Yoghurt's got swagger
Officially yoghurt is simply milk curdled by bacteria, where lactose is turned into lactic acid giving the milk the familiar curd-like consistency with a tart flavour.
Rachel Zammit Cutajar
In western Europe yoghurt is most popular sweetened, as a fruity dessert of breakfast food. However it can be used in a variety of ways. In India it is consumed as a drink known as lassi - a savoury drink made by blending yoghurt, water and ground roasted cumin or a sweet drink made where sugar and fruit is used as a substitute for the spices.
It can be used to make cheese, known as labneh, by straining the whey from the yoghurt, giving the remainder a consistency between yoghurt and cheese while retaining the yoghurt-like flavour.
It can also be used in baking to add moistness to the batter without the fats associated with butter and oil. It also provides a unique tart flavour that goes particularly well with berries.
When frozen, yoghurt makes a delicious and healthy alternative to ice-cream.
Yoghurt is easily digested and can even be consumed by people with lactose intolerance. This is because the added bacteria converts indigestible lactose into glucose and galactose and a more easily accessible lactic acid.
Yoghurt is traditionally made from cow's milk and involves heating the milk to 90C to kill off any bacteria that may be harmful to health. Live cultures of Lactobaccillius bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are added and left to ferment for 12 hours. Pasturised fruit can then be added to make the more popular fruit varieties.
Milk with different fat content is used to produce natural, light and dessert versions, while other yoghurts have additional cultures with other individual health benefits. Plant sterols are added to some yoghurts which have been proven to reduce cholesterol levels in the body, while added probiotics aid digestion.
Yoghurt can also be made from sheep, goat and even mare, camel and yak's milk, each with their own flavours and individual uses.
The use of yoghurt dates back to 2500BC and was most likely discovered quite by accident when milk was left in the sun too long. Though its origins are unclear it was likely to have been discovered in the warmer climates of India, Asia and southern Europe long before it was used in the cooler climates of the north.
By the early 20th century Bulgarian peasants attributed their longer life spans to a diet rich in yoghurt, which led to the increase in popularity of yoghurt and by 1919, Danone started to produce the stuff commercially.
As a dairy product, yoghurt is rich in calcium with positive effects on the bones and teeth. It is has also been shown to fight obesity as a result of the calcium as well as the live cultures that aid digestion in the gut.
A recent study in mice has shown that specimens fed a daily dose of yoghurt were not only slimmer but also had shiner coats and more 'swagger' than the control group not fed the yoghurt.
