Has anyone drank a lot kombucha whilst very sick?
Quick storytime. Last year I had the flu pretty bad and was bedridden for a couple days. Because my room was warm I kept a 5 gallon batch of continuous brew in there, and when I ran out of water I just starting drinking a ton of kombucha to keep hydrated in my flu ridden delirium. I couldn't taste it very well since I was so congested, but after I recovered from the sickness and my sinuses cleared up, the taste of kombucha was vile to me. Not just kombucha actually, any sort of vinegar (balsamic, apple cider, even things with trace amounts like worcestershire sauce and some BBQ sauces) it was completely disgusting and I was pretty devastated that something I loved so much was no longer something I could enjoy. Fortunately over the next 3 weeks to a month the taste became more palatable and less disgusting and gradually went back to normal kombucha.
My theory is that the overlap of a lot of benign kombucha bacteria coupled with my immune system raging hard in battle mode to kill the influenza virus has some accidental side effects. But I've never heard anyone else out there experiencing something similar. So my question is, can anyone relate to this?
Posted Jan 3, 2019, 1:53 AM UTC · edited
I became ill after eating french fries once, and I can't remember if they were vinegar fries or just ketchup, but it was a similar problem. I think it's 100% mental, but it makes evolutionary sense that fermented food would be a very salient conditioned stimulus, due to the microbial involvement.
I don't think I emphasized the right thing enough, but it literally tasted different. Like something else that I've never tasted before, but it only happened with fermented things and I was disgusted by it. I think I tried sauerkraut too and had an aversion too, but I mostly remember the liquids cause I consume them so often.
I see, so the taste was actually wrong. A new kind of sinus horror, great!
Personally, I doubt it was a mental connection (or atleast I doubt it was 100%) but it is possible. The immune system is a very complex beast and all sorts of things can go awry when you get sick. Lots of subtle and not so subtle changes occur in the body when you are fighting something off.