Kefir vs. Milk

[Psilomadman]

A lot of folks seem to have problems with large quantities of milk (I do). If you make your own Kefir you get the following benefits:
1) After initial small investment ($10 or so) its as cheap as milk.
2) You can reduce the lactose to almost nothing.
3) the nutrition content is basically the same w/ less carbs
4) The protien is more easily digested
5) Loads of probiotics for your digestive tract

Its super easy to make, tastes much like yogurt but isnt near as thick and is easily drunk.
Once you get your grains going you can easily make large quantities. You can always google it for more info. I'd be glad to give my personal experience in a PM if your interested.

[Mehdi]

But you need the carbs for gomad to work.

[Psilomadman]

Kefir only has less carbs due to the fermentation. Its just fermented or "cultured" milk. You start with milk so nutritionally the end product is very similar across the board but with the protien broken down a bit and some of the lactose reduced, hence less carbs. This is from the back of a commercial Kefir.
Of course a lot depends on the type of milk used.
Its as easy as blending some fruit into it to add carbs and calories as well. I just figured it would be helpful for those who want to GOMAD but cant tolerate that much milk. Not saying its better, though you could certainly argue that in some cases it is.

Serving size 8 fl. oz. (240 mL), calories 140, calories from fat 60, total fat 7g (11% of daily value), saturated fat 5g (25% dv), trans fat 0g, cholesterol 20 mg (7% dv), sodium 90mg (4% dv), total carbohydrate 9g (3% dv), dietary fiber 0g, sugars 5g, protein 11g, vitamin A 4%, Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 30%, Iron 0%.

[Hombre]

I always thought I could not deal with large quantities of milk. So it is occurred I have been refusing to use milk for shakes for a few years already. In 2007 I was introduced with Berardi's nutritional books and before that time I didn't give enough attention to the nutrition part. I noticed that he never mentioned a milk in his books but a plain yougurt instead.
(Can not recall why.)

Since that time I have started doing supershakes based on yougurt (Berardi used water).
As I could not find a plain yogurt I used to buy a yougurt with filing - berries and stuff.

Now I am going to give GOMAD a try and investigating alternatives to milk
I was googling for kefir and yogurt regarding GOMAD and also googled for information regarding Lactore Intolerance.

It was interesting for me that in most cases a yogurt was characterized as thick. But actually
in my country I can choose from two types of yougurt:
--- the one that is no thicker than kefir but without that kefir's acid flavor, it is usually with filling, a plain version can hardly be found
(usually that yougurt is expired after 15/30 days - which considered OK - means it is without preservatives)
--- the one that is very thick in spite of fat content (1%-10%), usually it is imported and expires only after 3 or 6 months - is not recommend due to preservatives, and I have never seen a plain version of it, only with filling.

Locally I can rarely find a kefir with filling and sweeteners. We also have other milk based products like ryazhenka (fermented baked milk) - have not considered it yet as an alternative to milk.

Also I found that both kefir and yougurt do have lactose in them, even a half of a milk lactose content - though they are much easier to digest than a milk.

A typical yogurt (thin and with filling) that I used for supershakes had the following nutritional content:
100g
kcals: 78
fat: 2.5
protein: 2.9
carbs: 10.9

For GOMAD I am planning to use both yougurt and kefir (to dilute yougurt with kefir because former has lots of simple carbs due to filling and it seems not very good for a gut)

I see the problems with a kefir and a yougurt are:
- lower protein content (a little bit)
- lower carbs content (if it is not filled with simple carbs, sweeteners, berries etc. - but what point in milk's carbs if they won't be consumed due to lack of lactose ferment)
- higher calcium content (don't know whether such amount can cause something bad or not)
- lower lysine content - half of a milk (someone mentioned here on forum that lysine was important to raise a calf )

[vanderbasaran]

Hi everyone
Although this post is a bit old, it is the most relevant on the site. So I will post mine in here.
I am from Turkey and I would like to inform you about yoghurt.
You may already know that yoghurt is originated from Turkish speaking cultures in Central Asia. I have been searching about GOMAD experiences with yoghurt and found that people in western countries are eating crap named yoghurt. And I understand that most natural yoghurt is named Greek yoghurt. It is about marketing, I guess. I think yoghurt is very widely consumed in most of the middle east and balkan countries traditionally.
Yoghurt is made from any kind of milk (any mammal's milk which people are used to drink) containing lactose. The active bacterias turns the lactose to lactic acid mostly but there is still lactose in yoghurt. Moreover the protein content changes but aminoacid profile stays the same. Some vitamins which are not present in milk are introduced and fat stays untouched. Yoghurt is easier to digest than milk by the way, do not fooled with its thick looks.
A kg of milk gives you a kg of yoghurt with same amount of protein, saturated fat and less carbs. However you might want to search for lactic acid as an energy source. You might be surprised.
You can make your own healhty natural yoghurt from any type of milk with a small amount of natural yoghurt, it is very easy. Heat the milk to 40 C put a cup of yoghurt per 3 lt of milk and stir. make sure it does not get cold at least 3 hours (my mother wraps some blanket around the container) and do not move it. After 3.5 hours you can open the container and taste it but it is better put it in the refrigerator to cool down the bacteria action. If you do not cool down this action your yoghurt will sour as hell and you might wanna throw it. After a few hours you can eat it. Your yoghurt will last at least 3 weeks in the refrigerator but will be sour if you store it in room temperature. you can mix any sweetener, sugar, fruit, aroma in it. plain yoghurt goes very well with any type of meal, or you can mix yoghurt with same amount of still water to make ayran (a drink similar to kefir but with better taste).
A delicious ayran can be made by using a blender. Put some yoghurt and some water with the same volume with yoghurt and using a blender stir it until it shows bubbles on top. It will be around two mins to prepare it but you will definitely love it.
For any questions about yoghurt, ayran, Turkey and Turkish language, Turkish Cuisine or Turkish Culture you may ask. (Please ask.)

And if someone knows enough biology to inform me about whether bacteria flora will be damaged consuming 4 kg yoghurt a day I will be more than happy.