that into the milk and we leave it for 24 hours. And the kefir ferments the milk and it's breaking down everything. It's famous for breaking down the lactose, right? So that's like people think it only eats the milk sugar, but it does more than that. So like milk, the casting proteins of milk are actually huge and the kefir will unravel them, right? So it makes the those it makes those proteins easier to digest. And when it does that, it's then creating amino acids and peptides from that. I mean, kefir creates over 200 unique peptides. So it's pretty insane. But anyway, it's breaking down the milk. So now milk, which is already good for you if it was wrong milk, it's breaking it down. So now it's easier for you to absorb the fats, the the the proteins and the lactose is gone, right? So it's consumed the lactose. So if you're worried about sugar or your lactose intolerant, you don't have to worry about it because those microbes broke it down. It's actually kind of crazy when you think about it, because not only are the nutrients more available, you're taking stress off the body's enzymes. The body doesn't even have to produce enzymes to absorb some of those components. And in addition to that, the physical lactobacillus, the bacteria, all these microbes in the kefir are going to help you digest everything else in there and your next meal. Exactly. Huge reason every single indigenous group was drinking some sort of fermented drink. Speaking of that, I guess the idea of how this kefir grains even came to be is seems interesting. You would have to imagine like someone was wandering over a desert with like milk in a sheep's stomach or something and like over time or over some sort of long, special fermentation period in a certain environment, those grains formed. Right. And we're not and we're not even able to replicate that in a laboratory. It's a trip. I mean, right? The grains are such a unique thing. They're like like magical. I mean, we understand so much, right? And we can identify all the different strange and species. But it's a it's a trip. It really is. And it's a it's funny because, you know, you're I know you've talked about a lot of the things over time in the past in your own videos and such how important the enzymes are and all that. And the same thing, I go through that in my videos because I think people underestimate how important that is to to offload the burden of digestion, right? Because there's that there's that statement. It's not only it's not what you eat. It's what you actually absorb, right? And so it needs to be bioavailable. You need the enzymes. You need the metabolites. So Kaffir is providing all of it. And then people that are lactose intolerant, not only can they consume Kaffir, but they can often consume other dairy after that, because now, as you mentioned, now they have the bacteria that are produced in that lactase enzyme. So now they can handle other like cheese and other things. Yeah, that's really significant in people who have compromised immune systems or in very ill states of health, where their body cannot handle any additional enzyme stress, especially lactose. And this happened with me, too. I can't digest milk or most dairy unless I drink kefir or yogurt before. But if I do that, then that bacteria is going to digest the lactose for me. Yes, you're like a perfect case study for that. My brother was like that, too. He thought he couldn't drink milk. And then, yeah, he's no problem with Kaffir. Even raw milk is fine for him and now other dairy. Yeah, one really interesting thing to me, which someone actually emailed me about. And then I noticed that when it happened was sometimes when people drink a key for Kaffir, they have an unusual bowel movement, which is basically them releasing their old microbiome base in a way. Yeah. So that's that's a great thing to touch upon because the you can get very powerful detox reactions from Kaffir because it is so potent. So it's a cure for dysbiosis, but like we often tell people start off slow. Like I've had people that had to start with a tablespoon at a time because the reaction was so powerful, because we have to remember a spoonful of Kaffir has more probiotics than a whole bottle of supplements. And it has more diversity. So it's a very powerful, very aggressive, resilient population, right? They're like an army that's learned how to work and live together. They go into your gut, they're going to start kicking some butt. And sometimes you can get bad diarrhea. And ironically, Kaffir is famous for helping you create perfectly formed stool. But before you get to that point, it can wreck a lot of havoc. So some people have to start really slow. Yeah, there's a big discrepancy here that needs to be noticed between a live probiotic culture that you're making yourself in your home or buying from a very, very reputable farm. And I honestly don't trust anyone. That's why I started making it myself. But if you look at a supplement on the shelf or yogurt in the supermarket, that bacteria is basically dormant. It might even be dead. So when you consume that bacteria, it's in such a low amount. It's not even active. But this Kaffir not only is it way more potent and higher in bacteria. It's physically alive from the second you drink it. So it's actually what a probiotic is supposed to be. And I always tell people with probiotics, especially you drink it, you better feel happy or it's not working or something's wrong. Right. Yeah. You should feel some impact from it because Kaffir it just really is so powerful. Yeah. And it's true. I mean, there's unfortunately everything is always about marketing. And so people get confused because, you know, there's always someone with this new great super probiotic that's going to cure all your issues. It's the numerical cure. But none of them are going to be anywhere nearly as potent as Kaffir. And that's just on the probiotic side. And again, the new trip, it's easy to argue that the nutrition from Kaffir is far more important than the probiotic content. So it's, you know, I mean, Kaffir is just I mean, people now are so unhealthy, even just drinking milk is going to help them a lot. But a big part of that is the the commercial marketing. You know, if you have to make Kaffir in two or three days, and it has to be consumed by the customer within a week from from that commercial standpoint, it's not really profitable. They need to have it on a truck for two weeks, let alone drink it within a week. So right when you do think yourself when you go local, that that's the real way to do it. And that's hopefully what I will do in the future with Frankie syringe, meet and stuff more fermented. But in the meantime, we just have basically water key for grains and you could get grains basically at any local farm. Yeah, right, exactly. You know, but that's one of the things that really brought it to my attention, actually, is your efforts and going local and actually trying to bring these healthy foods to people because it's really what we need. We need people to support their local small farmers, the people that are trying to do things right because yeah, the nutrition is unequal like the supermarket Kaffir. The best supermarket Kaffir has maybe 15 different species or strains of probiotic, whereas the homemade stuff is going to have over 60. And then the CFUs or the column, the colony forming units, the live probiotic is so much exponentially higher in your homemade stuff. So yeah, if you can find a good, if you can't make it yourself, but you can find a good, trusted local source, well worth it, man. So like, I'm glad to see you providing the water Kaffir because I think water Kaffir is more tricky. Actually, for people to manage because it's it's more of a challenge to balance that sugar content. Yes, it is a little tricky. But I guess before we go further, we should make sure people are able to even get this stuff. So yes, you can go to real milk dot com. You can search for dairy key for online, even sometimes on Craigslist or local farm share sites. Anyone can probably get key for ship to them. Even if you're in another country, you can get the actual physical key for grain shipped to you from somewhere else. That's that's not really a problem. Once you have a good key for grain culture, then it's a matter of just figuring out what the highest quality milk you can get is. And in most cases, like organic, high quality, sometimes they even have low heat pasteurized from the supermarket. That's available. A lot of states, even California, has raw milk available in the physical supermarket. But just about every state, the raw milk laws, you can go to a local farm, buy some raw milk, and you should be able to do it. But you basically want the highest quality milk available. Most importantly, remove the agrochemicals, the negatives, the herbicides, the pesticides, you go grass, federal organic for that aspect. And then raw is where you're really getting the raw, the anti-scorbutic properties, the bacterial benefits. And on the side note of that, you know, we do have water key for grains available on my website. And water key for is it's a good starting point for someone that doesn't want to spend it, start investing 20, $34 every week on raw milk to keep their key for going to have a high quality culture always active. Right, right. A lot of people also can't start on the dairy right away. So I have some clients, in fact, I have a client currently in Australia who just recently moved over to the milk kefir, but he couldn't do it. And he started off with water kefir and then credited that with getting him to the point where he could handle dairy again. Yeah, I've been drinking water key for every day, maybe at least half a gallon a day for months and months and months. That's been a real saver for me. Nice. But let's go into, let's start talking more about key for why it's so nutritious. And then we can kind of draw a comparison in like how much better is it than water key for, you know, from that probiotic perspective, from that vitamin and mineral perspective as well. Gotcha, gotcha. So the key difference is going to be, yeah, that the probiotic diversity. So as far as the probiotic side, the diversity, there's just a lot more strains in the milk kefir. The water kefir can only support so many, right? So it's like four or five times as much in the milk kefir. And that makes it a lot more potent. It also makes it, another thing about milk kefir is it's more resistant to contamination. It's like one of the easiest things to maintain. It's like, if we look at these kefirs as like taking care of a pet, like something, water kefir is still excellent. Like that's much easier than like a beet kevas or kombucha. Those are easily contaminated. So they're more risky. The water kefir is still better than those. I like it for that reason because it's diversity. But then milk kefir is again, even more so, it's a very resilient thing. It's very hard to kill it. It's easier to take care of it, et cetera. And that's because of its incredible probiotic diversity. And when you have that many more probiotics, the probiotics, they create the vitamins first. They liberate the minerals. They provide all the different enzymes. And that's when we get into all the other stuff. So from the probiotic foundation, you end up with more vitamins. And I talking about the second fermentation is when it really kicks in because now you start breaking down whatever fruits or vegetables and things you're putting in there. And you'll get a lot of, for example, you get a lot of vitamin B from kefir, from the milk kefir. I'm not sure off the top of my head from water kefir about the B vitamins, but kefir is really good for B vitamins and a second fermentation, even more so. And then you'll also get vitamin C. Like I love to put lemon peel into my kefir. I don't blend it, because I'll do lemon water in the morning. I'll save my lemon peel. And then after I blend in like banana or something with my kefir, I'll put the lemon peel or an orange peel. And man, it's a wonderful flavor on top of that. But you're sucking out a lot of the vitamins in a safe way, because we're not getting the anti-nutrients. They're being neutralized through the fermentation. Yeah, if you make this stuff properly, whether it's water kefir or dairy kefir, it is absolutely delicious. Like you should be enjoying this. I was doing some dairy kefir ferments with organic orange juice and it basically tastes like orange soda. But let's kind of break down the nutritional value of raw milk versus the nutritional value of kefir versus the nutritional value of a second ferment kefir. Okay, cool. So when we look at raw milk, so raw milk already has like everything. So looking at like this stuff I have listed. Yeah, it's like everything besides iron, right? And Omega-3 is basically. Right, right. Yeah, you won't have your high content of Omega-3's in there. Because there's really nothing we're gonna add to change that. But what will happen is, when you get into the peptides. It's like a fillet of mackerel in your second kefir ferment. I guess, Ben, I don't think I would want to drink that myself. But who knows? There might be somebody out there who loves it. There's some limit that's gonna do that now. Yeah, it could be. Well, let us know people if you come up with any crazy new recipes. There are endless recipes out there. So in fact, well, since you mentioned that, you could put like one cool thing. You could put flaxseed and chia seeds in there. And that's gonna increase. And like, honestly, I actually hate the flaxseed, flaxseed oil trend because most of that flaxseed oil becomes rancid. It's like a trendy abusive thing. So what are the bacteria in the kefir are able to metabolize the Omega-3's that we aren't? Well, you're gonna get from the flaxseed oil, you're gonna get some. Oh, I see. So you're, yeah. So if you put flaxseed oil in there and chia and even chia seed too, you'll get some of the Omega-3's. They're not gonna, it's not gonna end up going rancid. It'll be protected in the kefir. So this is an interesting thing. Like we, this is one of the tricks also with fermented cod liver oil, the fermentation and the metabolites and stuff, stuff, they're protecting the oil from becoming rancid. So that whole oxidation thing is very complicated. But so that is a trick you actually can get Omega-3 content into your kefir that would not be available via milk just by adding fresh flaxseed. It removes the anti-nutrient concerns of the flaxseed. That's probably what people are worried about. Exactly. You're getting rid of the anti-nutrients and you're actually preserving it because a lot of people, they buy flaxseed oil, they leave it out. That stuff goes rancid very quickly, very easily. And so you're not really getting the benefits. So that's one trick that you can do. And then back to the other differences. Like one of the huge differences between the milk and the kefir is the peptides. So even a kefir that is not done perfectly well. Tell people what a peptide is, just very simple. Wow, so, let's see, a simple way. When we bring in proteins, a protein is a really complex thing, right? And then the kefir will rip apart like the cacin proteins or the whey protein. So people are familiar with those terms but these are really big, complex molecules. And the building blocks for those are amino acids. And so the kefir actually rips it apart. Now it gives you all your essential amino acids, which is amazing because now your body builds the proteins that it needs. So it takes the cacin protein, the kefir rips it apart and it just gives your body the building blocks. But the kefir is also building these other complex molecules called peptides. And these are, they're so complex. We don't even fully understand. There are so many different peptides. And kefir has over 200 unique peptides that are not found in milk. So somehow for some reason, kefir is creating peptides and we can almost look at these as like soldiers. They're not living creatures, right? But just like, I don't know if people understand like proteins actually can move, they can fold, right? Peptides are, we could say are more complex and they're responsible for a lot of things that like for the anti-inflammatory properties, it's due to peptides because peptides will act upon all these different things. And it's a pretty hot topic in the anti-aging community and elsewhere about all these different unique special peptides for anti-aging. Would you compare it to an enzyme in a way? Sure, you can't. Because an enzyme acts on things. Yeah, it's a very, yeah. You're both proteins, yeah. That's good, I think, for people to relate that. Even if we're technically inaccurate, I think it's still a good thing because we understand enzymes like really active. We think of them as like digesting stuff. So peptides are doing all of these other active things in the body. Yeah, they're far more complex than an enzyme. Right, right. They're more complex, less understood. There's more diversity, I think, among peptides. And so again, milk, kefir provides over 200 unique peptides and we don't fully understand them all. Yeah, really simple, quickly. Let's touch on the vitamins and the minerals. And then the probiotics, the proteins, the fats are a bit more complicated. So in the vitamins, I guess the question would be what doesn't kefir have, right? So if we looked at raw milk and we say it has everything for life, well, it doesn't really have vitamin C, right? So that tends to be the thing that's missing. It's very small. Now, right, very, very small amount. So now we take kefir and we do a second ferment. And now we're bringing in a bunch of vitamin C and we're also cranking up the B vitamins. So even in the first ferment, we still have more B vitamins because the bacteria, they're producing B vitamins. And B1, which is especially important for detox and energy and all kinds of other things like breaking down carbs, et cetera. So the kefir kind of, I guess, would make up for that. Maybe the perhaps the biggest weakness, if we're talking about just compared to milk or compared to even a first ferment, that second ferment would bring in the vitamin C. With your water, kefir, you tend to have it anyway because you tend to be fermenting like fruit juices and stuff, right? So that would be the biggest thing. And I can't really think, you know, you got vitamin A. The B vitamin profile, B vitamins that are hard to get like full later, a bit higher in the kefir. Yes, yes, like you're at your B9. B1 is not so hard to get actually, except that we need a lot of it. Yeah, you do. Yeah, so I think, so this is the other thing with the kefir and this is something that a lot of people don't consider. When we talk about the vitamins and the minerals, minerals and the quantities, the thing is we can drink so much kefir. So it doesn't need to have a super high percentage of the vitamin Bs or the minerals of the vitamin C because we can drink a lot and it's bioavailable. And we can drink it three times a day every day if we want. Yeah, people don't realize that drinking kefir is stronger than a conventional B complex supplement. Now, now I did. Now this is a side note. I did design a supplement that I have that's pure liquid and B vitamins in the ratio they're supposed to occur. So that's a little different. But if you're just talking about like a B complex pill versus actual water kefir or milk kefir, you go with the kefir all day for B vitamins. Right. Excellent. You know, this is very interesting because I just had this kind of drinking liquid B vitamins. That's what like it's like a chunk of steak that your body has to break down and digest. Your it's almost instant absorption. That's why whenever I if people have a headache or something, I tell them to drink a glass of milk because even milk, not let alone kefir, is like liquid B vitamins. Nice. Nice. Yeah, that's great advice. I just had this conversation today in my group and it was a really good conversation about, you know, maybe sometime because they were asking me, do you ever, ever allow for people to take a vitamin supplement? Because I'm always telling people, just food, food, food, stay away from the synthetics. But I said, I was like, look, yeah, you know, an emergency situation. If you think of it as a trauma, you can't get to your kefir. You can kind of confirm by taking it to be complex. So we can use those supplements to fill in the gaps until you can get to that real food. Yeah, my view base was when I was switching off carnivore diet, the nutritional imbalances were so extreme. It's not like your people coming from a standard American diet. My people were coming with, you know, severe copper deficiencies. They don't have enough vitamin D. They don't have they need supplement vitamin K to the reason I actually started my company organ supplements was to make all the supplements that I had to take. It was coincidentally, since I was carnivore, it was all the plant based minerals. It was manganese, magnesium, molybdenum, some selenium. A lot of plant based minerals were too low on the carnivore diet. So in order to realistically fix myself with a compromised stomach within a couple of months, the minerals did that very, very well. Nice. There's definitely some extreme circumstances where. Right. I think that's that's like I like to explain it. You got to look at it. Is it if it's a trauma situation and really sometimes it is, you know, and you can't you can't get access to the food you need. Then you grab those things and you just look for the best you can. Yeah, silly anecdote for that was I was trying to eat shiitake mushrooms because they're incredibly high in copper and magnesium. But they were coming out the same way they came in, you know, a couple of months ago. And then as I started drinking kefir, as as my digestion got better, as I was taking enzymes, then the mushrooms were digested. So then I knew I was actually getting some nutrition from them. That's awesome. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Yeah, what a difference it makes, right? To be able to digest it to absorb it. Like I said, it's like drinking the B vitamins. It's just, you know, a lot of people, they don't understand. I mean, I think people nowadays are they're familiar with the idea, you know, the vitamins that they pop, that they've been popping for 30, 40 years. They've just seen him in the toilet. You know, do it help. So yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, it's better to just let it go through and hope you don't absorb all the toxins from it. But also nowadays, we got a lot more, more responsible supplements. And it was that are out there, right? So people get better at it. Food is still number one. And yeah, and for me, I think Kaphir is just, you know, it's unequaled in the nutrition it gives us for those reasons, the bioavailability, the digestive assistance. Everything is there. And the same thing with the minerals, because you get in everything you get from milk. There are a couple of things like you mentioned, the molybdenum. You know, you really got to get like liver or beans for that. So but again, to compliment the diet, like, you know, for carnivore people, like people that are using carnivore, you know, to help them sort out to just get the toxins out and clean. Man, if they had Kaphir in the diet, that would help so much. You know, a big one big component that they don't have a look is or that's overlooked is the calcium versus phosphorus ratio. And meat is very high in phosphorus, but the dairy kind of counteracts that perfectly. Right. And one thing. Yeah, one thing we can definitely do a separate podcast on is actual, like, what's a chelation? Like, what is what form of taurine is even in meat? Why carnivore diet is more bioavailable? So we can kind of talk about chelation is a little bit here about the minerals and key for. But we definitely want to save that that broad topic for a whole. Yeah, chelation can be fun. Yeah, because we can talk about even the detox stuff with chelation, too. So yeah, that would be cool. All right, separate top. There's a lot of things we can go into. It's kind of hard to stay focused when you're on kaffir because you do touch upon so many of those different things. Yeah. Because, like, you know, you could do a whole thing on peptides, on amino acids, on the enzymes. I mean, all of it, you know, it's just all there. You know, like, I'm actually my hat's blocking that. So I have a comment above my head, a lifestyle anchor. I look at kaffir that way because we're trying to get people into a lifestyle, right, the habits of eating better. And again, if we're looking at supplementing in a trauma situation, you know, we're until we can get to that better lifestyle. And I think kaffir is great for that. And I think for someone like Frank, it was probably easier because you're you're a doer. I mean, you're out. You're in the kitchen, you know? So you're doing the cooking. You got too much work. It's yeah. Right. Exactly. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. So that's tough for people. And you're looking at once if you prepare all your meals yourself. From scratch every day, you're looking at least one to two hours a day. But right. But that's what our ancestors used to do. They used to spend half the day in the kitchen. That was their job, like the job of humans was the job of humans was actually to eat food, not to sit around and type type on a desk and then pay for your food with money. And that job was also a passion. So it's like I love to be able to get people to to turn it like because we have a negative connotation to it, of course, because they don't have time, right? I mean, now modern world, it's a lifestyle change. So that's why I like to get people you think of it. It's like taking care of a pet. You give that pet love and it's going to give you love when I'm talking about kefir and it does. And hopefully it helps people get back into the kitchen. Instead of being just laborious, maybe brings a little passion back because that relationship with food is just so important. What I suggest is a lot of these foods you can get from a local farm, but it's far more expensive than to do it yourself. So even if you're broke and you don't have any time, then you're in a tough pickle. But the advice I have for you is spend that money for a week or two by those high quality foods from the local farm. See how you feel and then maybe you do want to keep investing that amount of money or maybe it'll give you the energy and make it worth it for you to do it yourself. Yeah, 100 percent. I mean, I love that idea. I would love everybody to start out that way, too, because they're supporting a local farm is supporting the planet, which is supporting yourself because it's all connected. Right. So I mean, that's just a great idea. And we learn from the farms, too, because you never know. You make you make a human connection, too, if you can. You never know what else don't get me started talking shit about the Amish. Oh, they might as well be. They might as well have the star of David on their farm and their on their barnyards. But let's talk about that another day. OK. You know, there's so many different conversations. But yeah, anyway, for sure, definitely support the local farms if you can. It's listen, the local farms are better, better than supermarket, but they're still they still might be jerk offs ripping you off. Yeah, right. You got to do your homework. Absolutely. You know, a lot of them, too, they just don't understand because, you know, I like to refer myself to as a Y is traditions. Nutritionist, because I like to look to the past. I mean, it's actually the title on my certificate from Hawthorne University. But I love it because it's the idea our ancestors did it right. But a lot of the modern farmers, they lost the wise traditions. They don't know what they're doing, right? They don't understand. They don't appreciate how to do it right. And so they need some education, they need some help, because a lot of them I'm sure would love to do it the correct way. You know, you get a lot of heroes out there that are doing it right. You know, I mean, this is kind of on top because it has to do with the key for procurement. But, you know, when I was going out there to Pennsylvania, I knew some farmers knew what they were doing. But I mean, I had a lot of more knowledge in regards to like what the animal supposed to be fed, how you're supposed to make the food. You know, these guys are taking high quality raw grass and milk, putting it in plastic containers, using regular commercial enzymes to make the cheeses. So you're taking what could be a perfect quality product. And it's not it's just not 100 percent there. Right, right. It's so sad to see sometimes the tiniest little thing completely destroys a product. Spend the extra 50 cents on the glass. Yes, absolutely. It's worth it, man. It's absolutely worth it. Yeah, you spend an extra 10 cents rinsing it out with some quality water. Yes, yes, definitely. And that's the best way to spend money is on your food because you're going to it's going to pay you back. It's the best investment because otherwise you're going to pay it out medical bills or you're just going to have a shorter life. You know, so I mean, it's that's the best thing. I mean, I really can't think of a better investment than spending your money on good food and getting educated on what is good food. So definitely learn on what's good and Kaffir is good food. So Kaffir, you know, like there's so many things you can go into into Kaffir like because when we talk about the second fermentation, when we start adding like these other things like the banana or mentioned, yeah, let's where we kind of all over the place. So let's briefly sum up what what that first fermentation is the kefir. So we took the raw milk, which is already incredibly nutritious, basically everything incredibly high besides the omega 3s and iron. And you don't really need iron. Most people have too much iron right now in their diet. Right. And unavailable iron, but that's a whole different topic. Then the kefir breaks it down initially and then you have. And then you take the fruit. So you've got the Kaffir, the lactose is gone or almost all gone. So now you've got this Kaffir drink, which will taste like a very strong yoghurt drink. How much are the proteins in the fast broken down from the first kefir ferment? Oh, it's impossible to say because there are so many variables. So you've got in. So this is part of the art of Kaffir. You're going to they'll tell you, OK, the ratio of grains to milk should be like anywhere from five to one to 12 to one. And that's going to depend on temperature, humidity, altitude, the exact type of milk and your unique grains. Because as soon as you get Kaffir grains and you make it, it starts to absorb whatever is compatible in your environment. So everyone's Kaffir will be unique. It will be slightly unique. So predicting how much like the proteins, the fats, that are broken down is like impossible. They're not broken down 100 percent. So I can tell you that, for example, if you can't, if you have trouble handling castine to break down castine, you might be OK because the Kaffir is going to break down a lot of the castine, but it's not going to break it down 100 percent. There will still be whey protein. There will still be casting protein. And there are dozens of different proteins in milk, actually. It's not just those. Those are just the two groups, right? So I can't predict what I can say is that if you take Kaffir and you ferment it for 24 hours until you start to see a little bit of whey, you start to see it breaking up. You'll know you've got over 90 percent of the lactose is gone. Now, if you take that and you put it in the fridge for a few days and just one quick interjection, if it's cold outside, if it's like 30, 40, 50 degrees, the key for my take three, four, five days, not one day, but now in the summer in the spring, it's about 24 hours. Exactly. Exactly. So it's it's it's an art to figure out how to do it. It's not that difficult, but like in the winter, my my ratio of grains to milk is maybe five to one. And in the summer, it's maybe 12 to one or 15 to one. A little bit of grains ferments that milk fast in the warm weather. So yeah, it's it's a little bit tricky, but you learn. And it's not that difficult. And if you over ferment, it's not that it'll taste a little strong, but you're not killing it. Yeah. If right. And if you under ferment to exactly, as you said, OK, you need another day, you need three days, whatever, you'll get people learn how to do it. So that's that's the key to making it better. It's going to be more nutritious, more probiotics. So you get to that point where you removed most of the lactose. And now you have this this nice kefir or it looks like a yogurt drink. And now you blend in like a banana. And here, too, again, the ratios can vary a lot. You take a liter of kefir, maybe you blend in one banana or two bananas, or maybe two bananas in a mango. You could do a lot of different things. I like to add the super. I got the super green juice powder. It's like 44 different things. And I put a scoop of that in there. And now remember those foods, the fruits and vegetables, they're prebiotic, right? So they're going to promote the growth of different kinds of bacteria. And it's really cool because now you you put those things in, you blend it with the kefir, you leave that out for maybe anywhere from four hours to 12 hours. Again, you got to be careful. It might over ferment, but you get that to a certain point. And then you put it in the fridge and in the refrigerator, it continues to ferment just more slowly. And it kind of mellows out. And the probiotics are adjusting to the food source. So now, when you think about this, kefir is unbelievable, just straight. But now you take these prebiotics like banana, mango, whatever blend you want. And the probiotics are going to adjust their population accordingly, which could be even a better balance for your body. So now you get that better balance. A really good analogy for that is think about it this way. The key for grains are in an environment where they're only consuming milk. If you add fruit or bananas or starch or carbs or sugar, it's creating more of an environment like your stomach. So you're basically imagine if you actually this sounds gross, but imagine if you actually vomited your meal and put that in with the kefir. That would actually be almost kind of like what you're doing with the fruit because you're giving the kefir fruit. So it's going to be more used to your microbiome, more balanced, not just ready to digest milk, milk, milk, milk. Right. Right. Yeah. Exactly. You're saying, look, this is what my body wants to consume. Prepare all of it for me. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really fantastic. Because you see, you end up you end up with more vitamins that way. Right. You're liberating more minerals like a fruit smoothie. It's like ice cream. It's so good. Oh, my God. We need another hour if we start talking about flavor. It's if you like you put oranges in there. It's cream, orange soda. It's better than soda. It's better than so. Yes. Very good. It's insane. It's insane. We do all kinds of different flavors. Like years ago, the first the first time I did I did peanut butter banana and then you know, like nuts are not the best thing for us. But again, once in a while, something in the world. Yeah. And again, like I tell like I've had clients that were like addicted to peanut butter. I was like, all right, listen, I'm going to make you feel better. You go, you get the best peanut butter that you can can get. That's number one. And you put a spoonful of that into banana. And now you're fermenting it. And it's already like dry roasted peanut butter. So which is a little bit better. But now you put it in the kaffir. So you're getting rid of those anti-nutrients and the flavors. The first year I was doing banana peanut butter or chocolate banana peanut butter. I put a little cacao. I know that's not great either. But I was addicted for a year. Like I didn't eat like any drink, any other flavor. It was crazy. But now I did that with banana mango. I was obsessed with that for a long time. There's so many things like you're a culinary guy, Frank. I mean, I mean, I guess you consider yourself a culinary guy because you seem like that to me. So I can imagine you would go nuts with all the flavors. Yeah, a lot of the culinary things in the United States are a lot different than other countries. You know, when you go to Europe, when you go to South America, when you go to other countries, they they have more of these fermentation traditions or where they're doing a lot of these things over there. It's definitely not as much of an American thing. Right. Right. Yes, you're really taking this way beyond what Americans are normally comfortable with, which is a great look. You go to the Middle East, you go to India. They probably have they might have kefir on their countertop and they might know more about it than me or you because they had. They've been drinking for 20 generations. Exactly. They forgot more than we know. Yeah. You know, that's the key. And I find that a lot of times, too, because I do I work with people all over the world and like, I'll tell them, I'm like, listen, what did your grandmother eat and drink? What did your grandmother say? How did your grandmother do it? Reach back, man. Those people had the knowledge and that's what we're trying to bring forward again. Or we're trying to get back to these healthy ways because, wow, it's it's just so powerful and delicious and fun. It's just mind blowing stuff. Yeah, the flavor stuff is incredible. And what's cool is that it's not just we're enjoying the flavor, but we're also adding, again, diversity to our food, right? Because diversity, consuming diverse things is good for us, right? So it's good to get a lot of different foods. And even though Kaffir is just Kaffir, it's a platform for diversity. And that's just like it's incredible for that, too. Another reason why it's such a powerhouse and it makes you feel good, man. I mean, it just it feels good when you're you're drinking this like chocolate shake, you know, my mother's like my mother addicted to it. She's like she's like, I just like can't believe that this is actually good for me. Yeah, it is. It's just amazing. Yeah, we should definitely make it clear that when people are worried about the sugar content of water key for or the lactose sugar content of milk, if it's it's all gone, it's bacteria. It's pure protein, pure B vitamins. Yeah, you're breaking it down. And those bacteria are going into your gut to continue consuming whatever might be there, right? So the protection is still there. It's just it's really so amazing. Yes, people freak out when I'm eating cookies and I'm like, no, the bacteria in my stomach is what's eating those cookies. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. And then turn it in, turning it into good stuff. You know, and of course, I don't want to promote, you know, like high sugar or anything like that. You know, it's it's within this framework of all of these microbes, you know, and all of these other metabolites and things. It's just so good. And then, you know, like another simple thing we know, again, with a second ferment, you're actually you actually are getting some fiber now editing, you know, like from, you know, whatever bananas or other fruits you're putting in there that remember that helps. That's another sugar trick to help slow down sugar absorption, gives the body a chance to break it down. So it's yeah, it's really good stuff. We don't we don't have to fear the sugar as much when we've got to the water fear and milk fear. It does a better job. I get more nervous with kombucha. So that's some I think that's a great drink, too. I just think it's more difficult to handle it really well, because it's more easily contaminated, a little more difficult to know for sure it's going out. It's not really as much of a bacteria, probiotic benefit. It's very yeast based. It's almost like it's almost like a drink, as opposed to probiotic like nutritional drink. Right. Yeah, it's just not as powerful as the work fear. I don't consider them really in the same class as much as I like it. But again, so I never recommend people that are healing. So I mean, I guess most people that are listening to you or me, these are people that are in some state of unwellness. And so they need to be even more careful. I mean, for healthy people, I'd say, yeah, look, kombucha, that's great, you know, but we want to heal. You want to get the best stuff you can first to increase your chances of getting healthier sooner. Yeah, when we mentioned the tablespoon of kefir, starting with a very small amount earlier, that's the other thing to keep in mind. If you do have dysbiosis, gut issues, it can be very difficult to get things rolling depending on the severity of those gut issues. A high quality yogurt is similar to what we're talking about here. You want to get raw yogurt from a local farm. Sheet milk or goat milk is a bit easier on the stomach and you want to make sure the culture is correct. That is basically a less potent version of kefir. And I've noticed due to the like the structure of yogurt, it like flows, it's not pure liquid. It's not absorbed and digested as quickly. It can kind of move through the digestive tract and that bacteria can push through a bit further. High quality yogurt is definitely a great introduction before you start having kefir. Yeah, very nice way. Like, yeah, good intro, good gentle introduction. Kind of work your way up to the kefir. I like that also that you mentioned about the other kind of animal milk. I think a lot of people don't realize that, you know, you can use any animal milk. When I drank kefir, I actually did sheep and goat kefir, not dairy kefir. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah, it's really good stuff. It's actually a little bit easier, too, because the fat globules are smaller. So it's naturally homogenous that makes it a bit easier for us. And it's even easier to make the kefir because with the cow's milk, like, if you get from a Jersey cow, you got all that cream separating and then it can kind of smothers the kefir a little bit. So you want to stir it up more. So yeah, so that's that's really good. Like, people don't realize if you if you have sheep or goat milk available to you, buffalo milk, he's like, oh, my God, he's insane. We're just having conversations with some people that, yeah, oh, my God, buffalo milk is another one. Very good. So you have lots of good milks out there. It doesn't have to be the cow milk. So yeah, we could switch over to the dark side where there have been many, many stories of especially people being carnivore, they drink kefir. It gives them SIBO instantly. And in my case, that happened, too. If you have liver dysfunction, if you have iron in your liver, when you drink kefir, the bacteria, the yeast, yeast in a big way or act as protective things for your body. So when you're when you consume the kefir and then you consume some lactose and the sugar, what's actually going to happen is that sugar, that glucose, that bacteria is going to suck metals and bad stuff out of your liver. But you're going to have a crazy, crazy detox. So SIBO is in a way trying to get metals, bad stuff that you don't want in your body and take it out. The problem is it gets stuck in that small intestine. It gets stuck in your liver, it gets stuck in your stomach. You start having very, very bad responses. And that's that's the extreme end of things that can happen when you drink kefir. That's the very extreme end. And if that does happen to you, then having to do antimicrobials, consuming higher fiber foods is a big helper. High soluble fiber. And then also just pushing things through, maybe switching over to water kefir. Well, I'll tell people do clay and the PBX, PB zeolite that I just posted today. I just made a post. Actually, I stole a post from my friend, Melanie, about exactly what you're saying. Like Candida is there. It's grown out of control because it's grabbing the heavy metals. Heavy metals, toxicity to build those biofilms. And so we can have biofilms anywhere in the body. And so I love the combination of if I have kefir and the PBX zeolite, that that that just takes care of anything. We'll have to do a whole, we'll have to do a whole separate topic on this because people have no idea what that is. Right. Right. So scratch that. You guys didn't hear that from you yet. Yeah, if you guys are curious about what zeolite is, just a brief explanation is it's a as a specific energy composition where it can actually bind to metals and take things out of the body. But we'll do a whole might do a whole separate podcast on that to explain it. Yeah, yeah, that's it's too much to go into now. But I think people probably understand like clay. You can think of it similar to that. And just grabbing the garbage help collect charcoal. They're probably more familiar with charcoal charcoal. People do charcoal or even like, you know, you mentioned about like herbs and things that do chelation. But that's again, we'll do another separate video on chelation. Right. So yeah, we got to get the toxins out. And kefir is actually great, actually, because bacteria helps us detox. You know, I should have listed. I didn't list that behind me. But man, the probiotics are fantastic for detoxing. Our gut detoxes a lot of stuff through the back. Just like it pulls the anti nutrients out of the plant foods. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. And it's just like what you were saying before about the candida or SIBO, you know, the bacteria are there. They're growing because they're grabbing that stuff. You've got toxin issues now. Now, for you keto carnivore people that are watching this, don't just look and say, hey, the kefir has no sugar, no lactose. I'll just have kefir on my carnivore diet. It needs something to eat. You got to have carbs. You got to have sugar. You got to have some type of fiber. You got to have something else in your diet. Even if it's just raw milk with sugar in it, the kefir needs something to actually consume. That's why SIBO is very prevalent in those carnivore keto communities when they don't consume enough, enough plant volume, enough carbohydrate, starch and fiber. Oh, yeah, we'll have to do we'll definitely have to do a video about that stuff for all those people. Yeah, because we can go into a whole bunch of cool stuff. I have a lot of good stories in my group about that. I don't know if they're carnivore people or nest seller keto, but some of them for sure. Yeah. It's it's tends to be people think they're OK. And then after a year or two, three on the carnivore diet, it's like I told you so. Right. You know, it's tough because a lot of people like I don't get into the idea of like just busting biofilms because it's going to come back. If we don't get the toxicity out, it's going to come back. That's why I want to make like the lifestyle change where you make sure you got the detox going to kefir is there, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, we'll we'll go off on that stuff. We can go into the dark side a lot more in another video, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So here I I think we've been bouncing around to just about all these different things. I think we covered everything that's on this wall behind me, actually. We're going to touch upon fat too much, but I think people understand, especially in your community, how important fat is and that the fat is now there to help absorb all the fat soluble vitamins, which are also there with the kefir. Fat is insanely complex. So I would there's dozens and dozens and dozens of different fatty acids. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's so complicated. And but that's another wonderful thing you get from the kefir. I think maybe one of the thing that's cool to touch upon is the whole idea of kefir seems to be like anti everything like, you know, like it'll be some people will advertise it, you know, from marketing, you know, it's anti fungal, anti microbial. You know, it's anti thrombosis. It's you know, it's anti cancer. You know, there's studies that kefir stops everything. And it's not because it like targets all these things. You know, it's just because of the synergy. It's giving you everything. Yeah. The kefir is what your stomach is supposed to have in it. So obviously, when you put the correct microbiome in place, all the other problems go away. Right. Exactly. Exactly. It's just really amazing. So in the studies, you can see like so people don't have to believe anything you or I tell them, they can find tons countless studies on kefir that demonstrate how amazing it is. And it's hard to find. And yet what we what we talk about creating the context of these second fermentations and such goes even beyond what the studies will show you. So it's very hard to piece together everything exactly, but you'll find it. You know, I mean, for those that, you know, don't trust. I like to tell people, don't don't believe anything I say. Go research and challenge what we're telling you because you'll be amazed at what you find about kefir. Really good stuff. Yeah, there's very little information available on this in general. But I think people will be happy and excited to start trying this, see how they feel. And the main thing that can really go wrong here is it can be tricky to get that fermentation correct and to have the probiotics in the ideal state. So you really want to, you know, pay attention to what you're doing. Make sure the grains are alive. Make sure the grains are high quality. Make sure you're feeling good when you're drinking it. And as with any probiotic, everything we've spoken about today is really in the context of it being done correctly. If you have the high quality milk, if the kefir is made properly, if everything is right, if if you're seeing specific issues from this food that can probably be isolated to either a lifestyle issue or something went wrong along the way of making the kefir. Yes, right, exactly. Yeah, and just keep at it. It's a learning experience, you know, just like with anything else you're doing in the kitchen or in life, you're going to get better and better at it, you know, and and anybody could do it. It seems daunting in the beginning, but you can do it. I thought, you know, years ago, I was like, what? I'm not going to do that. That's crazy. But then it just becomes kind of automatic, you know, it becomes simple and it's well worth it. Man, I'm just I'm grateful for my kefir. Yeah, I think about people drinking their coffee every morning. If you can give them value that they feel good doing this, then they probably do it every morning, too. Yeah, right, exactly. I, you know, I really love that analogy because people will fall in love with their coffee and then they'll go to crazy extremes, right? To get all the different coffee pots and the different coffee blends, et cetera. You know, when you fall in love with something and again, now becomes your passion. So you're getting all of that additional great benefit from all that feel good stuff. And there's I mean, there's a lot of value to that, to feeling good about something and enjoying the flavor. You know, it's and with kefir, you feel like you're cheating. You feel like you're cheating because it tastes so good. It's like, man, there's no way I can be allowed to. Yeah, once people understand food quality and that food is supposed to taste good and be good for you. You know, I mean, I did a sourdough pizza video last week. I have a ton of like junk foods on my channel, like French fries. But when you make it with healthy, high quality ingredients, it's it's good for you. It's just a lot of work. Yes, but it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it. It's always worth it. Very good. Good deal. Yeah. So if you guys want to find out more about Victor, he does have an in depth course on kefir. He has, I think he even has a very long key for video on his YouTube channel. Yes. On my channel, we did the yogurt video. We did the water key for video. We did the dairy key for video. I've showed you guys I've done extensive videos on raw dairy. And we might do podcasts on that stuff in the future, but there's many, many resources on both my channel and Victor's channel. And you had some other stuff available on your website as well, right? Yes. So you can go to my site, writeagenics.me, and I'll have some articles on kefir. I'll have some funny stories. Like I have a funny story called Epic Poop. I got a video on that, too. But that's also related to kefir and your stool. So there's a lot of different stuff. You know, for years, I've been putting up some articles. I don't have nearly as many videos as you on my channel. I got about 100 videos, but I do have a bunch on kefir. And you can see me talking with other people about kefir and actually see like testimonials about like with a woman in Japan where she makes soap with the kefir. You can really go nuts. Like it will be easy for us to just sit here for hours, but I know we've got to cut it short. Like you said, we have other resources and I'm sure we'll be talking more about it in the future, you know, as we go into even other topics. Kefir is part of my protocol. It's part of one of my main tools that when I work with my clients, I try to get them there. So you can you'll see on my website, my YouTube channel, I have the Facebook group where you'll see my clients talking about it. Yeah, I don't really post on Instagram so much. I'm not I'm not really one of these people that's out there a lot. So I'm kind of a hidden secret. So it's amazing that you actually knew about me, Frank. Yeah, yeah. No, I yeah, that's that's that's amazing. I mean, I do have the kefir. I have a I'm actually on the Western Price Foundation's podcast with kefir, too. But that was a little while ago. Yeah, they could probably they could. I mean, most most of my viewers are familiar with them. They can probably search for that. So what I'll do is I'll link I'll link all your stuff down in the comments below or in the description below. You guys can check that out and definitely let us know if you guys want to see any other topics in the future. We'll try to do a few of the ones we mentioned. But if there's something that sticks out, let us know. And maybe we'll end up doing it. So thanks for having me, Frank. Yeah, thank you guys for joining us today. Thank you, everybody.