I found this article in the research section of Nutra-Ingredients.com: Good bacteria may wipe out antibiotic-resistant pathogens: Study that I feel deserves significant attention. Unless you have been living under a rock, you are aware of the problem with antibiotic resistance, and it’s potential effects on our ability to perform even the simplest procedures successfully. Dr. Oz recently aired an episode about this problem and The New York Times addressed this problem in an article about Antibiotics and the meat we eat. I won’t go into all the details of how dangerous the overuse of antibiotics is for our health, as you are most likely already aware of it. Instead, I want to talk about how good bacteria, particularly from food, will likely be part of the solution to our problem.

As I’ve recently started growing good bacteria in my kitchen for kefir, I’ve had first hand experience how strong these cultures can be. I’ve spent the past couple days with the worst case of detox symptoms I’ve had yet, so much so, that I was wondering if I had the flu. That’s right. I had a sore throat, running nose, cough, acne, chills and hot flashes, which might have been a fever if I had bothered to check. Since I was starting to worry … and I had gotten some Easter treats in the mail and my sugar addicted brain can’t resist it when it’s in the apartment, I decided to try an experiment and see if my symptoms would disappear. I started eating sugar again and stopped my glass of kefir a day. It worked! I felt immediate relief from my fake flu, and a couple days later it’s almost completely gone. Right now I’m taking a break from my kefir until I feel back to normal, and then I’ll build up a tolerance to the stuff until I can drink a full glass a day again without feeling horrible. I had heard about how pathogens will die during the fermentation process, and I had read about how important probiotics are for the immune system. However, until I experienced this detox, I had never truly understood how incredibly powerful they could be.

What can we do to protect ourselves?

1. Buy locally, especially animal products. A lot of these antibiotic resistant bacteria is coming out of the industrial food complex. The animals are pumped full of antibiotics because their living conditions are so disgusting that the animals would get sick and die before they could sell them. Water and soil from nearby farms may be affected as well so even vegetables can get contaminated.

2. Check Food Saftey News for recalls. They have an app for the iPhone, which makes checking easy even from the grocery store.

3. Avoid hospitals by leading a healthy lifestyle. Hospitals have tons of sick people and lots of antibacterial soaps and sanitizers, which do not necessarily kill all the the bacteria, especially the antibiotic resistant strains. If you wish to clean or sanitize make your own natural products.

4. Grow and eat your own fermented food. This food has a rich and long history of bringing health to many cultures. I bought my bacteria at GEM cultures, but if you know someone they may be happy to share. They tend to grow quickly. Plus, you don’t have to repurchase if you continue to feed it … like a pet.