kombucha - home brewed & food poisoning?

[onetrumpeter]

googling kombucha, found this link http://bastyrcenter.org/content/view/1721/ where the author quotes someone:

Susan Beck, Ph.D., L. Ac., CNS, a certified nutrition specialist with a focus on oncology, has only two cautions about drinking kombucha. First, don’t make your own; there have been several incidences of food poisoning linked to home-brewed kombucha. Second, don’t believe manufacturers’ claims that kombucha can cure cancer. “I have never seen any research that substantiates any of the cancer claims made for kombucha,” says Beck.

OK, obviously there are warnings w/ aaaaaall foods and I'm not a worrywort, but just curious about this.

I'm sort of wanting to try kombucha... just read somewhere that it has B vits, which I've also read might help my (recently) short luteal phases and cycles in general.

Is it always brewed w/ sugar? does the culture eat the sugar? or is that remaining when it's ready to drink?

[FernG]

Kombucha is high in B vitamins and is one of the most bioavailabe forms of folic acid.

Before I started brewing, I looked into the food poisoning claims. I found that there were some illnesses (I can't remember about deaths) in the midwest. It was later found that the group was linked by brewing their own kombucha. The case was assumed to be caused by the kombucha.

Have you read much about how the government tests foods for food poisoning? It's a very inaccurate process when they do food cultures. In many cases, they never bother to culture the food or they release misleading headlines.

[Jojo F.]

Most of the time it is brewed with sugar but I have heard of some people using honey. Keep in mind honey is antibacterial and could possibly kill the scoby over time.

Yes, the scoby "eats" the sugar and caffeine. There may be trace amounts left in the final product.

About the food poisoning- you have to be smart about it. Cover your jar/bowl, if you notice ANY mold toss the 'bucha and scoby, it's not worth the risk. Also, it looks like some of the illnesses were from brewing the 'bucha in a non-glass vessel. LINK


If you follow the rules/steps to brewing kombucha the proper way you should have no problem. And again, if it smells and looks funny, don't drink it.