Yoghurt is an excellent source of calcium needed for healthy bones and vitamin B12 needed for a healthy blood supply, and the process of culturing (or lacto-fermenting) dairy helps break down casein – a protein in milk and one of the most difficult proteins to digest. This can be very helpful to those unable to tolerate many dairy products, as they sometimes find yoghurt much more easily digestible.
Live yoghurt also contains countless ‘friendly’ lactobacillus bacteria which help our digestive system run smoothly by aiding the breakdown of food, the absorption of nutrients and fighting against ‘unfriendly’ organisms that are often the cause of stomach upsets.
Making your own is easy – you just need a good quality organic starter culture (plain live yoghurt) to pass on the health benefits – a good starter one is Yeo Valley plain live organic yoghurt.
INGREDIENTS:
500ml milk
a starter culture (which can be bought online or In health-food shops for around £4) or a small pot around 150g – of live plain yoghurt.
POUR the milk into a saucepan.
ADD live cultures or 3tbsp live yoghurt for every 500ml milk and stir well.
BEFORE the mixture cools any further (Ideal temperature: 35c to 47c – any higher and you risk killing all the bacteria) pour it into a clean flask or container and cover it tightly with a lid.
PUT the container into your oven (set to its lowest temperature for a few minutes then switch off the heat but leave the night on to keep it at a regular temperature of 43 to 46c) and let it sit overnight – or longer than eight hours for thicker, more tangy yoghurt.
POUR into clean jars and refrigerate until ready to eat. You can use a little of the yoghurt as the starter culture for· your next batch.