Western medicine has really let me down in my lifetime in this regard and I really don't want Missy to suffer the way I have. This is why we eat a clean diet with minimal processed foods.
Recently, I read a fantastic book by Dr Michael Moseley called The Clever Gut Diet: How to revolutionise your body from the inside out. (Affiliate link)
This book explains what your gut flora/ microbiome is and the different strains of good (and bad) gut bacteria. I'm amazed at how these little guys can have such a massive effect on our health. This book talks a lot about the relationship of the gut to type 2 diabetes and obesity, but also touches on autoimmune diseases and inflammatory bowel conditions (as well as a few others).I don't think it really matters what condition you are trying to treat in the context of this book. It focuses more on what a healthy gut microflora should be and how our diet can either enhance this or destroy it. In my case, years of undiagnosed food intolerances and allergies have pretty much destroyed mine so I'm really focused now on doing what I can to restore my gut health as much as possible.
If you have poor health, particularly any gut issues I can strongly recommend this book. It is an easy read backed up by science (the references are in the back if you want them) and doesn't focus on any fad diets. Dr Moseley explains that he uses the word diet in its true sense, that is, what you feed your body (and gut bacteria). It is about lifestyle, not dieting. Moreover, I feel that I now have some control back and can move forward with trying to improve my health without the Western medicine approach of treating the symptoms. I'm now trying to get to the cause to stop the symptoms at the source rather than cover them up with a prescription.
I've struggled with getting the right gut bacteria for decades as sadly I am unable to eat most foods that are associated with good gut bacteria; onion family, pulses and beans, fermented foods and so on. What I have stumbled upon is making my own yoghurt as I've never had any issues eating dairy products.
You knew yoghurt was in this post somewhere from the title. Well done for getting this far to find it!
Dr Moseley confirmed in his book what I've thought for many years, that commercial yoghurts with added good bacteria just aren't good enough. In trials, most commercial products, such as Actimel and Yakoult that we get in the UK, simply don't give the benefits that are promised. It might be that the bacteria are not in a high enough concentration, they might not adequately survive the acid in the stomach or by the time they reach the shelves they are not as active. Whatever the reason, I've failed to get any benefit from them over the years that I've intermittently tried them. The other problem with commercial products is that the bacteria cultures simply are not diverse enough. Often there is only one culture, at best two, in these products, whereas gut health is all about diversity.
The only option I can see is to make my own yoghurt with a more diverse culture. I can also control the time of incubation to allow enough bacteria to form so that some survive my stomach acid. Additionally, there is no time delay between making the yoghurt and being available to eat. That is, no shipping or time wasted in warehouses.
Making your own yoghurt only requires two ingredients. You need milk and a starter culture.
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| Kefir, a fermented milk product with live cultures |
I used full fat cows milk as I was aiming for a creamy textured yoghurt. I have read plenty of recipes where other milk can be used too, such as goats milk or coconut milk. Pinterest is a great source of information for finding recipes. There is also advice and recipe details in Dr Moseley's book.
There are various starter cultures you can use. The easiest is probably by using a store bought natural live yoghurt. I checked out the cultures in these yoghurts in my store and found that the most I could find were the two stains of bacteria most commonly used. I really wanted a more diverse culture as I'm trying to get back to good health rather than maintain it.
I looked a bit further around the aisles and found Kefir, a fermented milk product, that contained several strains of bacterial cultures (including Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus rhamnosus). I decided to try this as a starter culture.
An alternative I've read about is using kefir grains to make your own fermented milk (or sugar water if you can't drink cows milk) but I haven't yet tried this. I opted for the kefir milk as it stated on the bottle that it is gluten free and seemed the easier option. You can also buy dried starter cultures from health food shops, but again, I haven't used these so can't comment any further.
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| A 2 pint thermos bowl, used as an incubator. |
So now we have our 2 required ingredients. All we need now is a large pan to heat the milk in, a thermometer and a vessel to keep the culture warm for 8-12 hours. I used a thermos bowl, this one but in white as I already had it in the house and it has a 2 pint capacity. (That's an affiliate link)
I made 2 pints of yoghurt but you can scale up or down depending on how much you need.
Add 2 pints of milk to a pan and heat to above 85 degrees centigrade. This kills off any potential bad bacteria that might be in the milk. I find a thermometer is useful here.
Take the milk off the heat and allow it to cool to 42 degrees centigrade. This is the ideal temperature for most bacteria to grow. Note that it's just above our body temperature of 37 degrees centigrade.
When the milk is cooled, add 1 tablespoon of your chosen starter culture for every pint of milk you heated. 2 tbsp in this case.
Stir to mix thoroughly. Then pour the milk/culture into your thermos bowl. Pop on the lid and leave for 8-12 hours to turn into yoghurt. Try not to move the thermos once settled to allow the yoghurt to set.
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| My first batch of homemade yoghurt! |
If you don't have a thermos, don't worry. Years ago, the milk culture would have been poured into clean glass jars and wrapped in tea towels and left in a warm place. If you are worried about not having a warm place you could try popping it into an oven that was preheated to the lowest setting and then turned off. The closed oven door should insulate the jars for long enough. Again, I haven't tried this as I had a thermos but it's how it used to be made so give it a go.
After leaving my culture overnight (and then some as I forgot I made it!) it had turned into a slightly set creamy yoghurt. I did the taste test with Missy and we agreed that it is super yummy. That's our technical word for it!
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| Gluten free pancakes with homemade yoghurt, banana and a drizzle of maple syrup. Yum! |
The yoghurt tastes like unsweetened Greek yoghurt. It's creamy with a slight tang. It suits both sweet treats as well as for use in salad dressings. I've even seen recipes for cakes using natural yoghurt in place of milk. Hubby also uses yoghurt in our homemade gluten free flat breads and pizza doughs. That's food for thought! See what I did there!
I have to say that I'm slightly impressed with myself. It definitely got the scientist in me excited. It's been a long time since I've purposely grown bacterial cultures!
I should point out that it's a good idea to keep back some yoghurt to use as the starter culture for next time (so long as its in about 3 weeks, as this is the shelf life in the fridge). It saves having to buy starter culture every time you make it, and I'm all about finding cheaper ways to do things! ;-)
As for any health benefits. I really don't know. This is a long journey that I'm on and if I do improve I won't be able to say if it was because of the yoghurt as I'm changing lots of things. Also, a sample size of one (uncontrolled) study would not make for good science! I do however, feel more confident about using a more diverse starter culture and eating the yoghurt fresh. Either way, it tastes great!
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