Yeah it does have carageenan which would typically make me want to avoid it, but I was trying to weigh the pros and cons and see if it was worth it in this case.
I've heard a lot about Kefir but have no idea what it is. Do you buy it a regular grocery store? Is it something you drink like water?
Yo! Kefir pseudoexpert here.
First, not all yogurt has carrageenan, which can easily be determined by reading the ingredients on the label. You may want to avoid any that are sweetened with "high fructose corn syrup" as well, and either buy plain (and sweeten with your own fruits and honey) as well. Actually, organic applesauce is a very good natural sweetener (and SCD legal!). alternatively, just take some apples, run through a blender, and add them to your yogurt to sweeten and flavor.
Second, in my personal opinion, kefir is far superior to yogurt because it contains far more concentrated varieties of beneficial probiotics. yogurt has acidophilus, but kefir has acidophilus plus at least 34 additional strains of probiotics, although the commercial brands, such as "Lifeway" only claim they have 10 probiotic cultures, which includes acidophilus.
Yes, you can buy kefir in regular grocery stores and you drink it, only it's thick, more like a yogurt smoothie, or milkshake. In fact, you can buy plain kefir, add honey, cocoa and ice, and make a kefir milkshake. I've never seen any of the sweetened varieties of kefir with carageenan
We (of course) make our own kefir, and all it requires is a quart of milk and some kefir grains--which can be used and reused indefinitely. The fermentation process renders the milk 99% lactose free, and you just leave the milk and kefir grains out in the counter for about 35 hours for it to thicken into kefir. It's easy to make and after obtaining grains, all you ever pay for again is the milk.
Kefir grains grow, doubling in size roughly every 20 days, and before long, you will have kefir grains coming out of your ears, so people often give away their excess. I got mine free off craigslist, but got them from an organization before kefir became popularized, and they no longer share--and won't let me either. The grains apparently originally belonged to their founder, and his research results (so they claim) angered "Big Pharma", so they became very protective. I just found all this out a couple months ago. My kefir grains have some interesting history behind them.
If you buy kefir instead of making it, in my personal opinion, Ludwig brand kefir is tastier than Lifeway. I'm not crazy about Lifeway, which is kind of bitter, while Ludwig is smoother, with lots of chunks of real fruits, but the fruited varieties of both are sweetened with cane sugar, but you can always buy it plain. There is a brand called "Greek Gods" which carries a kefir sweetened with honey.