Questions & Answers

Should I Replace Yogurt With Kefir When Doing The MEVY Diet

Many people talk to me about kefir and yogurt. Many people think I’m on the wrong track by telling people to be very cautious with kefir. Well, I’m not going to be because I’ve seen too many patients over the years who make kefir at home and have all kinds of gut issues as a result of the kefir. They got major aggravations, they got more sick, they got more bloated. They had weird stool test results after being on kefir for long periods of time. I’ve even seen yeasts come from kefir. You can get all sorts of yeasty issues in the gut and as a result of kefir. You don’t get that with yogurt. I’ve not seen it. Small amounts of yogurt is a great way to start. If your gut’s not used to ferments or cultured foods like my gut is, you need to be very, very careful, okay?

I wonder if I can give you a kind of an analogy. Well, I like motorcars and motorbikes, but let’s see if we can try from this angle. Let’s say that you haven’t got much experience driving a car, and I’ve got a whole heap of cars at my place. I say, come over, you’ve got a little Toyota Corolla. Let’s get you into a car. And I put you straight away into a Lamborghini. A V-12, supercharged car. I say, right, no problem. Easy. Just hit the gas pedal when it goes too slow and hit the brakes when you want to slow down. Now a small percentage of people in that Lambo are going to do fine, but 95% who get in there are going to wrap their butt around a tree around the corner, because they don’t understand the power that this car has got. They don’t understand.

And kefir has got that power. It can go from naught to a hundred in probably 1.8 seconds. Your gut can get sick really quick from kefir if you’re not careful. Especially if you don’t know how to make it properly. So yogurt doesn’t have that kind of effect. I’ve consistently seen this in the clinic. Now you can call me whatever you want, I don’t care. My clinic experiences mean a lot to me. When I consistently hear the same thing from patient after patient, I tend to give that information to people like you out there. Now no one says this kind of stuff to you. You can go to Jane Smith’s blog over here and Paul Jarron’s blog over there and they’ll all say different things. My recommendations are based on experiences spanning a long, long time.

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I’m not saying kefir is bad. I’m just saying kefir is bad, if your gut is bad. If you’ve got a really dodgy gut, a really bad gut, high levels of yeast infection, massive [inaudible 00:02:36] problem, why would you put something in there that can potentially really flare things up? If you’re a drink driver, if you’re a really sloppy person, why would you jump in the Lambo? And potentially know you could wrap yourself around a tree. You need to exercise caution. So instead of me putting you in the Lambo first, how about we put you into a nice six cylinder car? Just a really good car with good brakes, an average car, a good one. And then you’ll probably get used to that one. After a few weeks you’ll think, wow this is pretty cool. Yeah it’s got power.

And then you go in the Lambo. And then with more skillset, you’ll earn more confidence. You’ll have a far better result. And you probably won’t wrap that car then around the lamp post. So go on, laugh at me. Clinical experience. People telling me the same thing, time and time again. Many different countries. Remember, when my clinic stopped in November last year, we were seeing patients from nearly 60 different countries. I think it was over 60 countries at that stage. I consistently heard the same thing from people in England, America, many countries in Europe, but I never really heard that with yogurt. I did hear people complain about yogurt from time to time. But some of these people were literally having half a gallon of yogurt a day, eating it for each main meal. And it’s a bit excessive.

Remember never be a person of excess, never. Always have temperance, some modesty. Start small and gradually build things up. This is where problems start. But the biggest issues I have with kefir is the homemade stuff. Some kefir you buy, made in proper facilities, can be of high quality. You may want to try that. And again, you may want to start with half a teaspoon a day or a small amount. So the more imbalanced and sick the gut is, the more careful you need to be with kefir. kefir is a great food, when you’ve got a gut like mine, it’s in top condition. Performing excellent bowel motions. No gas, literally no gas, no bloating, nothing like that. Kefir’s going to be fine. But even with me, I don’t have kefir… But even with me, I would start slowly to incorporate that into the diet, before I went into reasonable amounts, always start slow with things like that.

I did that with sauerkraut when I was a kid, I didn’t like it initially, but now I’ve just laid down more sauerkraut and I’m putting another probably a gallon crock down in the next few days. Because our cabbages are coming out the ground. So we’ve got beautiful, fresh cabbages.

Now what was the question again? “Is it acceptable to replace yogurt with kefir in the mevi diet? Absolutely. I talk about kefir a lot in my book. But again, experiences have made me think twice about it. I think kefir is fine if your gut is in great shape, but if your gut is in not so good shape, be careful with it. Yogurt’s fine generally, no matter what shape your gut is in. Especially if you start small and build up. And that’s it. Now we’re going to talk about the mevi diet. Yeah, of course. It’s fine with the mevi diet.