The TRUTH about Apple Cider Vinegar & Kombucha, Is It Healthy? 🍎🍏

Hello Health Champions. I'm sure you've heard  all kinds of amazing health claims about kombucha  

and apple cider vinegar so in this video we're  going to go over the truth level of some of  

those health claims as well as the strengths and  the weaknesses of each one first of all apple  

cider vinegar is made from fermented apples  and kombucha is made from fermented tea but  

we need to understand that you can't really  ferment tea you need to have a sugar source  

and the source for apple cider vinegar is  the sugar in the apple but for kombucha  

we have to add some sugar it's usually just table  sugar but it could be raw sugar or something  

a little bit different but just a basic sugar  source and then in the fermentation process when  

we make vinegar we run that process to completion  until there's no sugar left whereas in kombucha  

we run a partial fermentation so there's going  to be sugar remaining depending on how long we  

run the process so obviously therefore in  the end product the apple cider vinegar has  

no sugar but the kombucha is going to have some  sugar residue or even significant levels the  

acetic acid is what makes apple cider vinegar what  it is and it's typically at around five percent  

it's standardized to that level and in kombucha  it's gonna vary a lot so when i looked it up  

they said that a typical kombucha has about  one percent but then when i try to find that  

on the product labels there was usually a  whole lot less sometimes as little as 1/100th  

of that level in there and there's been a fair  amount of research on apple cider vinegar and what  

they're researching then is not always apple cider  vinegar sometimes it is but more often it's just  

white vinegar so it's the acetic acid that gives  the vinegar the properties that we're looking for  

and it's been noticed to reduce blood glucose and  a1c keeping all other factors constant it can help  

reduce weight and belly fat it can help lower  triglycerides and cholesterol so basically all  

of the factors associated with insulin resistance  and metabolic syndrome and they're not really sure  

about the exact mechanisms but they have  some ideas they know it improves insulin  

sensitivity and signaling they know that  there seems to be some improved satiety  

with it and also that the liver is going to put  out less glucose the liver is typically what  

maintains glucose between meals and it can either  do that by breaking down stored glycogen or it can  

make glucose through gluconeogenesis but either  way with apple cider vinegar there seems to be  

a little bit less of that and finally acetic  acid is a short chain fatty acid so you've  

probably heard about MCT oils that MCT oils  can give you some energy but it doesn't trigger  

insulin or blood sugars it's like a fast energy  and short chain fatty acids are even faster than  

MCT's so that's one potential benefit that it  gives you a little bit of energy and that might  

also contribute to the satiety one more good  thing is that these short chain fatty acids  

also become food for your beneficial gut bacteria  kombucha has also had some research done and  

the main thing that they've been focusing on is  anti-microbial they found that it has significant  

activity against gram-positive  bacteria and gram-negative bacteria  

but we've also heard claims that it helps for  yeast and candida and when they checked that out  

it showed that it had no effect at all on candida  they also wanted to find out if it was the acetic  

acid or the t or something else in there so when  they did the studies with tea alone even when  

they went like super concentrated tea they found  none of these effects at all so they concluded  

that basically all the results that they found was  from the acetic acid composition and in this study  

they used a concentration of 33 grams per liter  of total acids and we'll talk about what those are  

and 7 grams per liter of acetic acid so they also  recommended that if you were looking for these  

benefits then you probably want to use a product  around that kind of concentration but in kombucha  

the acetic acid may not be the primary thing that  we're looking for there are a lot of other things  

in there the acetic acid is about five percent of  the total acid but then there's glucuronic acid  

at 65 percent of the total and that's been found  to assist in liver detox and also this glucuronic  

acid can help balance hormones sex hormones  specifically like estrogen and testosterone  

a third common substantial acid is gluconic acid  at 30 percent and that has been shown to support  

the growth of bifidobacteria which are some of  the most beneficial of your gut bacteria but in  

addition to supporting your gut bacteria kombucha  actually contains some of these bacteria so it's  

pretty high in probiotics bacillus coagulants  as boulardii and lactobacillus can be pretty  

significant so if you look at a label of one of  the better products and better i say because it's  

one of the larger brands they brew traditionally  and they're brave enough to put some stuff on the  

label that a lot of people don't have and when  we check the total levels here we find 1 billion  

and 4 billion and 4 billion so that's 9 billion  organisms that's not as much as some of the  

most potent probiotic products on the market they  can have up to 50 or even 100 billion bacteria  

but it is more than some of the more basic  or cheaper probiotics on the market so it is  

pretty substantial but we need to understand some  of the issues around kombucha if we're trying to  

get these benefits that we're looking for acetic  acid like i said when i looked it up they said  

that it should be around one percent which is 10  grams per liter when they did the study they had a  

total of 33 grams of acid and the acetic acid was  7 grams per liter so their study was a little bit  

less than what i read was typical but then when  we add up from this label which again is one of  

the better brands we find 100 plus 75 plus 1400  plus 650 as we multiply that out it's 4.7 grams  

per liter which is about 1 7 the study they ran  had seven times more total acid in their product  

and when we look at the acetic acid specifically  75 milligrams in a bottle multiplies out to about  

1 44 of the amount of acetic acid that they  had in that study so if you're looking for  

some of those benefits from acetic acid you  would have to drink a whole lot in comparison  

one third teaspoon of apple cider vinegar would  give you that same amount of acetic acid but  

there's some more issues we need to know about not  because they're necessarily good or bad but so we  

know what we're getting and the first one is sugar  kombucha can have anywhere from 0 to 20 grams per  

serving so that makes a big difference if you're  trying to watch your sugar you start off with tea  

and sugar when you make it and you add a SCOBY if  you want to make it yourself then SCOBY stands for  

symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast so it's  both yeast and bacteria that's going to ferment  

this sugar and the first thing we get is the yeast  eats the sugar and turns it into alcohol and then  

the bacteria of various kinds turns the alcohol  into acetic acid and some of the other acids  

that we talked about as well as more probiotics  and another SCOBY that's kind of like a bonus  

you start with a SCOBY you end up with two and you  can use both of them again and a typical recipe  

is going to have somewhere around a cup of sugar  per gallon of tea that's about 60 grams of sugar  

per liter and as we run the fermentation we're  going to get less and less and less sugar so  

most of the time they stop this process about  halfway that would get us about 15 grams of sugar  

per bottle and if you run it longer  then you could get closer to zero but  

there's some labeling issues also so sugar is  a concern but oftentimes they try to tell you  

that if it's total sugar if it's not added if  it's just sort of happens to be in there for  

whatever reason in the product when they start  then it's good then it's a natural sugar whereas  

if they add the sugar then it's white sugar and  then it's bad and that's not really true because  

99 sugar is sugar there's not really any  difference your cells and your liver by the  

time it's in the bloodstream they don't know the  difference the fructose is still going to clog up  

the liver and the glucose is still going to spike  insulin and blood sugar but a lot of companies try  

to be sneaky because they know people don't like  added sugar so if they start off with a juice  

instead if they mix the tea with apple juice or  pineapple juice or kiwi juice now they don't have  

to list it as added sugars because fruit juice  counts as zero added sugar it still contributes  

to total sugar so it makes no difference there but  they're kind of tricking people to think that it's  

way more natural and it's like that much more  natural and it doesn't make a big difference  

kombucha can also be done in a traditional way  where you ferment it straight through according  

to certain rules or it can be from concentrate and  sometimes they put that on the label and sometimes  

they don't one way you can know is if it's diluted  if one of the ingredients on the label one of  

the first ingredients maybe is carbonated water  now you know that they made it from concentrate  

and i'm not totally opposed to doing it from a  concentrate as long as you preserve the bacteria  

and the things you're trying to keep in there and  as long as you sweeten it with something that you  

can tolerate if you put regular sugar back in  now you could be right back to these levels  

or if you use something else that you may not  tolerate so well maybe a sugar alcohol for example  

and sugar alcohol could feed some of the bad  bacteria in sensitive people and that would defeat  

the purpose of taking kombucha with a probiotic  in the first place and maybe most importantly  

make sure it's not pasteurized because a lot of  the benefit comes from the probiotics from the  

bacteria if you pasteurize it you kill all of  that off you might as well just drink sweet tea  

and also in some cases they actually add the  probiotics after the fact and again that's  

not necessarily a bad thing but you have to ask  yourself why do they do that if they run this  

process traditionally and they let this culture  thrive and develop there should be probiotics  

in there so if they have to add it then maybe they  messed with the process somewhere along the way  

now let's look at some of the benefits and compare  side by side and apple cider vinegar is best known  

for its insulin resistance benefit so we get a big  check there that's the acetic acid again kombucha  

like we said at best it's going to have one-fifth  but oftentimes much much much less acetic acid  

than that so it's very questionable whether you're  going to get much insulin resistance benefits  

from kombucha when it comes to probiotics on  the other hand it's kind of flip-flopped because  

apple cider vinegar while it does have some  bacteria they're mostly bacteria associated with  

acetic acid not so much of the bacteria and also  there's not very much of them not nearly as much  

as in kombucha which again runs in the billions  antibacterial the apple cider vinegar is because  

of the acetic acid again the kombucha it's kind of  questionable because of the very very low levels  

digestive benefits they both have but  probably for different reasons because we know  

that the acetic acid with its lower pH can have  some digestive benefits we know that both of them  

support probiotics support the biome in different  ways apple cider vinegar has the short chain fatty  

acids that support the growth and kombucha has  other acids that support the growth plus their  

probiotics and so forth so they're both  pretty beneficial for the digestive tract  

and they also both through the studies have shown  to have antioxidant benefits so i wouldn't look  

on kombucha or apple cider vinegar as some  magic pill that's going to solve all your  

problems but i do think that both have benefit  as an add-on if you start changing the other  

things in your life as well if you start moving  toward a healthy lifestyle they can add a little  

bit of edge so if you like kombucha then do  your research read the labels make sure that  

you have something where they list the bacteria  and the acids because again if they don't list it  

then maybe there's nothing in there maybe their  process isn't as particular as you want it to be  

you can also call the company with some  hard questions about is it from concentrate  

what kind of bacteria are in there is it  pasteurized make sure it's not pasteurized  

or if you have the interest and the time  i think it's always a good idea to make it  

yourself because that way you control the process  you know exactly what went in there the only thing  

is it's a little time consuming but you will save  tons of money so if you make it yourself i would  

personal preference run it a little bit  longer than than like the halfway point  

and you can buy something called a bricks  meter that will measure the sugar percentage  

content and i would run it not to zero because  then i think you lose some of the bacteria but  

run it a good bit beyond the halfway mark and  then you can dilute it with something that you  

know what it is and if you like bubbles you can  carbonate the water before you mix it and finally  

you can sweeten it with something you know what  it is like stevia or monk fruits that's not gonna  

add a bunch of sugar if you enjoyed this video  you're going to love that one and if you truly  

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