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Yogurt: Miracle Food or Marketing Ploy?
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Allison Ford | DivineCaroline
July 02, 2009
A few years ago, Jamie Lee Curtis started appearing on my television, telling me about how yogurt would cure all my digestive woes. Not just any yogurt, of course, but Dannon’s Activia, which was “proven” to help regulate the digestive system.
Apparently, it could miraculously cure everything from constipation to colitis. I’d heard about the supposed health benefits of yogurt long before Jamie Lee ever started talking to me about my transit time, and I’d heard that the bacterial cultures in yogurt were good for digestion and a host of other things. I’d even taken supplements of acidophilus for years to improve the balance of my intestinal flora. Yogurt is all the rage now, but exactly how much of the “miracle” is medicine, and how much is marketing?
The Bacteria Bandwagon
Yogurt is a byproduct of introducing bacteria to milk. The bacteria ferment the sugar in the milk, producing lactic acid, which causes the milk to curdle to a thick texture. Yogurt with active cultures hasn’t received a final microbe-killing pasteurization, and the live bacteria in the yogurt are purported to aid human digestion.
Yogurt is made with types of “good” bacteria that already thrive in the human digestive tract, helping to break down and digest waste matter. Stress, poor diet, antibiotics, or illness can disrupt that delicate balance of bacteria in the gut. When those bacteria get out of whack, it’s possible to maintain a healthy GI tract by replenishing them. Yogurt manufacturers claim that ingesting these beneficial bacteria can ease constipation, improve intestinal transit time, and even enable weight loss.
The bacteria found in yogurt are sometimes called “probiotics,” which is any type of preparation that contains helpful bacteria or yeast. There are many different types of probiotic bacteria added to yogurt or sold as dietary aids; the most widely used are the species Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium.
Industry groups like the National Yogurt Association claim that probiotic products can help with everything from childhood diarrhea to allergies, although many of their assertions have yet to be proven.
kbtordai
4 months ago
708 comments
Interesting! My mom buys the Activia, but still seems to have problems in that area. Everyone is looking for a way out of medication and although yogart has great nutritional value, all the other foods and drinks you take in should matter too!