You know how I can tell? The smell of ammonia when I put pumpkin juice on my face! That only happened when I combined it with bicarbonate, before. There have been other changes, but not as dramatic as I originally projected. It seems the initial lack of inflammation was an adjustment, because I feel kinda fat again. I've tested the water with high-glycerin soaps, and if anything, I am less tolerant. Even the Italian Barber Sandalwood was making me slightly uncomfortable, toward the end of one recent shave. That would be a terrible loss, if some pH factor was protecting me before, which now has been lost; but still worth it, I think.
Reading about kombucha leads to reading about beer, since many of the same, common microbes are involved, and there's a huge industrial concern behind the research there.
http://mmbr.asm.org/content/77/2/157.full
I think the key difference is "biogenic amines," because the general category includes histamine, dopamine, serotonin, adrenalin; my general inflammation, enthusiasm, and sleep patterns have all been in flux. Some of these chemicals are also involved in genetic mechanisms, which could be a concern...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenic_amine
Also on the potential negative side, I've suffered more back pain than usual, which I hope is from advancing age and shoveling snow, not my kidneys swelling with stones. (Oxalic acid is among the many acids in kombucha.) But basically, a lot of heat seems to have been taken off certain internal organs, which otherwise would have been working hard to produce those beneficial hormones. I could easily see kombucha obviating one's need to take monoamine oxidase inhibitors, which is a different strategy to maximize some of them, by preventing them from being metabolized.
Given these facts, I have to wonder if it's the dopamine talking, but the general improvement in my quality of life that came along with this microbial "pet" seems very real. I mean, the beverage is just perfect, to my palate. For the cost of tea and sugar, it's like having an endless supply of Rhine wine, or sparkling cider. But instead of ruining your life, it zaps you with caffeine? What more could I want! Think of all the rows of the market that I need never visit again: beer and wine (fake, in my case), soda and fruit juice (probably mostly corn syrup, anyway). I'm probably going to push my luck and not give up coffee, since it's acidifying, and I can thus afford to drink more of it. Also, an Xmas package arrived from Dad, marked "Keurig." :-)
In return, I peeled off the better part of my SCOBY and sent it to him, with a 2 gallon continuous brewing jar and a pint of starter.
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