Discovering The Healthiest, Yummiest Ice Cream EVER

My daughters cows milk protein allergy and my own issues with gluten intolerance and leaky gut have taken me on a nutritional learning journey in recent times and there's one word that keeps coming up in the posts I read and on forum discussions, kefir.  Taken from the Turkish word "keif" which translates as "good feeling", Kefir has long been heralded in traditional cultures for its healing properties, but you know us modern folk love a good scientific study and currently kefir is the source of many which aim to determine its therapeutic value.

Kefir Grains 

In short kefir is a fermented milk product.  It is cultured from grains, jam packed with beneficial bacteria and yeasts.  It is said to deliver more probiotic power than any other probiotic product, including processed supplements.  So with all of this in mind, you can imagine my delight when I came across the magic, healthy deliciousness of Kefi - a simple pot of ice-cream, made right here in Ireland.

Kefi is the brainchild of Conor Saunders, a nutritional therapist, who began experimenting with adding juices and freezing when he couldn't get his kids to drink traditional kefir, which apparently is not to everyone's taste. (I'm trying to source some grains at the moment to start making my own but I fear I've rather spoiled us all now with yummy ice-cream).

After consulting with a nutritional therapist for myself and all three of my children, including my almost 8 month old we were all advised to build up our gut health and embarked on a regime of probiotics and digestive enzymes but since finding Kefi I really don't feel the need to supplement. Anything that makes my life easier is always a winner!

Two things concerned me however - the use of dairy as an ingredient for my dairy intolerant daughter and the sugar content for my wee man.  Thankfully Conor, being only a stone's throw away in Wicklow, didn't mind answering my questions.

Kefi is made from kefir-fermented dairy. Not dairy free then! No problem. Conor says there is every reason to believe that Kefi is tolerated by those who don't tolerate regular dairy.  He explains that the "good bugs" within the product make a range of naturally occuring enzymes that work to break up the proteins and lactose in dairy irrespective of whether the person eating the product has those enzymes. In other words Kefi "auto digests".  Pretty cool, eh?

Being a complete sugar addict - partly due to poor gut health and partly due to having zero will power I am trying really hard to cut refined and processed sugars from our diets. I'm very conscious that my littlest not be introduced to sugars so early in life.  Conor assures me that Kefi is sweetened only with grape juice and contains less sugar per serving than most typical servings of fruit - less than an average apple, orange, banana etc.  It is also 30 times as potent in terms of CFU score and contains many more strains than some of the leading brands of probiotics on our shelves and is fine for babies 6 months plus.

This news makes me both happy and sad.  Happy that my baby son gets to have all of the wonderful health benefits - sad that there's another mouth I need to share with!

Conor also adds that Kefi retains its probiotic power perfectly for up to a year in the freezer.  This however is completely irrelevant to me as there is no way in hell it'll be in my freezer for that length of time.

To find out more and for local stockists visit  http://www.kefi.ie/ 

Enjoy!