Essentially the same product has been made
for millennia from eastern Europe and North
Africa across central Asia to India, where it
goes by a variety of names and is used for a
variety of purposes: it’s eaten on its own,
diluted into drinks, mixed into dressings, and
used as an ingredient in soups, baked goods,
and sweets.
The Health Benefits of Fermented Milks
The bacteria in dairy products may do
more for us than just predigest lactose and
create flavor. Recent research findings lend
some support to the ancient and
widespread belief that yogurt and other
cultured milks can actively promote good
health. Early in the 20th century, the
Russian Nobelist Ilya Metchnikov (who
discovered that white blood cells fight
bacterial infection) gave a scientific
rationale to this belief, when he proposed
that the lactic acid bacteria in fermented