Editorial
Front Page - Friday, August 6, 2010
Kombucha alcohol evaluation illuminates company commitments
Erica Tuggle
Kombucha tea is a vinegary tasting beverage popular for its health benefits provided by the enzymes and probiotics it contains. The evaluation of the tea due of concerns of high alcohol content is a process GT’s Kombucha is now undergoing in order to make sure when the product returns to shelves it is compliant with less than 0.5 percent of alcohol per bottle for a non-alcoholic labeling and remains true to the taste consumers enjoy.
- Photo Provided
Since its Chinese origin centuries ago, Kombucha has been a tea and mushroom based fermented beverage of a wide variety of broadcasted health benefits. Now its popularity in the U.S. for promoting health and well-being are not under fire, but rather, the drink is being questioned for its alcohol content.
Kombucha came into question when actress Lindsay Lohan’s SCRAN alcohol detection bracelet went off, which she said was caused from drinking kombucha. The flag from Lohan prompted some varieties of raw kombucha to be pulled from health food stores in order to reevaluate their recipes and labeling to see if their products had more than the legal limit for a non-alcoholic beverage (0.5).
Because raw kombucha contains yeast that has not been killed off through pasteurization, varying sugar content in kombucha can cause varying alcohol levels to ferment. This means every product can contain a different amount of alcohol based on how much sugar is in the product when it originally hits shelves, according to an article by Emily Fredrix of the Associated Press.
Attorney Steven Jacoway of Patrick, Beard, Schulman & Jacoway, P.C. says that the standard alcohol content of most wines is 8 to 14 percent, while most beers have an alcohol content of 4 to 5 percent. Since kombucha tea has an alcohol content of 0.5 percent for one serving, if a person consumed the same amount of kombucha tea over a short period as they consumed wine or beer over the same time period, that person’s blood alcohol concentration would be significantly less, he says.
“Based upon the comparatively low percentage of alcohol in a regular 12 ounce bottle of kombucha tea, drinking one or two of these bottles over a one to two hour period typically should not present a great risk of having a .08 BAC or greater,” he says. “It is, however, difficult to give a hard and fast rule since BAC is affected by many factors such as a person’s weight, gender, age and metabolism.”
For a first DUI offense in Tennessee, jail time, fines and/or court costs varying between $350 to $1,500, driver’s license suspension for one year, community service and DUI school are standard punishments, he says. On second and third offenses, all these numbers increase, and there is a possible vehicle seizure or forfeiture that might come into play, he says.
“Even though kombucha tea has relatively low alcohol content, there have been complaints made to the FDA about inconsistent and higher alcohol contents in kombucha drinks,” he says. “Undoubtedly, the increased consumption and popularity of this tea, combined with the interaction with other food(s) and alcoholic drinks may cause the consumption of kombucha tea to be another consideration in DUI arrests and defenses in the near future.”
GT’s Kombucha, based out of California, has pulled their raw kombucha product off shelves in an effort to reevaluate their product and maintain the quality standard fans are proud of, says GT Dave, president and CEO.
“The making of kombucha is a time and labor intensive process,” he says. “We put our heart and soul into the product and are wanting a quality product rather than the product returning the quickest to shelves.”
In reinventing their product, Dave says this is a process they take personally.
“The relationship our product has with fans is more important than the sake of a dollar ... It is important that people know we will not be going anywhere, and value their support and optimism through this process. This keeps us going and is the heart and soul of what we do,” he says.
Even though this process of bringing raw kombucha back to the public seems like a tedious burden, Dave says in a way he is glad that this has happened, because it has allowed people to see how GT’s Kombucha began.
In 1995, GT’s mother, Laraine Dave, was diagnosed with a highly aggressive form of breast cancer. A week later her cancer cells were found to have not metastasized, and the “pungent tasting cultured tea” she was drinking was part of the reason why, he says. Dave started making kombucha in the kitchen of his parent’s house to help his mother with the treatment of her breast cancer. Fifteen years later, from hand-delivering his just-bottled kombucha to local health food stores, the company now makes 17 different varieties of kombucha that are available country wide.
Kristy Kanzig, the community relations manager for Earth Fare grocery, says the local Buchi brand that Earth Fare currently offers is very similar to other kombucha drinks. All of these drinks have a vinegar based taste and boast health benefits such as beneficial probiotics, live active enzymes, polyphenols that fight off free-radicals and organic acids that help promote tissue and blood alkalinity, she says.
The Buchi brand currently offered at Earth Fare is an unpasteurized, live kombucha tea beverage, and contains trace amounts of alcohol according to its package. According to Buchi’s Web page, their kombucha formula converts the alcohol into acetic acid in the drink, resulting in less than half a percent of alcohol content. While there is no timeline yet for when other varieties will become available, Kanzig says, Buchi is offered in all 19 of Earth Fare’s store locations, including the Chattanooga location on Gunbarrel Road.
|
|