Yogurt reminds me of the old Bulgarians, whose longevity and health have commonly been attributed to their eating plenty of this healthy dairy product.
What is yogurt? One usually receives the answer that it is a kind of curdled milk. In a certain sense this is correct, the difference being that ordinary sour milk contains approximately 6 g of lactic acid per litre while yogurt contains only about 2 g.
Is yogurt better for you than ordinary sweet milk? Sweet milk coagulates in the stomach into curd. The same process is used in making cheese, when rennet from the stomach of calves is added to warm milk, which then turns into curd. The process of turning milk into curds imposes quite a bit of work on the stomach, which it accomplishes only insufficiently, or not at all, if there is a disturbance in the secretion of the gastric fluids or if the stomach lacks tone. Some people find it difficult to digest sweet milk if the stomach is not performing well. On the other hand, most people can tolerate yogurt or sour milk, the reason being that yogurt enters the stomach in a predigested form, that is, a fine curd. Proof of this can be seen when a child vomits after having drunk some milk and the milk returns in big white lumps, whereas yogurt or sour milk is brought up as a flaky fluid.
*1076/28/1*
