Why kefir should be the first choice over yogurt as a fermented milk product for improving digestive health and combating autoimmune disease.
I was chatting with a neighbor recently about her first attempt at culturing a quart of yogurt on the counter at room temperature. This is tricky to pull off unlike kefir, which is easily cultured raw on the counter.
Not surprisingly, the end result was soupy. The culture didn’t seem to “take” like the heated yogurt she produced with her yogurt maker.
I explained that it usually takes several attempts at culturing yogurt at room temperature to determine the ideal scenario for a given home kitchen environment. Kefir, on the other hand, works nearly every single time like clockwork with a failure rate of basically zero no matter the temperature of the kitchen or the season of the year.
I encouraged her to give kefir a try instead of yogurt because ultimately, kefir is the healthier fermented milk product anyway (not to mention easier), for a couple of reasons.
Kefir is Easier than Yogurt to Culture Raw
In order to achieve success at culturing either yogurt or kefir, it’s very important to use the right type of starter.
Most people don’t realize that there are actually two types of yogurt starter:
- Mesophilic
- Thermophilic
Thermophilic is the type of yogurt starter ideal for a yogurt maker. It is heat-loving and cultures at around 110 F/43 C for 5 to 12 hours. The yogurt produced from thermophilic cultures is thicker than yogurt from a mesophilic culture.
A mesophilic yogurt starter, on the other hand, can be cultured at room temperature, around 70 – 77F/21 – 25C. When using a mesophilic culture, there is no need to preheat the milk.
The culture is added to cold milk right out of the refrigerator and cultured at room temperature for 12-18 hours. The yogurt that results from culturing with a mesophilic starter is more drinkable style than the thicker, spoonable yogurt made from a thermophilic culture.
Unlike yogurt starter, kefir is solely a mesophilic culture, which means that it is ideally cultured at room temperature.
Switching up the yogurt starter which has worked flawlessly with the yogurt maker and then using it to attempt raw yogurt cultured on the counter does not usually work. This is a big reason why culturing raw yogurt fails so often for newbies to the home fermentation process.
Ensuring that you have the right type of yogurt starter for the purpose you have in mind, either raw or heated yogurt, can make all the difference to success. With the pricey cost of a gallon of raw, pastured milk in many areas, minimizing mistakes is very important.
If you have little room in the budget for mistakes and want to opt for the easiest raw fermented milk product to make, kefir is the way to go in my experience.
Yogurt Only Contains Transient-Based Probiotics
While ease of fermentation is a big plus for kefir, the biggest reason of all to ferment kefir instead of yogurt is due to the differences in the bacterial cultures each contains.
Yogurt, for example, only contains 2-7 strains of beneficial bacteria, called probiotics. This is true even for 24-hour crockpot-style yogurt.
Yogurt also contains no beneficial yeasts.
What? Beneficial yeasts?
Yes, there is such a thing as yeasts that are helpful to health … they help keep pathogenic yeasts in the gut like Candida at bay.
A traditional yogurt starter contains the following strains of probiotics: Bifidobacterium lactis, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, and Streptococcus thermophilus.
Greek yogurt, which has taken the healthfood community by storm, is ironically the least beneficial of all, usually containing only Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. This is an important distinction as many folks wonder about Greek yogurt vs regular and which is actually healthier.
There is another shortcoming of the beneficial bacteria in yogurt: they are transitory in nature meaning they don’t colonize the digestive tract. Don’t get me wrong, yogurt-based probiotics are valuable in that they help keep the digestive tract clean and provide food for the beneficial bacteria that are already colonized in the gut.
The probiotic strains in yogurt, however, do not colonize the gut themselves, and just pass through which requires a constant infusion to maintain the same health benefit.
A word of warning concerning yogurt and Greek yogurt containing Streptococcus thermophilus from Jordin Rubin, author of Restoring Your Digestive Health:
Studies have shown that people who suffer from autoimmune diseases run the risk of aggravating the symptoms of their disease if they consume more than two cups of yogurt that contains Streptococcus thermophilus. What’s more, Streptococcus thermophilus can cause a shift in immune function known as a Th2-dominated immune system. People with Th2-mediated immune systems have higher incidences of allergies and other illnesses. People suffering from digestive problems usually have imbalanced or weak immune systems. For this reason, avoiding products that may contribute to immune system dysfunction is wise if you have an intestinal disease.
So if you are seeking the best fermented milk product for gut health, it’s probably not yogurt particularly not in excess of two cups per day if the yogurt starter contains the strain Streptococcus thermophilus.
Beneficial Microbes in Kefir Blow Yogurt Away by a Country Mile
Milk kefir is quite different from yogurt in that the strains contained colonize the intestinal tract and don’t just pass through with temporary benefit. Some of the strains in kefir are aggressive in nature too, which means they attack and destroy pathogens reasserting dominance and control of the intestinal environment.
This is why eating a ton of kefir when you have gut imbalance issues can sometimes trigger a temporary healing crisis from pathogen die-off in the gut.
Eating a lot of yogurt rarely causes this type of reaction as the effect on digestive health is much milder.
In addition, kefir contains a lot larger range of bacteria, as well as beneficial yeasts which combat Candida problems.
Here is a list of the typical strains of probiotics and beneficial yeasts in properly fermented kefir, according to the Journal Food Microbiology:
Beneficial Bacteria in Kefir
There are dozens of beneficial bacteria and yeasts in homemade kefir made with live grains compared to only 2-7 in yogurt. This is the case even if the yogurt is fermented at home for a full 24 hours.
Some sources in recent years have measured the number of species in kefir as high as 50-70, so the list below is conservative. There are likely many more!
- Bifidobacterium breve
- Bifidobacterium lactis
- Bifidobacterium bifidum
- Lactobacillus acidophilus
- Lactobacillus brevis
- Lactobacillus casei
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. delbrueckii
- Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. lactis
- Lactobacillus helveticus
- Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens subsp. kefiranofaciens
- Lactobacillus kefiri
- Lactobacillus paracasei subsp. paracasei
- Lactobacillus plantarum
- Lactobacillus reuteri
- Lactobacillus rhamnosus
- Lactobacillus sake
- Lactococcus lactis subsp. cremoris
- Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis
- Lactococcus lactis
- Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. cremoris
- Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. dextranicum
- Leuconostoc mesenteroides subsp. mesenteroides
- Pseudomonas
- Pseudomonas fluorescens
- Pseudomonas putida
- Streptococcus thermophilus
Beneficial Yeasts in Kefir (none in yogurt)
- Candida humilis (yeast)
- Kazachstania unispora (yeast)
- Kazachstania exigua (yeast)
- Kluyveromyces siamensis (yeast)
- Kluyveromyces lactis (yeast)
- Kluyveromyces marxianus (yeast)
- Saccharomyces cerevisiae (yeast)
- Saccharomyces martiniae (yeast)
- Saccharomyces unisporus (yeast)
Quite a big difference in the probiotic benefit between kefir and yogurt, isn’t there?
Moreover, due to the higher potency of kefir, it is easy to stay under the 2 cups per day limit recommended by Jordin Rubin (quoted above) for those with a sensitivity to Streptococcus thermophilus.
If you are trying your hand at home fermentation of milk in order to improve your digestive health and rebalance the gut environment with beneficial microbes dominating instead of pathogenic strains, kefir is going to be the more potent choice for you and your family.
And, while kefir definitely has a stronger, more sour taste than the milder-tasting yogurt, you are guaranteed to not notice the difference if your primary use is for smoothies!
Looking for either thermophilic or mesophilic starter cultures for yogurt or kefir?
Click here for where I get mine and sources I recommend for the best quality and potency.
Sources and More Information
Microbiological study of lactic acid bacteria in kefir grains
Water Kefir versus Milk Kefir: Which is Better?
How to Make Yogurt Cheese (raw or pasteurized)
How to Make Coconut Milk Kefir (recipe plus video how-to)
I’ve been making kefir for about 3 years now. It has benefited my digestion immensely. My sister makes it now, but she can only tolerate small amounts. Still it seems to be helping her slowly heal her gut issues. I’ve had the same kefir grains since I first started, and they keep multiplying. I keep a small mason jar with the extra, and I change out the milk by pouring it into the main batch jar every day, thus rotating it so that all the grains have fresh milk every day. I cull back the main batch jar’s kefir grains to keep it from culturing too fast. I can drink it straight as I’ve come to love the taste. Of course, it’s great with fruit as well. I make all my cornbread and pancakes with it as well. Of course, you have to eat it uncooked to get the bacterial benefits, but cooking with it uses up some excess. I do put the fresh batch in the fridge every 2 or 3 days if it’s making too fast to use up. Take it out after about 24 hours and it recovers with no ill effects. I always refrigerate the fresh batch of kefir for at least 24 more hours to continue the culturing process, using 2 large wide mouthed glass jars with plastic lids. There are 2 of us who drink it at my home. I had 1 batch actually go bad once. There is no doubting that it went bad. It smelled really foul. I threw it all out, washed all the jars well, used fresh kefir grains from the small extra grains jar, and cultured new kefir. Never had another problem, If you ever notice a slimy film on your grains, rinse them well with fresh milk, 2 or 3 rinses, and they will likely be fine. You’ll know if the kefir spoils. I can’t imagine being without kefir, now. One more thing… I use regular Vit D milk from the grocery. No raw cow’s milk here. I did use raw goat’s milk at the beginning, but it’s 60 miles and $10 a gal. The cheap, regular milk does quite well. If I had access to raw cow milk though, I would like to do that.
MY LIBRARIAN WHO WAS AN ARMY NURSE RECOMMENDED THIS TO ME LAST YEAR. I HAVE LOOKED EVERYWHERE AND ASKED ALL OVER. CANNOT FIND IT. HELP. LH
I’ve purchased kefir grains from a couple different sources. The ones purchased from Marilyn the kefir lady…rock! It only takes a couple of days to get them going and soon..you are eaten out of house and home. I usually feed excess kefirand kefir grains to my chickens and dogs. Keeps them healthy and I also share with the other human members of my family. 🙂 Kefir is much easier to make than yogurt, for me anyway. I also have a raw milk CSA, so I’m blessed in that regard. But I have also made it with organic valley milk..works good too.
Wow. This all brings our experience into perspective. Our family tolerates kefir by the half-teaspoonful. We are also majorly mold-allergic. Something’s not right! I think we will continue with those half-teaspoons, increasing, until this is no longer a problem. I’d be curious to know if anyone has had similar issues, or has any knowledge that would help! Thanks so much for this article!
With all due respect to Sarah, kefir is not always the ‘healthier choice’, in fact, it can be very detrimental for those with histamine intolerance or mast cell disorders, for two reasons:
It’s fermented, and anything fermented or aged, is high in histamine.
Many of the strains in kefir, including most lactobacillus strains, but especially l. plantarum, l. brevis, l. casei, s. thermophilus, and then all those yeast strains — murder for those with histamine intolerance.
Yogurt isn’t much better either, for the same reasons — too much lactobacillus and thermophilus, and typically no bifidus strains. In fact, only 2 or 3 strains are known to lower histamine in the gut: B. longum, b. infantis, and l. plantarum.
I just got some kefir grains from a friend and have my first pint jar on the counter ready to drink. Since I am just starting out with this to see if I can heal my digestive issues, should I start with a smaller amount and work my way up to the 2 cups?
Is it possible to “inoculate” raw milk yogurt with milk kefir to get a wide variety of strains? I always use starter from a previous batch to make raw milk yogurt, and I never heat it over 100 degrees. After I couldn’t keep up with kefir and switched back to yogurt, I added some of the kefir to my yogurt starter. My current batch of yogurt has been ‘evolving’ and reproducing for over a year now, much like a kombucha scoby. Am I getting the best of both worlds? TIA
Seems like it would easier to just make kefir.
Thanks Sarah, but you didn’t answer my question. I added a bit of finished kefir to my yogurt starter last year. I have been grandfathering it ever since. Am I “getting the best of both worlds” so to speak? Yogurt is easier for me, because I can make a gallon once a week and be done. Kefir requires too much of my attention since I am a homeschooling mother of five little ones.
Sarah..your cmment about S. Thermophilus strain aggravating autoimmune conditions. Can you validate this comment with science? I have two autoimmune diseases and have been consuming kefir for 2 weeks. Initially..I did not die-off symptoms but I’m not sure I’m doing more harm to myself but eating it. Could you confirm this?
Would recommend a read of Jordin Rubin’s book with his sources at the back since that is where the info came from.
My family loves kefir and yogurt…I’m wondering how particular I should be on the 2 cups limit. Is this recommendation for 2 cups total of feremented dairy a day?…For example, if we are eating yogurt and kefir do you recommend staying under 2 cups for adults and children alike?
Supporting references add so much credibility.
Yes indeed which is why they are included.
I love kefir, but I travel a lot and so I never can keep up with it. Yogurt is just easier to make. To bj above, you can make the same breakfast of rolled oats and fruit with kefir instead of yogurt. And to Jill above, I’ve purchased kefir grains 3 times from the same company. Only one of them ever worked right. I’ve never had success with any of the yogurt, buttermilk, or sourdough starter from the company either. I think some of their packages work well and some don’t. If you try another package or two, you may find one that works.