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)
Why do kefir when it STILL has the strep species in it. Ridiculous. Make your own yogurt using a single species probiotic capsule as the innoculant. There, avoided the stupid strep species. Kefir is not the answer.
Hi Kelly.
Although histamine is a byproduct of fermentation, you have to remember that your gut bacteria also produces its own histamine. The issue with people suffering from histamine intolerance is not the histamine, but the inability to break it down. Probiotics like Bifidobacterium infantis and B. longum could possibly cure the intolerance by healing the lining in the gut where the wound is so that your gut can produce enough enzymes to properly break down the histamine. There are plenty of articles and studies online about this very subject and some personal research, with assistance from a homeopath, could possibly put you on a path of healing the problem rather than suppressing the problem.
I understand that if a product is pasteurized, the good bacteria is destroyed. I want to purchase kefir. Would you recommend a brand? Thank you.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of anywhere to purchase raw kefir. All the brands on the market are pasteurized. You need to make kefir yourself if you want it raw with all the probiotics intact. Here is an article plus video that may help you: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/video-thursday-how-to-make-kefir/
Thanks for the awesome article, I learned a lot. Had no idea kefir contained yeast too. I strain mine through a plastic mesh strainer which makes it nice and creamy. Just linked to this post in my most recent article “3 Foods You Think Are Healthy, But Aren’t (and what to use instead)”
Hi Sarah,
Is kefir safe for those who are suffering from GERD?
Can you provide information on how to tell if your milk kefir is alcoholic or getting to the alcoholic stage? Is there ways to test this via alcohol strips, hydrometer etc..? Also, some folks claim that if the milk kefir has a “tingling on the tongue” then it contains alcohol.. is this correct? I am pregnant so I am just trying to be cautious now. My milk kefir almost always has a slight tingling even after just a 24 hour ferment so now I am worried I could harm the unborn baby. Can u provide some accurate info on this?
Thank you so much.
Hi. Your kefir will always have an alcohol present. The level will differ with the time your kefir is fermenting. The longer the fermentation process, the higher the alcohol content. The contents of alcohol within your kefir will not be harmful for your unborn baby if it is fermented at room temp for 24 hours.
HI there,
Thank you for taking the time to write this article. Very useful info here…I was just reading an article on why milk kefir was a better choice than water kefir because of the many strains of beneficial bacteria in milk kefir vs water kefir. thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/water-kefir-versus-milk-kefir/ It said the only reason water kefir would be preferable to milk kefir is that milk kefir has the bacteria streptococcus thermophilus which can aggravate autoimmune disorders, and referred to Jordin Rubin’s book. So I searched for info on this and found your site also citing Jordan Rubin. I am concerned now as I have suffered from Candida albicanus. Can you tell me anything more?
Thank you.
Candida is not autoimmune disease .. it is simply an overgrowth of yeast in the gut. Candida can lead to autoimmune disease over time but that condition in and of itself is not going to be indicative of anything specific autoimmunity-wise.
Hello Sarah, allow me to ask you a question I don’t think is answered (or perhaps even asked) anywhere on the interwebs!?
Context is that I’ve been using milk kefir grains to make raw dairy kefir and coconut ‘milk’ kefir and almond ‘milk’ kefir for several months and am very interested in a kefir yogurt without the additional steps involved in converting milk kefir into yogurt.
So my question is, is yogurt itself, let’s say dairy yogurt, something to which kefir grains can be added and used to *directly* produce kefir yogurt?
I can think of reasons the answer might be ‘no’, including the bacterial strains already present in a yogurt and the viscosity of yogurt, both of which make yogurt very different to milk but I don’t know if these would actually prevent success. I can experiment . . . . but given my relative inexperience am seeking out expertise! 🙂
No, you can’t turn yogurt into kefir by adding kefir grains to it. This is because the yogurt culture has already used up the milk sugar so there won’t be anything to feed the kefir grains.
i cant afford smoothies more than once a week. my kids eat plain yogurt but the kefir was yeasty n sour. i tried for a month n gave up. the only way to get it dwn was smoothies. with yogurt, i make a gallon twice a week by heating the milk n adding some yogurt. plop it in the maker for 24 hrs n im done. kefir seemed like alot less work but was way more. AND then it was inedible. 🙁 🙁 🙁
It’s sad that some people don’t like the slight yeastiness of kefir? I wonder if it’s thinking that it’s yogurt and finding that it has more pizzazz? Anyway, my family is the same. Me I like to just drink it straight…ahh!
So, because I still want my wife and kids to get the benefits, I’ll make a “Kegirt” out of it using chia seeds, vanilla, cinnamon and some good (or not) form of sweetener, they gobble it down. It has to be just sweet enough to cut out whatever is in the kefir that they won’t choose to get over (or just can’t get over).
I think I’ll go drink some more straight, no chaser. *Burp*
does water kefir have same benefits?
Here’s an article on that: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/water-kefir-versus-milk-kefir/