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Kazakhstan are pinning their hopes of Olympic boxing gold on traditional nomadic fare and will ship horse meat and kymyz (fermented mare's milk) to Athens to boost their fighters' stamina. Kazakh boxing team coach Yermakhan Ibraimov, who won gold as a light-middleweight in Sydney in 2000, confessed plain yet energizing nomadic food had been the key to his own success. The slightly heady, centuries-old kymyz is fermented mare's milk, treasured by the Kazakhs as a fizzy cold drink in the summer heat. Clearly many cultures other than our own are already aware of the incredible value of fermented foods, including one of the healthiest of all fermented foods, kefir. It's most unfortunate that these health-promoting foods are largely ignored in the United States.
Yahoo News July 30, 2004