Yeast Fermented Nutrients

There is a way to transform a lifeless mineral or supplement into living, fully complexed nutrient. This transformation increases bio-availability in a significant way.

Bio-Transformed supplements and minerals that are processed by Saccharomyces yeast are superior to free-state pharmaceutical vitamins and mineral salts.

Here is the list of reasons why:

1. Natural Form, not synthetic free state. Produced by Nature itself with a culture of live Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is known as humankind’s oldest microbial associate, used to produce bread, beer, and wine for over five thousand years, this beneficial organism creates a complex nutrient matrix, not a free-state, pure synthesized compound. Consider: an apple is a food matrix product, not a vitamin C product. This is true of all foods, and true of fermented nutrients.
2. Organic form. The yeast microorganisms biochemically transform free inorganic micronutrients into organic forms.
3. Complex. Fermented vitamins and minerals are highly complex foods in which the nutrient (as in all natural foods) is in complex formation with other constituents of a food matrix. That is how Nature intended us to consume nutrients, not as separate bits of purified chemical crystals and powders.
4. Food, not lifeless chemicals. Living yeast cells interact with nutrients, “building” them into a utilizable matrix of protein, carbohydrate, and lipid constituents of food for optimal human nutrition. This living-cell process is also used by Nature for optimal plant nutrition.
5. Complete. Each nutrient contains the goodness of natural plant foods and yeast. Pure, synthesized chemical nutrients are like orphans without food attachments.
6. More synergistic. Wholesomeness, complexity, and completeness are key characteristics of food, as opposed to pure or refined synthetic compounds. Each year scientists find further evidence of the important interlocking relationships between nutrients in foods.
7. More nutritionally balanced. Each product is a nutritional powerhouse, replete with amino acids, fiber, vitamins and minerals, and a host of valuable constituents of yeast.
8. More utilization. Research shows yeast fermentation reduces phytate levels in plants. Tests have shown that vitamin B-12 is biochemically transformed to different biological forms by yeast.
9. More amphiphilic (attractive to water and fats) = better prepared for bioavailability. When a nutrient is consumed, it makes its way to the gut where to be absorbed it must pass through the membranes of the intestinal wall. These membranes consist of a bi-layer made up of specialized phospholipids lined up together in two opposing rows of water-hating/fat-loving tails on the inside and fat-loving/water-hating heads on the outside.This acts like a line of defense to keep unwanted chemicals out. If a fat-loving substance wants to pass, it will be disallowed by the fat-hating portion. Conversely, if a water-loving substance wants to pass, it will be disallowed by the water-hating portion. For a substance to successfully pass through it should be both water-loving and fat-loving. In other words it should be amphiphilic.Many proteins are attached on the bi-layer membrane to function as gates to let in or exclude out chemicals needed for biological metabolism. Amphiphilicity plays an important role in enabling absorption of nutrients. Some substances are amphiphilic by their nature, such as many proteins and other organic molecules, but most minerals and vitamins are not.The yeast fermentation process can change the solubility of nutrients and make them more amphiphilic, giving them a profound advantage toward achieving superior bio-availability. For example, Coenzyme Q10 is an important nutrient for heart health and antioxidant status. However, the nutrient is highly hydrophobic, so the bio-availability of the commercial chemical form is very low.

   Fermented Co-Q10 was found to have a water solubility of about 15.1 times that of commercial grade, and in an independent human study it was found to be 2.6 times more bio-available than commercial grade.

10. Better equipped to fight oxidative stress. Each nutrient matrix contains an important glutathione component naturally contributed by yeast.
11. Better equipped for immune system support. Each nutrient matrix contains an important beta glucan component naturally contributed by yeast.
12. Enhanced digestibility. Yeast cells are pre-digested and “cracked” at the end of our fermentation process.

What are Whole Food Nutrients?

Natural or Synthetic – What is the Difference?

This question has been reverberating through the entire history of the Health Food industry, nearly from its founding in the 1940’s and 1950’s until today, especially as we try to differentiate “Natural” vitamin and mineral supplements from drug store or mass market “Synthetic” products.

Scientists insist that if a vitamin molecule is synthesized to have exactly the same chemical structure as a vitamin molecule purified from a plant, to call one ‘natural’ and the other ‘synthetic’ has no material meaning.

Pure synthesized pharmaceutical vitamins and pure mineral salts as described in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) are the only practical, low cost, commercially available source for manufacturers. Supplement brands have taken different approaches over the last six decades to differentiate their products in meaningful ways.

Some Observed Approaches:

“Natural Vitamins” defined as no artificial colors or preservatives present in the formulation of USP vitamins and pure mineral salts.

“Natural Source Vitamins” meaning the starting material for USP vitamin synthesis was natural, even if the intermediate starting material was not a traditional human food (fat from sheep’s wool for example).

“Natural Source Minerals” meaning the source was natural, even if that source was not a traditional human food (Oyster shells or bones for example).

“Vitamins and Minerals in a Natural Base” meaning the USP vitamins and pure mineral salts had some food plant material mixed in (the plants are usually identified).

“Vitamins from Food” meaning the starting material for USP synthesis was a traditional food (ascorbic acid USP synthesized from glucose derived from corn sugar isolated from corn for example).

“Vitamins from named sources“ meaning the vitamin named was extracted from the particular plant named (such as “Vitamin D-3 from Lichen” or “Vitamin C from Amla Fruit”) or the particular food named (such as “Vitamin A from Cod Liver Oil”). Usually the percentage of the claimed potency actually contributed by the extracted plant or food is not disclosed. In reality, due to practicality and cost, only a minor share of the claimed potency is likely to be from the named source. The rest is likely made up by or “standardized” (spiked) with regular USP vitamins.

Yeast Fermented Vitamin and Minerals Are Different

We define Natural based on how vitamins and minerals exist in nature, in all living systems both plant and animal. More specifically, on the state of their existence. Clearly, the pure, free, unattached state of a synthesized USP vitamin molecule or a pure mineral salt molecule is not found as such in living organisms.

The “Natural State or Food State” so to speak of a vitamin or mineral is to be in complex formation with other constituents of a whole food matrix made up of proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids. Secondarily, this state of complex formation should be achieved by nature itself, not by chemists working with partitioned chemicals isolated from foods. In our case it’s achieved with the help of living nutritional yeast during lengthy and vigorous fermentation in a medium containing whole foods and the individual vitamin or mineral being processed.

The result is a Fermentation Enhanced Whole Food Nutrient in a Natural or Food State, namely in complex formation with constituents of a yeast whole food matrix.

Our industry has always believed the constituents and nutrients in food work together like a team. And that team is tightly bound together. If you drop an orange on the table, it doesn’t shatter into separate crystals of vitamin C, bioflavonoids, fiber, proteins, carbohydrates, etc. That’s because they are not a simple mixture. They are linked together in a complex formation that only Nature understands, and are endowed with an ethereal aspect of life that purified chemicals not processed by living organisms do not have.

Yeast Fermented Whole Food Nutrients Defined

Nutrient products are produced utilizing fermentation by a living organism in a whole food media containing a full compliment of proteins, carbohydrates and lipids, un-partitioned or isolated from each other by solvents or chemical means.

Living organism used has been utilized by humans in the production of foods for millennia. Living yeast contributes more to the vitamin and mineral content than it uses.

Yeast can decrease phytates known to hinder mineral absorption. Fermentation results in increased amphiphilicity.

Food media contains organically grown non-GMO, non-irradiated or gassed whole foods that are synergistic to the particular nutrient being produced. The growing media contains voluminous water as necessary for true, vigorous fermentation (merely moist or pasty is not enough).

Yeast Fermented products become powerhouses of proteins, fiber, beta-glucans, phospholipids, and many other nutrients common to nutritional yeast. Processed vitamins and minerals are in a complex formation with constituents of a whole food matrix produced with the help of Nature itself through utilization of a living organism.

Other Processes Used

Fermentation by bacteria (lactobacillus for example) withdraws more from the vitamin and mineral content than it contributes.

Vitamins or minerals bound to a simple glycoprotein (micellized).

Minerals are only bound to an individual amino acid (citrate, malate, threonate) known as Amino Acid Chelates.

Nutrient products can be spiked or “standardized” with USP vitamins or minerals after the core process, be it fermentation or growth or extraction, is completed.

Farmer or a Soldier?

Farmers grow the food, Soldiers come and consume the food.
Bacteria Consume Vitamin Content
Nutritional Yeast Enhances Vitamin Content

Both Yeast and Lactobacillus need a medium to live in and thrive. However, they employ a different strategy for survival and defense. Both synthesize and consume, but in different ways with different purposes. Each has a different approach in life, with very different results.

Yeast can synthesize the nutrients and vitamins it requires to live and propagate.

Lactobacillus cannot synthesize most of the vitamins it needs.

Yeast will utilize basic carbohydrate, lipid and protein to produce nutrients.

Lactobacillus must obtain its nutrients from its media, such as milk, cabbage or the contents of our stomach and intestines, where there are plenty of nutrients for it to consume.

During fermentation Yeast is busy synthesizing vitamins and other nutrients, so the net amount of nutrients is increased.

During fermentation Lactobacillus is busy consuming nutrients, so the net amount of vitamins is decreased.

Lactobacillus, finding itself in an environment friendly to so many competing microbes, busies itself synthesizing antibacterial substances (mainly lactic acid) that will kill off or prevent the growth of its bacterial competitors for the pre-existing nutrients. In fact, where Lactobacillus is successful, it will also kill off yeast. Like a Soldier.

Yeast survives by being self-sufficient in virtually any media, as long as it contains the basic carbohydrates. While Lactobacillus and its bacterial competitors are warring over dwindling nutritional resources, Yeast is busy creating more nutrients. Like a Farmer.

Which to choose? Soldiers or Farmers?

As in human affairs, both are needed, but in different circumstances.

When choosing a fermenting organism to enhance a nutrient or food product for human consumption, we should note that increased lactic acid content is not of primary importance for human nourishment. The value of dead Lactobacillus (the result of post-fermentation processing) is minimal. Inactive Yeast cells on the other hand are a rich source of nutrients. That is why one hears of nutritional extracts of Yeast but not of Lactobacillus.

Lactobacillus is well appreciated when taken straight and still alive as a pro-biotic and antibacterial agent for our intestines. If there’s a war, we need soldiers.

For nutritional enhancement, improvements in digestibility and other benefits of fermentation, plus the nutritional contributions of the organism itself, yeast is the ideal choice. To produce a whole food supplement, we need a farmer.

Fermented Nutrients – the New, Old Idea

Bio-Transformed Vitamin and Mineral Yeasts are produced with the help of Nature itself in the form of living single-cell yeasts of the strain Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This strain is humankind’s oldest microbial associate, having helped to produce bread, beer and wine for over five thousand years.

The idea is to transform pure USP vitamins and minerals into complex foods for optimal human nutrition in a way similar to how living microbial cells in the soil transform raw materials for plant nutrition.

In soil, microorganisms contribute to plant nutrition by transforming inorganic micronutrients into organic forms that are more available to plants. Using soil microbes to build organic matter foundational for organic farming. Just as organic composts provide a “medium” for soil micronutrient proliferation, we can use whole food plant-source media to provide nutrients required for yeast growth and proliferation.

Just as soil contains rocks and clays for the microbes to “digest” and transform, commercial vitamins and minerals are added to our media for the nutritional yeast to “digest” and transform. Whereas soil microorganisms merely aid the plant, Saccharomyces cerevisiae (itself an iconic Superfood) enriches the media even further with numerous vitamins, minerals, beta glucans, and numerous other nutrients. Once placed into the complex matrix of plants, humans eating those plants are in turn able to absorb and utilize the available mineral forms for their own health and nourishment.

Does this sound like a new idea? How about the use of microbes for transformation of milk into yogurt, or the use of yeast in Japan to transform soy beans into natto, or similarly into miso. Perhaps not-coincidently, these living cell products are amongst the most wholesome, nutritious, and health promoting foods on earth.

Many consumers applaud the values of organic farming. A good many more are vegetarians, and most probably prefer their supplements to be as natural as possible. Think how many consumers enjoy living cell products like yogurt, natto, miso, beer, wine, or bread. Those are the consumers to whom a “living cell” vitamin and mineral product should appeal.