Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives Alternatives and ALCHEMISTS Bacterial selection

This is re probiotics, but not easy to find a suitable thread.
I take sauerkraut every morning as a source of "good" bacteria after trying to starve and maim the "bad" ones in my nightly regime with olive oil and some anti-fungal/sceptic.
Salt is commonly used in sauerkraut to select the lactobacillus and friendly yeast species on the cabbage leaves and to kill or suppress the coliforms. It must be non-iodized or it will kill everything and the cabbage will not ferment properly.

Only recently i remembered that i used to fast with a salt water flush in the early and later stages of the fast. I am now drawing the connection that a hit of salt water (non-iodized) in isolation may be helpfull in selecting out some of the bacteria and yeasts that we do not want. How we actually ensure it travels down the gut is another matter! Possibily enteric coated salt tablets...........
I cannot believe i am saying this, but salt does have a purpose and was not just designed to corrode my arteries and my boat.....................
Interesting that i stopped adding salt (enough in processed stuff) to my food about the same time as my early infections many years back.
Maybe salt was originally used as a medicinal sprinkling on food and not for taste!


Ted
proAS_KickAS

I guess you could consider iodine a broad spectrum antibiotic ! I have had it placed on wounds several times when I was young.. All of them became nasty scars ! But all the skinned knees etc that did not get the iodine healed up perfectly.

Obviously not much can live in iodine.. maybe in trace amounts it makes life difficult for some friendly bacteria, and pushes the scales in favour of klebsiella p. , who knows. If using iodized salt is enough to ruin the friendly bacteria in sauerkraut then I think that is a bit of a worry !

Can you get salt that is not iodized? Wouldn't the levels of iodine in sea salt also be relatively high?

cheers to good kraut!,
z

"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

Iodine was originally added to salt as people were getting diseases caused by defficiency in Iodine. - presumably thyroid diseases.
Later on, (at least in Australia) iodine was surrepticiously slipped into the consumer market via milk - Iodine was incorporated into the detergent used by dairies to wash out the milking equipment. I cannot remember if you can still get those green iodised salt containers - i haven't bought salt for decades. There were always two products available though so there must be negligible in ordinary salt.

As far as Iodine goes your wounds may have been lucky. I still have vivid red memories of Mercurachrome on mine.

Back to bugs and guts, the salt water flush is of course similar effect to epsom salts, but more of a washout - an enema without any insertion.................
The test is - can one actually drink 1.5 litres of salted water!
I haven't done the numbers, but i think sea water would need dilution.
How many grams of salt fit on a teaspoon?


Ted
proAS_KickAS

Well, your post on salt has been kicking around my head for a while. And the more I think about it the more sense it made. I know that pickled / fermented vegetables require salt / sugar / vinegar to be added in order to prevent deadly bacterium from growing..

And since a lot of food is actually fermenting in our guts, it makes sense that adding salt back into the diet would encourage good bacteria to flourish.. by killing of the unfriendly bacteria.

I saw this by accident today, I was pretty surprised !

In reply to:

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The Mayo Clinic had pronounced Lloyd Palmer, of Minnesota, as incurable. Since 1965 he had suffered from excruciatingly painful arthritis of his spinal column -- ankylosing spondylitis. His spine twisted and lost movement until, he says, he became a "walking comma." He suffered pain for 31 years, until he started to drink water and take salt. He writes: "I continue to be pain-free with my ankylosis spondylitis one year after starting the water/salt regime. My blood pressure is normal as well. I thank God every day for allowing me to finally be pain-free."
http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/overview.htm

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"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

Here are some more odd quotes from http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/salt.htm

"In countries which do not alter their salt supply, heart disease and arthritis are so rare that many doctors have never seen a case. Their salt is dried from the ocean by the sun."
...
"REAL SALT can dissolve damaging calcium deposits in the body ."
...
"An eight-year study of a New York City hypertensive population stratified for sodium intake levels found those on low-salt diets had more than four times as many heart attacks as those on normal-sodium diets – the exact opposite of what the “salt hypothesis” would have predicted. (1995) "
Dr. Jeffrey R. Cutler documented no health outcomes benefits of lower-sodium diets. (Salt Institute)



"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

I wouldn't call myself a christian, but if the good man himself tells me salt is good, then who am I to disagree . Here is a quote from Mark:

Mark 9:50: Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. (King James Bible)


Gosh, I do find odd sources for info don't I !

"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy

Good one zark, i've come across all sorts of interesting stuff before on shirley's cafe.
Hope to find more on the salt sometime, but meanwhile i'm happy to eat salted sauerkraut.

Ted
"Auto-immunity or self-help - no decision"

What do you eat the sauerkraut on? Just wondering what your cooking. I need a new friendly food to move on to.

Allan

Allan i'll describe my typical breakfast, varied to uncooked at times from time restraints.
I buy frozen smoked-cod (fillets) as it is individually wrapped, thaws in minutes. If i ate fresh fish, i'd have to buy it every day (or catch it), so i only buy one meal of some fresh fish when i buy the cod. I take it from freezer, leave it in fridge overnite.
I poach it in coconut oil very slowly, with a lid, while i do my exercises.
Halfway thru i cover it with cabbage (or some other green) and sliced ginger.
This steams above the fish, still a little crunchy when i eat it.
I take some fish oil and supplements, and have a side plate of baby beetroot with one imperial dollop of sauerkraut. Beetroot for vitamins, energy, anti-cancer one of the best food/medecines in existence and the sauerkraut to replenish lactobacillus spp as i have probably taken something to kill bugs while i sleep - olive oil and an antibacterial last thing at night.
Otherwise i saute (in OO) then slowly steam chicken or turkey with basically the same. There are no scraps or leftovers - bones go into freezer for soup.
Or i make fritatas with similar ingredients, add sauerkraut and a tomato "pasta-type" sauce. Often i will cook double quantity - to take my lunch or leave for tea.
Once a week (because it takes that long to make it) i also have a glass of kefir (dairy at present).
It may not sound divine, but i love breakfast, it is my main meal of the day. It's now much more appealing than 3 weet-bix with sliced banana and soya-milk.
I have no cultural experience of sauerkraut so am not sure how and how much it is used traditionally, but presume as a side to meat, probably pork.
Mornings, i've been rising at 4 or 5 to spend 2 hours or so working on my boat before breakfast so a cooked meal is great after that. Now winter is so close, i'm not sure how i'll feel about the cooking, but so far so good. I do live the dictum "Breakfast like a King, dine like a Prince, sup like a pauper", but will still dine out - evening meals with friends and at restaurants so those days probably eat a lighter lunch.
bon appetit

Ted
"Auto-immunity or self-help - no decision"

Ted,
Just thought I would let you know that I am doing pretty well on the salt and water regime. I would reckon that my pain level has reduced about 50%.. Will give it more time to see if it is just a coincidence..

Also, before I started with this I had two big ulcers in my mouth .. and lots of little ones. Not to mention I was getting fevers and stomach cramps. So I was getting more and more worried that I might be getting the initial symptoms of Crohn's Disease (scary disease that one..).

Well, my mouth ulcers disappeared quickly after starting on the salt and water. the cramps and fevers disappeared too (these fevers had been troubling me for about a month). I will keep you updated if any of this comes back.

At first the salt and water was just a little a bit rough on my mouth. It felt a little tender on the roof of my mouth. But I was amazed how quickly it toughened up. In just two or three days the lining of my mouth was tougher, and no longer bothered by the salt AND at the same time the ulcers were gone.

The salt seems to have actually stimulated my body to put more energy into healing the lining of my mouth, and make it more resilient.. and that would mean the same for my small intestine.

cheers,
z

"So long and thanks for all the fish" - Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy