Despite lots of enquiries about kefir, Gill Jacobs’ excellent article and and a nagging guilty conscience, since our kefir grains gave up the ghost a couple of years ago, I have not got round to getting another lot started. However, the matter was taken out of my hands by gluten-free beer expert, FreeFromFoodAwards judge and long-term kefir enthusiast Sue Cane who, in real life is a camera woman. She asked if we could babysit her kefir as she was going on a six week location shoot and did not think the kefir would survive it! With some trepidation I agreed….
However, having agreed I thought I should also get my act together and offer it a really cushy stay by getting it some raw milk. Wow! What a success – it seems to love it and is growing and multiplying apace. Well, I think it is anyhow – I am sure there is more than when Sue delivered it to me a couple of weeks ago…. Even better – it tastes delicious! Much more rounded and smooth than with ‘normal’ milk yet still with that tangy kefir edge. Mind you, we are feeding it with raw, full fat Guernsey milk – do hope I am not going to give it indigestion….
Anyhow, if anyone out there feels inspired to try, despite the daftness of the legislation you can get raw milk, although it requires a bit of effort. (You can buy unpasteurised goats’ milk, unpasteurised sheep’s milk, unpasteurised cow’s, goat and sheep’s milk cheeses and unpasteurised cow’s cream in a shop but you cannot buy unpasteurised cow’s milk except from the farm gate…. See articles on the Foodsmatter site here for more on the ‘raw milk debate’.)
Check out: Hurdlebrook Farm (where we get out Guernsey milk and it is their cows in the picture), Red 23 here or the Real Milk Directory on the Weston Price site.
Sadly, I don’t think it has anything to do with daft legislation and everything to do with heavy duty lobbying by the dairy industry, which has a very large investment in milk processing and distribution. If retail outlets were able to distribute milk direct from the farm gate it could put the processors out of business. That would be very good for small producers and the health of milk drinkers but disastrous for the profits of the processing industry and agribusiness..
I love the thought of you babysitting kefir, made me laugh out loud! Other people do grandkids.
Well, maybe one day we will end up doing those as as well, but for the am honing my skills on the kefir…..
I’m a nutritionist and currently on a few Facebook pages that support
Practitioner. We are a bit behind the times on kefir here in the UK.
In Australia there are literally messages daily on a few site asking if anyone wants to share their kefir grains!
How fabulous would that be if we did this here? I’m just getting into it now and haven’t got any myself.
Food matters to support this with raw milk? – now there’s a challenge!
A challenge indeed! But sadly, I don’t think my garden is big enough to suppport the cows so that I could not (currently) sell it from my ‘farm gate’!!
We buy our raw milk from Modbury Farm in Burton Bradstock, Dorset. Completely delicious and a real treat to go and meet the cows who produce the milk! An alternative to milk kefir for dairy intolerance is Water Kefir or Tibicos. The grains ferment sugar water rather than milk and I can’t give mine away fast enough!
Hello Naomi! How lovely to know that there are so many sources of raw milk!! Please say hello to the cows for us…. I have not tried it but I believe that coconut water makes excellent kefir too.