Eels? In my Kombucha?!
If you're hot on the latest food trends you've probably started to venture into the world of probiotics. These are foods with cultured bacteria that can build up the wonderful culture of bacteria in your small intestine which helps you digest food, fight off disease, and produce vitamins like biotin and vitamin K. Probiotic foods include yogurt, kefir, pickled foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi, and fermented drinks like kombucha.
Kombucha is a sugary tea which is fermented with a SCOBY, which is an acronym for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. This fermentation process allows for all sorts of healthy bacteria to grow in your tea and you can make it easily at home! One caveat to fermenting your own kombucha however is the risk of breeding vinegar eels.
Tubratrix aceti, also known as vinegar eels or vinegar nematodes, are roundworms that feed off of mother of vinegar, the bacterial culture used to make vinegar. If you make your own kombucha at home and it is not pasteurized, this little critter can find its way into your drink and into your body!
What does this mean for you?
Not much really. These little roundworms are non-parasitic to humans and just really love to eat the bacteria that makes your kombucha a probiotic. If you manage to get some in your kombucha and drink it, it simply is excreted after a couple of days with no harm done. The biggest downside to this little guy is that he will eat up a lot of that bacteria that you want in your probiotic drink.
How can you tell if you have eels in your kombucha?
Simply place your kombucha in a dark cabinet and shine a flashlight at the glass. If they are in there they will start wiggling towards the light. You can even harvest these little guys and use them as a healthy fish food!
So don't worry about the wide range of living things you can find in your probiotic foods. They all just wanna live happy and healthy wherever they can, and that could be in your gut!
C.K.
Broggemann, Jens. 2012. “Nematodes as Live Food in Larviculture – A Review [Electronic Resource].” Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 43 (6): 739–63. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.kent.edu/10.1111/j.1749-7345.2012.00608.x.
Kombucha is a sugary tea which is fermented with a SCOBY, which is an acronym for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. This fermentation process allows for all sorts of healthy bacteria to grow in your tea and you can make it easily at home! One caveat to fermenting your own kombucha however is the risk of breeding vinegar eels.
Tubratrix aceti, also known as vinegar eels or vinegar nematodes, are roundworms that feed off of mother of vinegar, the bacterial culture used to make vinegar. If you make your own kombucha at home and it is not pasteurized, this little critter can find its way into your drink and into your body!
What does this mean for you?
Not much really. These little roundworms are non-parasitic to humans and just really love to eat the bacteria that makes your kombucha a probiotic. If you manage to get some in your kombucha and drink it, it simply is excreted after a couple of days with no harm done. The biggest downside to this little guy is that he will eat up a lot of that bacteria that you want in your probiotic drink.
How can you tell if you have eels in your kombucha?
Simply place your kombucha in a dark cabinet and shine a flashlight at the glass. If they are in there they will start wiggling towards the light. You can even harvest these little guys and use them as a healthy fish food!
So don't worry about the wide range of living things you can find in your probiotic foods. They all just wanna live happy and healthy wherever they can, and that could be in your gut!
C.K.
Broggemann, Jens. 2012. “Nematodes as Live Food in Larviculture – A Review [Electronic Resource].” Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 43 (6): 739–63. doi:http://dx.doi.org.proxy.library.kent.edu/10.1111/j.1749-7345.2012.00608.x.
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