What is a Probiotic Culture?

So what exactly is a probiotic culture?

You will see this word probiotic many places online and the definition currently in use by the World Health Organization (WHO) is “Live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host”.

You are the host by the way. So these are microbes or “small organisms” are alive and when you have enough of them, they give you health benefits.

The most common forms of these microorganisms are lactic acid bacteria and bifidobacteria. Lactic acid bacteria convert lactose (milk sugar) to lactic acid and if you see the words lactobacillus or acidophilus, this is what is being talked about. This is one of the most common forms of probiotics.

The health benefits that are currently being studied include managing lactose intolerance, prevention of colon cancer, lowering cholesterol levels, lowering blood pressure, improving immune system functioning, preventing infections, reducing inflammation, preventing the growth of harmful bacteria while under stress, improving the absorption of minerals, improving some of the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and colitis, and relieving urinary tract infections.

That is quite a list for a little microorganism and it is very exciting that something so simple can confer such enormous health benefits. As I said, these areas are being studied at the present time, but it certainly seems that eating enough quantities of these microorganisms is to our benefit.

And of course, one of the best natural sources of these critters is Yogurt – and of course I would say homemade yogurt.

So these probiotics are the good guys of intestinal flora, but there are plenty of bad guys and these little miracle workers go to work killing off all the bad bacteria in your gastrointestinal tract – and it is those bad guys that cause a lot of your belly problems. 

Now, you may have heard that taking antibiotics kills of the good bacteria in your body, and this is true and the reason why doctors won’t give you antibiotics endlessly as the bad bacteria will pretty much make sure you get sick again and stay sick. The solution to this is to eat lots of good bacteria while you are taking antibiotics and straight after you have finished to get your levels of good bacteria back up again. And, the best way to do this is to eat lots of yogurt.

Next time I will talk about the process that actually goes on that creates yogurt from milk.

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Making Yogurt – Milk, The Main Component

Before we get in to what we do with milk it is only fair to mention that there are other things besides milk that can be used to make yogurt – we’ll explore these other ones in a later article – but here is a short list of liquids you can use to make yogurt.

Full fat milk, Half and half, 2% milk, non-fat milk, goats milk, soy milk, rice milk. If you can get calcium fortified products then that will increase the calcium content of the finished yogurt. Vitamin D is another thing that is added to some products which again will give you a more healthful yogurt.

All the instructions I have read say that you should boil the milk in a saucepan first in order to pasteurize the milk. Now, I can understand this for raw milk products – that is unpasteurized milks – but if you are using pasteurized milk, then I don’t see the point of this step. I did boil the first batch I made, but I wrecked a saucepan and found the burned milk at the bottom was really hard to get off.

As I always use pasteurized calcium fortified 2% milk, I just pour the milk into the inner 1 quart container and nuke it for about 6 minutes. This usually leaves the temperature a little bit too high. I just pull it out of the microwave and clip the thermometer to the side and wait for the temperature to fall to 40 degrees centigrade or about 104 degrees Fahrenheit. My thermometer has a handy green mark at the right temperature.

That’s it. Pour it. Nuke it. Cool it. The milk is ready now to make the perfect yogurt. All we need to do now is add the culture and leave it to incubate.

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