Overnight Oats with Kefir

Behind delicious Nettlebed Creamery Kefir is a beautiful story of a farming system restoring nature. This is the best kind of food – not only good for our Gut Health but choosing it means you’re doing your bit for the environment. And you only have to drop into the Cheese Shed at Nettlebed Creamery to see a sense of Community in action too!

As a Nutritionist, previously a Vet, let me start with the cows and then onto that ‘oh so healthy’ kefir!

• There’s more to a grazing cow at Nettlebed Creamery than meets the eye… cows in regenerative farming systems like these are naturally restoring the land all the time. How? They convert our plentiful British grass and rain, inedible to us, into nutrient-rich milk for us; their gut microbes in their great fermentation stomachs making this happen. Each time they tug at a blade of grass the plant root oozes sugars to feed the good bacteria in the soil around it, releasing vital nutrients so the grass grows stronger. They fertilise the soil naturally and trample dead grasses into the soil as they go – for worms and microbes to decompose, and they aerate the soil too with their cloven hooves which helps these soil micro-organisms to thrive. All this means that the structure and health of the soil is constantly restored, nature thrives and the milk these cows produce is richer in valuable protein, healthy fats and natural detox nutrients like Vitamin E. (1-5)
  

• Kefir is my dream food! A natural probiotic (from the Greek – ‘for life’) which means it’s rich in healthy bacteria and yeasts which benefit our own

gut health. (6, 7) These good micro-organisms have to survive our harsh acidic stomach contents to get to our large intestine, where we need them. Luckily in Kefir, they’re protected by the make-up of Dairy (8) which is also our best food source for Calcium, currently low in our UK diets. (9) Dairy Kefir is a fermented food – the process by which its good bacteria pre-digest its natural sugar lactose for us. Good news for those who are lactose intolerant who are still able to enjoy kefir and so not miss out on the fabulous goodness of organic dairy. Did you know you can absorb calcium from dairy better than any other food? You may be interested to learn more about Gut Health here: https://lwnutrition.co.uk/thegutproject22/ Nurturing your billions of friendly microbes helps your whole health to thrive and enjoying fermented food regularly is a great way to start! (10)

• My top winter health tip! Having fermented foods like kefir regularly can help our immune system to be strong. Why? Because most of our immune system cells lie within the wall of our gut and our good bacteria there are vital in controlling it, so it protects us when we need it to.
  

• My favourite recipe – overnight oats and kefir:

About our Guest Writer

Dr Lucy Williamson DVM BVM&S MSc

Vet to award-winning Nutritionist, reconnecting our health, climate-friendly farming and food.

Lucy is running a fabulous 6 session evidence-based course The Gut Health course.

Find out more here.

References

1. Asnicar F, Berry SE, Valdes AM, Nguyen LH, Piccinno G, Drew DA, et al. Microbiome connections with host metabolism and habitual diet from 1,098 deeply phenotyped individuals. Nat Med. 2021 Feb 1;27(2):321–32.

2. Woods VB, Fearon AM. Dietary sources of unsaturated fatty acids for animals and their transfer into meat, milk and eggs: a review. Livest Sci. 2009;126(1–3):1–20.

3. Khiaosa-ard R, Kreuzer M, Leiber F. (2015) Apparent recovery of C18 polyunsaturated fatty acids from feed in cow milk: a meta-analysis of the importance of dietary fatty acids and feeding regimens in diets without fat supplementation. J Dairy Sci. 2015;98(9):6399– 6414.

4. S. Stergiadisa., C. B. Berlitza., B. Hunta., S. Garga., D. I. Givensc., E. Kliema.,(2019) An update to the fatty acid profiles of bovine retail milk in the United Kingdom: Implications for nutrition in different age and gender groups Food Chemistry 276. 18–230

5. Śrdnicka-Tober D, Barański M, Seal CJ, Sanderson R, et a. (2016) Higher PUFA and n 3 PUFA, conjugated linoleic acid, α-tocopherol and iron, but lower iodine and selenium concentrations in organic milk: a systematic literature review and meta-and redundancy analyses. Br J Nutr. 2016:1–18

6. Palupi E, Jayanegara A, Ploeger A, Kahl J. Comparison of nutritional quality between conventional and organic dairy products: a meta-analysis. J Sci Food Agric. 2012;92(14):2774–2781.

7. Asnicar F, Berry SE, Valdes AM, Nguyen LH, Piccinno G, Drew DA, et al. Microbiome connections with host metabolism and habitual diet from 1,098 deeply phenotyped individuals. Nat Med. 2021 Feb 1;27(2):321–32.

8. Morelli L, et al Impact of mode of assumption and food matrix on probiotic viability J Food Microbiol 2018: 2 (2)

9. National Diet and Nutrition Survey Rolling Program latest update.

10. (10)Wastyk, H. C., et al Gut-microbiota-targeted diets modulate human immune status. Cell. 2021 184(16), 4137–4153.e14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2021.06.019