Posted on Thu, Jun. 26, 2008

Your gut is home to millions of microbes -- good bacteria that usually keep the bad guys at bay. Sometimes, though, they need reinforcements.

Enter probiotics, healthful microflora that can aid digestion, improve nutrient absorption and boost immunity. Once confined to supplements and dairy products like kefir and yogurt, probiotics are stepping out.

There's even a probiotic cereal, Kashi Vive ($4.49, 12 ounces). It's whole grain (wheat, rye, triticale, brown rice, barley, buckwheat, oats plus freeze-dried broccoli sprouts) with a masterly 12 fiber grams per 1 ¼ cup serving.

Vive's probiotics come from cultured nonfat dry milk and yogurt, appearing as little white puffballs among the flakes. It's crunchy-munchy and mildly sweet, with 170 calories, 2.5 fat grams and a billion probiotics.

A billion's nothing, babe. Lifeway, your kefir king, has developed SoyTreat ($3.40, 32 ounces), an organic soy kefir with up to 10 billion probiotics per 8-ounce serving. Available in peach and strawberry, SoyTreat doesn't taste especially fruity, but it's creamy-dreamy with 10 active dairy cultures (so, like Vive, it's not vegan). One serving contains 160 calories, 4 fat grams and a third of your daily calcium needs. It's in the refrigerator case.

That's also where you'll find NextFoods' dairy-free, wheat-free (but not vegan) GoodBelly ($4.49 for four 2.7-ounce bottles). It's 30 percent juice and 70 percent cane sugar, barley malt and cultured oat flour -- the source of the probiotics.

One serving has 50 calories, no fat, your daily allowance of vitamins C, E, K, B-6 and B-12 plus minerals including zinc, selenium, manganese and chromium. The main attraction though: a whomping 20 billion live active probiotics.

Bright tangy blends like blueberry-acai make for a probiotics party. The bad guys don't stand a chance.

Ellen Kanner writes biweekly about vegetarian concerns.