KefirSpace

For several millennia, the grains of fruit kefir (or water kefir) have been exchanged from hand to hand from one grower/drinker to another. These exchanges contribute to the domestication and dissemination of bacterial communities with pre and probiotic properties and appreciated by many users for their effect on digestive well-being and general anti-inflammatory properties. A key feature of kefir ferment is that the grain cannot be produced de novo. There is therefore a connection between all the kefir grains in circulation on the planet today. The data available today, obtained from sequencing work and microbiological characterizations from several laboratories, including the MNHN, show a significant biodiversity of kefir grains, with the frequent presence of a few species and a significant potential for the discovery of new species of bacteria and yeast. The origin of this biodiversity, the dynamics of the stability of a given consortium during its transmission and circulation, are however not known today. Understanding the rules for the evolution of kefir is an issue that interests scientists, artisanal kefir producers as much as the hundreds of thousands of kefir users around the world who want to maintain certain strains and develop recipes and know-how allowing the maintenance of taste and well-being properties of a drink from a specific consortium. The challenge of this proposal is to co-construct with a civil society actor, a research laboratory and kefir-drinking consumer participants, a participatory research experience testing the resilience and evolution capacities of a grain of kefir, at the microbiological, visual and organoleptic level, during its circulation on French territory (possibly French-speaking). This research will be accompanied by a bi-monthly, interactive and participatory animation via a webinar animated alternately by scientists and civil society actors, in order to exchange and co-construct the participatory studies of tomorrow around this family of ferments whose the current boom responds to societal demands for sustainable, healthy, environmentally friendly and energy-responsible food.