Fermented food has been a mainstream in human diet for thousands of years. Nowadays we live in a different pace and have switched our life styles to fast-food-live mode. That leads to practicing non-healthy diets which leads to poor gut health which is the root of many health problems.

We challenge you to reflect about your diet and do some kitchen experiments with your kid(s). Let’s do fermentation, learn by doing it and make your own healthy yogurt at home.

Plan is to use fresh milk and perform series of very simple and organic steps transforming milk into yogurt. The milk is heated (this is called pasteurization) and a specific bacterial culture (yogurt starter) is added and left to ferment in a controlled environment at a controlled temperature for a specific length of time (this is called incubation). Voilà! Now you have yogurt.

Essentially yogurt is the product of beneficial bacteria fermenting milk, turned into a thickened, acidic food that will stay consumable for longer. In this process, the thick homemade yogurt becomes a kind of medicine teaming with millions of gut loving bacteria. The living bacterial cultures in yogurt are called beneficial bacteria, because they support digestion and are nourishing, and are not pathogenic (harmful) bacteria that can cause disease. These beneficial bacteria are called probiotics (Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus). When we eat homemade yogurt the probiotics support our digestive system’s native beneficial bacteria and also helps prevent bad bacteria from getting out of control. This is a core of our immune response based in the gut.