Budwig Protocol

The basis of Dr. Budwig’s oil-protein diet

How to prepare the flaxseed oil / cottage cheese mix & simple quark

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As mentioned, the basis of Dr. Budwig’s diet or protocol is the ingestion of a special oil-protein mixture in the form of organic cold-pressed flaxseed oil plus cottage cheese or quark^[1]. In fact, the Budwig diet is often mistakenly believed to be just about “flaxseed oil and cottage cheese”, likely a major reason why many may feel hesitant to more deeply research it due to its sounding simplistic and hence unbelievable. The fact is that Dr. Budwig was a brillant scientist whose ground-breaking discoveries in the field of human health still await proper recognition. See Who Was Dr. Johanna Budwig?.

Preparation of the Budwig diet flaxseed oil plus cottage cheese/quark mix

This is how the Budwig diet mix is prepared: for each tablespoon of flaxseed oil, add 2 tablespoons of low-fat cottage cheese (or quark). The flaxoil/cottage cheese (quark) mixture should be fully blended until no traces of oil remain visible, proving that the highly unsaturated fatty acids have become water soluble (a hand-held mixer or a blender works well when you add some milk as suggested by Dr. Budwig. Personally I find even a simple whisk to work satisfactorily if the quark is diluted with enough fluid.).

For those who like to go into even more detail: using a measuring tablespoon of 15 ml, the flaxseed oil/cottage cheese (or quark) ratio is about 1:2 by volume (going by weight, the flaxseed oil/cottage cheese [or quark] ratio is about 1:2.4). It seems preferable to rather use a bit more cottage cheese (or quark) than too little. Dr. Budwig used 42 g flaxseed oil (3 tblsp) mixed with 100 g of quark in her breakfast muesli, a central part of her diet.

Low-fat yoghurt and yoghurt quark and how to make your own

Since organic cottage cheese may be hard to find, and if available, may possibly be cost-prohibitive for many, you also have the (less optimal) option of using yogurt. If yogurt is used, three times as much yogurt as quark or cottage cheese is required (i.e. for each tablespoon of flaxseed oil, add six tablespoons of yogurt) and even then it may not be as effective as cottage cheese/quark because it lacks the protein density of cottage cheese and may not fully mix with flaxseed oil.

(However, a site visitor suggested what looks like a simple solution: adding some whey powder to the yoghurt to help create the desired sulfurated amino acid density as well as somewhat improve consistency.)^[2]

In any case, the best solution would seem to be making your own organic quark or cottage cheese and use this as a substitute.^[3] There are two ways to easily make your own “yoghurt quark”:

• by straining the yoghurt until you obtain a firm mass of yoghurt quark. You can strain the yogurt through a kitchen towel, piece of plain white/natural real linen fabric, some unbleached, 100% cotton muslin (old, well washed muslin pillowcases will do), or similar cloth^[4]. Line a colander with the fabric, and let the whey drain out until you have a quark- or cottage-cheese-like mass. Make sure to drink the whey, it is packed with nutrients. Alternatively use it in making fermented vegetables or give it to pets.

If you also make your own organic yogurt (using an inexpensive yoghurt maker or any device or setting allowing an [optimally] constant temperature of 108-112° F to be maintained for the time of incubation), you will save a lot of money in the long run. Making your own will also ensure maximum freshness of your yoghurt.

To make low-fat yoghurt, either buy organic lowfat milk or, if unavailable, leave the milk standing for a while (organic milk normally shouldn't be homogenised, so the cream will rise to the top allowing you to easily skim it off to obtain lowfat milk).

Add half a teaspoon or more of your starter yoghurt or culture^[7] containing live (active) cultures to a glass container, top up with the milk, cover loosely and keep in a warm place (or better: yoghurt maker if you have one) for as long as it takes for the milk to turn into yoghurt (anywhere from 3 to 12 hours and more depending on the amount of starter used). In wintertime, it even works quite well to put the fermenting milk on top of a moderately hot oven.^[5]

If you do make your yoghurt at home, you can additionally use the "lazy man's method" for making your own quark which is even easier than the draining method described above:

• simply allow the yoghurt to ferment until the whey has well separated from the solids, then pour it off (make sure to consume the whey as mentioned above) and use the solid lump remaining as your quark. This has the additional advantage of all the lactose having been converted to lactic acid - lactic acid in itself has been found to possess decisive cancer-fighting properties.^[6]

If you don’t have access to yoghurt cultures, kefir would be an alternative, see Making home-made kefir (to use as the basis for kefir quark).

Probiotics

To get maximum health benefits from your home-made yogurt/yoghurt quark, make sure to use a starter culture^[7] or starter yoghurt containing live Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium bifidus, B. breve, B. longum, L. plantarum, L. rhamnosus, S. boulardii, S. thermophilus and/or L. casei bacteria (or other beneficial bacteria).

These probiotics or beneficial gut bacteria are part of the healthy intestinal flora necessary for good digestion and immune function and compromised in many persons due to antibiotics (and possibly pesticide and other toxin) ingestion. Among many positive contributions to our health, probiotics help keep any candida albicans (yeast) colonies in check, and, astoundingly, help us to be less anxious.^[8]

Also see the detailed instructions under How to cheaply include huge amounts of live probiotics in your diet by making your own yoghurt.

Tips from a site visitor

“I have been using the flax oil and cottage cheese for a couple of years now (along with ascorbic acid, glucosamine, high co-q10, etc. [please note the caveat re concentrated antioxidants in the FAQ]). We started because one of our dogs has had numerous tumors/cancers and at somewhere around 14 now, he's still doing wonderfully well (the flaxseed mix appears to be the most crucial of his supplements — when a new tumor presents, if I up the dosage, it starts shrinking within a few days, usually).

And now the whole family's taking at least a bit of it — but I have ongoing GI troubles and cannot tolerate dairy (compare Tips, Suggestions & Testimonials on How to Overcome Dairy/Cottage Cheese/Lactose Intolerance & Sensitivity and vegan alternatives).

So what I do is make my quark out of homemade yogurt, as you suggest, except that I prepare the yogurt according to the SCD (special carbohydrate diet) specs which is to avoid adding powdered milk or anything else besides the culture/yogurt starter and permit it to ferment a full 24 hours - if you're using yogurt instead of dry cultures as a starter, you should only cool it down to 110 F instead of 100, or the mixture won't be warm enough. (Complete recipe & instructions at scdiet.net/scdarchive/2recipes/scdyogurt.html)

When yogurt has fermented for that long a period, the conversion of lactose to lactic acid is virtually complete, and doesn't present the same digestive problems, even for those with irritable bowel disease, in most cases.

The yogurt comes out nice and firm and it tastes good — sourness varies with what culture or yogurt you use as a starter. The only one that turned out too sour for me personally was Axelrod's.

A couple of preparation tips. While I used to use an electric blanket, a heating pad and sometimes the oven, now that the whole family/menagerie is eating my yogurt, I needed something more space-efficient in my galley kitchen so I purchased a pair of yogurt makers. I suggest the Salton YM9 1-Quart Yogurt Maker [Amazon partner link — commissions earned].

Apart from low price, the beauty of this model is that the one-quart plastic soup containers you get free from take-out food places fit inside perfectly, so I can start my new batches as soon as the old ones are finished (use glass to eliminate any worry over using plastic with warm food).

Re: Quark, I find that a real silk chiffon scarf is much better and not as messy as cheesecloth for straining. It crumples up so you can wash it at the same time you're washing your hands, then air dries virtually instantly. Most women will have an old one already on hand, but they're cheap enough in thrift stores and on eBay. Alternatively, those nylon bags they have at the paint store for straining paint work nicely.

Last aside: I have extremely poor gut motility, to the point where I've had two surgeries already and probably need more. For those of your readers who have IBD such as Crohn's or simply suffer from extreme constipation, they may want to consider using Dannon activia as the starter for this yogurt, as the specific cultures in it have most of their activity in the lowest portion of the gut and colon.

It's a bit of a trade-off, as there's no plain version, just Vanilla, which has sweeteners and additives; however, the culture is a small-fraction of the finished yogurt/quark, volume-wise. And these specific cultures, when they've been growing for 24-hours, really work. It's made a tremendous difference to my own quality of life.

As a health crisis often precipitates money problems, I like to pass on any cheap solutions I find.”

For cancer patients and carers who decide to implement the Budwig protocol, it is highly recommended to read the landmark "Budwig Diet — How To Get It Right — The Ultimate Guide" (available as a Kindle ebook on Amazon and as an downloadable PDF at an introductory discount) as well as Dr. Budwig’s available English-language books.

Footnotes

1 Quark is a dairy product readily available in German-speaking countries made from various types of milk. Roughly similar to cottage cheese, Dr. Budwig used quark because quark is a traditional food item in Germany, inexpensively sold at every corner and used in a wide variety of dishes, sweet, savoury, in baking etc. Cottage cheese (Hüttenkäse) is a relatively recent import (I would estimate it was introduced in the late 1960s) and not even remotely as popular as quark.

2 Compare "Did Dr. Johanna Budwig actually recommend the use of yogurt in place of cottage cheese/quark?" in the Budwig FAQ..

3 For additional suggestions also compare vegan alternatives.

4 Make sure the cloth contains no detergent residues or similar irritants/toxins.

5 One disadvantage of the oven method is that a steady or optimal temperature is unlikely to be maintained. Since the beneficial yoghurt cultures have a preferred (narrrowly defined) temperature range (which you get by using a yoghurt maker), overheating or keeping the cultures too cool will affect how well they grow and outcompete any less beneficial organisms also trying to grow in the milk, and the taste and consistency of the finished yoghurt may be negatively affected.

6 See e.g. Lactic-acid-fermented food treatment for cancer according to Dr. Dr. Johannes Kuhl. Dr Kuhl reaped astounding successes with cancer patients and may have served as Dr Budwig's inspirer. If it hadn't been for his untimely death, he would likely be as well known as Dr Budwig.

7 The simplest way is buying some probiotics supplement in capsules (or as a powder) which contains "guaranteed live" or "active" cultures. One capsule is enough to start your yoghurt - just open, put it in your yoghurt maker and pour on the milk. Details under How to cheaply include huge amounts of live probiotics in your diet by making your own yoghurt.

8 More on advantages and benefits of probiotics.

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Related section

For the most comprehensive and authoritative English-language coverage worldwide of the oil-protein diet & protocol developed by Dr. Budwig, see

• Budwig Diet.