Making yogurt is pretty easy.
It takes milk, an insta pot or yogurt maker, the stove can also be used but that is not simple. Any kind of milk, although alternative milks make the process less simple and simple is key. To the milk, a culture is added and it grows in the milk to make yogurt, or fermented milk which is actually what it is.
Culture is a softer word for bacteria, fermented or cultured milk (yogurt) is a bacteria party. Can you imagine a product called Dannon Strawberry Fermented Milk Bacteria Party?
Strawberry yogurt sounds better.
On our instapot, there is a yogurt button. Pushing the button once heats the milk to 180 degrees, then it shuts off. The milk is cooled down to 110 degrees and a culture is added. The pot then holds the milk at a constant temp for as long as it is set for, 12 hours for example. Easy, kind of foolproof except that the resulting product is inconsistent, at least for me. It works great for dog yogurt (cost wise it just takes milk) and it also works to strain the result it for a thick yogurt product. The culture can be obtained from other yogurt or from probiotic capsules.
Yogurt making works well to control the culture used. Fermented milk made at home is a way to control the probiotics (bacteria) added to the diet/gut.
Why not just take a capsule?
My friend sent me a you tube the other night about super yogurt. The doctor who wrote the book “Wheat Belly” is now onto super yogurt. Dr. William Davis is interviewed on the video, explaining about a specific probiotic (bacteria) called Limosilactobacillus reuteri, or L. reuteri, a good bacteria in the gut but gone from most adult digestive tracts. There are plenty of videos on this topic, plenty on how to make super yogurt and a book by Dr. Davis. Here’s Dr. Davis’ website: https://drdavisinfinitehealth.com/2019/07/how-to-make-l-reuteri-yogurt-step-by-step/
I am a believer in the brain gut connection and that the modern gut biome is completely changed from what it once was by pharmaceuticals and diet. It influences everything but most importantly the immune system and brain function.
I did buy a yogurt maker and the particular L. reuteri capsules and I did make the yogurt. I feel like a sucker but what I learned was interesting and probably worth sucker status.
The first is that taking a capsule of probiotic, in most cases, doesn’t do the job. The job is to change the gut biome from ineffective to effective. A capsule has a tiny fraction of the total bacteria count the digestive system needs to be healthy. The reason to ferment milk with cultures is to give the end product the time it needs to develop a high probiotic count.
Multiple searches to find optimal probiotics (bacteria) for gut health yielded nothing but frustration. Then this:
To understand the role that probiotics may have in influencing health, it is important to have an appreciation of the roles of the normal intestinal microbiome (commensal microbiota). The human gastrointestinal tract is host to over 500 bacterial species as well as a less well-described virome. These microbiota form a virtual bioreactor facilitating digestion, nutrient provision and the shaping of our immune system.2 Our intestinal bacteria weigh up to 1 kg and bacterial cells outnumber human cells by 10:1. The bacterial genome may outnumber the human genome by 100:1. Nutritional factors including several B vitamins, vitamin K, folate, and short chain fatty acids are produced by these bacteria. Up to 10% of anindividual’s daily energy needs can be derived from the byproducts of bacterial fermentation. Gastrointestinal microbiota are also critical for normal immune system development.3 The physiologic impact mediated by our resident microbes is substantial enough to have earned the label of “other organ” from some.4
A Gastroenterologist's Guide to Probiotics
The second important result of this yogurt story is that there are an 500 probiotics or bacteria species that the human digestive tract needs to function. It is possible to home ferment with anything you can find in a capsule or yogurt. The fermentation, the yogurt making, allows the bacteria counts to get to levels that will make a difference in the digestive system. I am looking for a recipe that tells exactly what bacteria and at what level to maintain a healthy gut.
I don’t think it exists.
The science behind the L.reuteri strain is that it multiplies best at body temperature, 99 degrees, for 36 hours. After 36 hours the bacteria counts decline. The peak count is at 36 hours. An instapot holds a temperature of 110 degrees which will kill the L.reuteri. Commercial yogurt is fermented for about 6 hours. That is not enough time for the any cultures to multiply to a degree at which they will make a difference.
Thirdly, it is possible to ferment milk with a sous vide because the temperature can be held at 99 degrees. I did not need to go full sucker and buy the yogurt maker. However, if L.reuteri changes our lives the way the wheat belly guy says it will, the dedicated yogurt maker will work out well.
The second batch of this cultured milk experiment took commercial yogurt and combined it with milk and the L.reuteri. It’s cooking, or multiplying bacteria now.
Yogurt never was fun to make but this idea of adding more cultures is definitely making it more interesting. interesting too because apparently if UHT milk is used the milk does not need to be heated to 180 degrees first. That step was a pain.
My friend that sent the video has gone through her first batch of super yogurt. She has noticed that exhaustion that she was experiencing a few weeks ago is gone.
This is just more fuel to the gut biome fire. Getting back a healthy digestive system is not easy, or understandable in some cases, but it is obviously important.
Eye opening. I consume yogurt daily. All brands and it's expensive. Now I've learned it's not as effective as it should be? Thanks for the blog, Anne. We shall discuss