Bacteria are everywhere and you cant escape them.  Bacteria live on your keyboard, on your desk, in the air that you breath, they live on the the food you eat as well as the water you drink. They live on your skin in your hair and even inside you, actually bacterias favourite place to live is inside you.  In just one millimeter of your saliva you can contain as much as 40 million bacterial cells. ⁽¹⁾  Believe it or not, there are more bacterial cells inside you then cells there are cells of you, ten times in fact. ⁽²⁾    

Because you know bacteria live inside us it's important to differentiate between the different types of bacteria, because not all bacteria is bad.  There are two types of bacteria, there is 'bad bacteria', which can kill you, and 'good bacteria', which you can't live without.  This good bacteria among many things helps us digest parts of our food, so we can absorb and metabolize our food properly.  In fact, good bacteria’s role in food digestion is so important it actually produces vitamins that our body cannot and without them we would die.  For example good bacteria produces vitamin K in our intestines and vitamin K stops us bleeding to death.  Good bacteria creates an environment extremely beneficial to our immune system by maintaining gut health and stopping unwanted bad bacterial growth.  

      
Why we need good bacteria: 

To Help Digest Our Food

To Keep a Healthy Immune System

To Produce Essential vitamins we Wannot

To Keep Our Bodies Healthy and Able to Fight Disease

Prevent Fungal Growth like Candida

Prevent Indigestion

Maintain a Healthy Bowel

When we use antibiotics, they kill all bacteria whether it is good or bad leaving the gut open for any parasite, fungus or bad bacteria to colonize and thrive where the good bacteria has been killed.  Good bacteria supplementation is therefore usually needed for people currently taking antibiotics, or who have a previous history of antibiotic use.   Good bacteria supplements are usually referred to as a probiotics, as they increase the good bacteria life in the gut, and heal the gut from the damaging effects of antibiotics.

Good Bacteria is found in any lacto- fermented food, like the fermented milk product yoghurt which most people already incorporate into there regular diet.  Lacto- fermentation is the process where friendly bacteria partially digest the sugars in the milk or vegetables, naturally producing lactic acid, which is a natural preservative that inhibits bad bacterial growth.  Interestingly many different traditional cultures knew the health benefits of good bacteria and the lacto- fermented foods made from both dairy and vegetables.

Some of the many different lacto-fermented foods produced by different traditional cultures as follows: German Sauerkraut, Korean Kimchi, French Crème Fraiche, Russian Kefir, and Japanese Umeboshi just to name a few ⁽³⁾.  In my view making your own lacto-fermented food is the most fun and interesting way to making sure you get your daily dose of good bacteria to keep healthy, as each time your follow a recipe to ferment a food its like an experiment and every batch is never the same.  But if making your own lacto-fermented food is not your idea of fun there are many high quality good bacteria probiotic supplements will do the job extremely well.

Tips For Choosing The Best Good Bacteria/Probiotic Supplement:

Most good bacteria supplement’s require refrigeration unless stated otherwise.  So remember to keep your probiotic in the fridge, or even better find a product that doesn’t need refrigeration.   The other way to make sure the probiotic supplement your buying is of high quality is to check what strain of good bacteria the product is made from. 

The strain of good bacteria is very important when determining the effectiveness of the probiotic.  Most are made from Lactobacilli Aciodophilus as this was the first good bacteria to gain prominence in the market, but it has known limitations that prevent it from being the best choice.  It is damaged by the acidity and bile of the stomach and degenerates when kept outside of refrigeration.  The best strain of good bacteria for a probiotic to be made from is Lactobacillus Sporogenes as it survives the stomach acid and bile and does not need to kept in refrigeration.   So when choosing a probiotic for yourself or your family, make sure it’s made from Lactobacillus Sporogenes to get the most out of your product.

Quite simply, if you want maximum effectiveness from a probiotic you must make sure the strain of good bacteri used is Lactobacillus Sporogenes. Keep in mind not all products are of this form, so be sure to check.

References

1. Bassler, B 2008, ‘Bacteria Talk’, Nova Science Now.
2. Fallon, S 2001, Nourishing Traditions, New trends, Washington DC.
3. Wassenaar, Trudy M 2008,Bacteria: More Than Pathogens, Action-Bioscience.Org.

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