Think yogurt – an amazing food and medicine for natural health!

People have been making yogurt for thousands of years. It probably happened accidentally at first, when somebody’s milk fermented, but still tasted good. Then it must have taken a while for them to figure out how to get those results every time.


Nowadays it isn’t difficult -- certain bacterial cultures are added to milk, and allowed to expand. As they multiply, the bacteria convert the lactose (or milk sugar) into lactic acid. This is crucial to a lot of people, and we’ll talk more about that later.


But even if you’re not lactose-intolerant, this humble milk culture has many remarkable health benefits, including disease prevention!


DID YOU KNOW… ?


--Full-fat yogurt, along with other full-fat dairy foods, may significantly reduce colorectal cancer risk! This may be why, many years ago, Edgar Cayce said it was good for everyone to eat some cream and a little butter now and then.


--It can wipe out Helicobacter pylori -- the bacterium responsible for most ulcers!

--Its calcium richness increases body fat loss significantly, by boosting fat burning after a meal.

--One of the most celebrated milk cultures, lactobacillus, has "remarkable preventive and curative" effects on arthritis, according to Israeli researchers.

--It may enhance immune response, increasing resistance to immune-related diseases! Our own personal experience: after eating yogurt every day of the year, we no longer got the flu.

--It lowers LDL, and raises HDL Cholesterol!


WOW! HOW CAN YOU TOP ALL THAT!


I’ve heard people say they don’t like plain yogurt because it’s too sour. But when it’s made gently, it may have no sourness at all. Yoplait’s “custard style” is a good example of this, and Dannon plain is sour, but then, they are catering to people who like that traditional taste.


Other cultured-milk products available in stores are kefir and acidophilus milk, both of which are extremely mild beverages, and contain live lactobacillus.

Edgar Cayce often recommended yogurt, which he called “Bulgarian buttermilk” – an apparent reference to one of its primary bacteria, Lactobacillus bulgaricus. He was aware that many adults couldn’t handle milk -- a fact not widely known until comparatively recently – and that their using milk would lead to arteriosclerosis. But he said that eating it regularly would prevent that reaction in old age.


Nowadays, we know that some 50% of the world’s adults are lactose intolerant. In Africa, the percentage is even greater. Sadly, this has contributed to much of the starvation there, because milk-producing herd animals, such as cows, sheep, and goats, are among the only “crops” that can be raised in many of the drought-stricken regions. Yet adult systems could not handle lactose in the milk!


But several years ago, I heard a program on National Public Radio (NPR) about a service organization that had taught many Africans to add lactobacillus to their local milk, and provided them with the necessary bacteria to start. The result was dramatic, and has turned adult populations in Africa away from lactose-intolerance related illnesses. Now they can utilize that vital source of food.


But studies indicate that as many as 50% of Americans are also lactose-intolerant. So we, too, can really use the beneficial effects of this wonder food! Even if you’re not among that 50%, there are so many other positive benefits, such as colon health, that it shouldn’t be ignored.


It’s a delicious and amazingly nutritious food -- and it's easy to make your own!


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