Nathan Hague

Thailand Kombucha – Healthy Dose Of Probiotics Or Fad?

With its popularity exploding in the last few years, Thailand kombucha is enjoyed by old and young Thais around the Country. One question many people have though, is “what do the probiotics in kombucha actually do?”. After all – you read and hear about probiotics in marketing, on the TV and the internet, and there’s a wide range to choose from! With probiotic yoghurts, probiotic supplements and even probiotic chews and other products for your cats and dogs, it’s quite confusing as to whether all this “stuff” is actually healthy for you or not.

But while the word, “probiotic” is everywhere these days, many people still don’t know what they are and how probiotics can be beneficial to them. In this article, I’m going to explain what probiotics are, and what are the probiotics in foods and drinks like kombucha – and most importantly; What do probiotics in kombucha do?

What Are Probiotics?

First, let’s talk about what probiotics actually are – a “probiotics 101”, if you will!

They are super useful for our gut, and help it to better digest our food and drinks. These probiotics also protect our gut health, and help to keep any bacteria in our gut under control, and not grow out of control into something that can make us sick.

Whilst these same bacteria microbes are in all foods we eat, it is when we ferment our foods and drinks that they really help us. This fermentation process uses both yeast and bacteria, and some of the byproducts of this process are probiotics.

I Eat Healthy Already, So Why Don’t I Get Enough Probiotics From Food?

You might be eating a wide variety of foods, which is great and you should carry on doing that! It’s what we all should be doing really, BUT.. in a lot of modern food, we’ve focused on making it safer to eat than at any time in history.

This is where the problem starts.

Weirdly, by making our food safer to eat in modern food processing, we’ve taken out some of the beneficial things from that food.

Here’s an example of what I mean:

When you process food, you reduce the risk of harmful bacteria so the food is preserved for longer. By removing pretty much all the bacteria and microbes from the food though, you’ve removed most of the good bacteria and microbes too! Let’s apply this to most store-brought kombucha: You’ll find that most of the commercial kombucha has been pasteurised. This pasteurisation process is the same one as used in milk and other drinks: It’s done by applying high heat to the kombucha or other liquid, which does indeed kill all the bacteria – but also kills off the beneficial bacteria and yeasts. It turns an otherwise healthy raw probiotic kombucha into something that’s “dead” in terms of any health benefits from probiotics. (Because they’re all killed in the pasteurisation process!)

I can go on about the fact that very little natural fibre exists in processed food, which can most definitely lead to problems with your digestion, but we’ll focus in this article on the probiotics.

There’s a lot that’s right with modern food production, but also a lot that’s wrong with it. Not all food is equal, and although here in Asia we tend to eat a lot more fermented foods (more on this later), in the West that’s not as common. As a result of Western fast food and brands and products being consumed more in Asia, you can see for yourself the rise in diet-related issues such as Type 2 diabetes and obesity – especially here in Thailand where it’s almost 10% of the population!

Crazy numbers!

How Do Probiotics Get Into Kombucha And Food Products Then?

We’ve talked about how modern food processing focuses on keeping out the bacteria from our food. But you’ve also seen those items on grocery store shelves such as probiotic drinks such as kefir – along with yoghurts. How do they get their probiotics then?

With these products – and ones such as sauerkraut, kimchi and pickles – they’re all known for being naturally-fermented foods. As part of that natural fermentation process, only good bacteria is produced – so you’ll find them packed of the beneficial and good probiotics.

Sometimes with commercial kombucha though, you’ll find that Manufacturers HAVE to pasteurise (laws in countries vary on this). As mentioned previously, if you pasteurise, you have no probiotics in that kombucha anymore. You DO still have the benefits of the useful and healthy amino acids – but you would need to artificially add back in probiotics. Not in itself a problem, but not something a sparkling raw kombucha brand such as KombuchaWOW has to worry about as our kombucha is not pasteurised.

How Do Probiotics Benefit Health?

So with your new understanding that there’s not enough probiotics in modern processed food, then you might be left wondering “how can probiotics benefit my health?” This is a great point, and the science behind this is evolving every week.

1. Kombucha Can Help With Gut Health

Let’s start by talking about the claim that kombucha helps gut health. Well, more specifically that it’s the probiotics in the kombucha that can help with gut health!

Both scientists and medical researchers alike, agree you should have good gut health. Poor gut health is where you have an unhealthy gut microbiome, which means the bacteria and microbes that live in your gut are not in check. This has been linked to everything from digestive problems to some types of cancer and even mental health conditions.

Now while those same scientists and medical researchers still don’t know exactly how important gut health is to our overall health, we’re learning that it’s a lot more critical than we ever imagined. In fact, you’ve probably heard about the gut / brain connection more than once recently!

With so much more research to be done, we do still know many things about the benefits of good gut health – and how probiotics support it!

Probiotics help keep our gut flora in balance. We have a lot of different bacteria and other microbes that live in our digestive tract, and when they are not in balance, we can experience all kinds of unpleasant effects – probiotics help to ensure that everything stays in balance and doesn’t get out of control one way or the other.

You might have experienced this yourself at some point, and you wouldn’t be alone: Diarrhoea and constipation affects many Thais! You also might know someone that been diagnosed with conditions like irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) these days, and gastrointestinal distress is a big part of that. This is where probiotics might help to regulate digestive function naturally and keep those symptoms at bay.

Kombucha helping with gut health is actually one of the HUGE reasons we started KombuchaWOW in 2019: Alice our Co-Founder, found herself constantly trying to recover her gut health from the side effects of taking antibiotics for her recurring H.Pylori stomach issue, and it was so difficult for her. (Kombucha ended up helping Alice’s recovery, as it happens!)

Anyway, we know that antibiotics are an important medication but they do a “scorched earth” approach to killing the bad bacteria: This means they also kill healthy bacteria in our bodies. Probiotics help to restore the balance of good bacteria when we are taking antibiotics.

2. Kombucha May Help Brain Function

Surprisingly, we know that probiotics can have a beneficial impact on mental health – when your gut health is out of balance, you might experience mental health or even cognitive problems.

Now although there’s research that has consistently shown that the caffeine in kombucha can improve various aspects of brain function, (including mood, vigilance, reaction time, and memory), it is the link between gut health and your brain, that is the subject of exciting new research coming out. There’s one report, for example, that suggests that a healthy gut may be able to help with depression. There’s many more research papers coming out on this link between our gut and our brain, but think about this: Usually, when you’re hungry, you’re “hangry”, right? Your gut and stomach are telling your brain they’re empty, so your brain is making you feel that “hanger” feeling we all get. So yes, I agree that a good healthy gut can mean a good healthy brain and more stable moods. More research is needed though!

3. Kombucha May Reduce Heart Disease Risk

Probiotics help to lower LDL or “bad” cholesterol – which means that eating or taking probiotics can also improve heart health and circulation.

We all make cholesterol in our bodies, and we all have a balance of HDL (‘good’) cholesterol and LDL (‘bad’) cholesterol. The balance of the HDL and LDL is largely governed by our genetics. However, our diet and lack of exercise is believed to often tip our LDL “bad” cholesterol into a danger zone for our heart health. There is research⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾ to suggest that by drinking fermented beverages such as kombucha, that a huge decrease in risk from the “bad” LDL can be had in as little as 30 days!

4. Kombucha May Boost Your Immune System

We have a lot of scientific evidence that probiotics can support gut microbes in improving immune function. “Bad” nutrition choices made by yourself, can result in a decrease in your body’s immunity defences. Remembering of course, that there are no “bad” or “good” foods, you can perhaps help your own body’s immune system by choosing to eat foods that are less-processed, so that your gut and stomach health is always at a good level.

5. Kombucha May Help Your Skin

For those of you reading this that may be suffering from acne or other skin issues? Well, there may be hope for your skin – through having good gut health! That’s right, emerging studies are suggesting that there is a definite link between having good gut health and your skin being a reflection of that: Good gut, skin good. Bad gut, skin bad? That is massively over-simplifying it, but the research is being done on this, and we already know probiotics can help with your gut health, so fingers crossed!

So, I’ve outlined quite a few ways in which probiotics are healthy for you – and as you can see, while you might think that probiotics are only good for digestion – they actually help to support our health from our heads to our toes!

Is Kombucha a Good Source Of Probiotics?

Ah, finally! The BIGGEST and MORE important question in this article!

Look, honestly YES it can be! This comes with a big “but” though as well!

You can get probiotics from various sources, but you’re always going to be healthier if you eat your calories and macronutrients rather than drink them. You’re also going to be way more satiated (full) by eating a probiotic yoghurt than drinking (say) a bottle of kombucha!

However, there are some specific benefits to adding kombucha to your diet.

First, there’s the convenience factor: It’s easier to crack open a bottle of kombuchaWOW in the car rather than have to eat a probiotic yoghurt – especially when you’re in a hurry, right?

Actually – we’re all busy in these times. We don’t always have time to eat a perfectly balanced diet, and it can be hard to make healthy choices. This can be made harder when you have a family, along with work commitments! Even if the rest of your day doesn’t include any probiotics, you can start it with a bottle of kombuchaWOW, or refresh yourself during the day instead of another soda or coffee.

Finally, there’s taste! I’m not going to tell you to do eat or drink anything you don’t want to! You’re the best person to judge your own likes and dislikes on food and drink, but no-one wants to do healthy things if they have to suffer for it!

Fortunately, kombucha – especially KombuchaWOW tastes great – especially with flavours like mixed berry and mango passionfruit – drinking them will mean you’re not having to drink anything healthy that feels like it’s a chore and something you don’t really enjoy! So crack a bottle of our Phuket Blue and enjoy and know you’re making your gut healthy from our probiotics in our kombucha!

Can Anyone Drink Kombucha To get Probiotics?

YES! Well, again “YES, but with some caveats!“

While most people can drink raw, natural kombucha for the probiotic benefits, there are a few people who should be cautious.

First up, pregnant women and those that are breastfeeding should avoid raw kombucha!

There’s always a tiny bit of alcohol in any fermented drink, and although KombuchaWOW is always under the 0.5% ABV level as required by Thailand Law, why accept even THAT tiny amount of risk in an extra small amount of additional alcohol? We’ll still be here when you’re ready!

Next up; Anyone who has an immune condition should speak to their doctor before they try kombucha and other fermented foods.

It’s always a good idea to check, even though it’s probably still completely safe.

And finally? Well, we recommend very young children, should probably NOT have raw kombucha.

The 0.3% alcohol in a bottle of KombuchaWOW is the same as a very ripe banana, or the same amount as found in a can of tomatoes – BUT young children’s immune systems cannot handle the same kind of probiotics as adults. We recommend letting them try their first kombucha at 7 onwards.

For everyone else? Well a bottle of KombuchaWOW is a tasty, safe way to get your daily dose of probiotics!

And that’s a wrap on this article!

I hope I answered your questions on “what do the probiotics in kombucha do?” along with all your other questions on what probiotics are, what probiotics are good for and, well, hopefully all of them in your head.

And you know what? If I haven’t, then please message us on our Facebook, Instagram or TikTok socials! We love reading your questions and comments, and I’d love to write articles based on those questions you want me to answer!

We’re in the business of making delicious, fermented, probiotic kombucha, so we read more about this sort of stuff than your average person. We learn more each and every week ourselves, so you can expect this article to change based on our new understanding of the constant kombucha research that’s always coming out!

For now though? Well, I’m going to get a bottle of KombuchaWOW to drink – probably my favourite apple pie flavour, and then I’m off to the gym! As always – we read each and every comment here on our KombuchaWOW website, and also over on our socials. Whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok – we’re there too, and we’d LOVE to see your questions or your pictures of you drinking our kombucha in Thailand and beyond! Use the #kombuchawow tag and you never know – if we like your pic, we might even give you a freebie 😉

Cheers and booch on!

Nate