Speaker 1: How do everyone chuck here on a Saturday bringing you
Speaker 1: another fine selection from our back catalog? Is yogurt a
Speaker 1: miracle food? This is from November twenty eighteen, And you know,
Speaker 1: yogurt's pretty good for you, you guys, it's something you
Speaker 1: should be eating, perhaps even a miracle food. Do we
Speaker 1: answer that question? Is yogurt a miracle food? Perhaps? Listen
Speaker 1: in and find out right now.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Speaker 3: Charles W. Chuck, Bryan Jerry, and this is the smooth, creamy,
Speaker 3: tangy edition Stuff you Should Know. Fruit on the bottom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't.
Speaker 3: Like yogurt or fruit on the bottom yogurt?
Speaker 1: I don't like fruit on the bottom, okay, but I do.
Speaker 3: Do you like yogurt?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I don't like any of the of the fruity ones.
Speaker 1: I mean, they taste fine, but I think they're just
Speaker 1: like loaded with sugar generally, and sweeteners and things.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's not fruit. It's like jam on the
Speaker 3: bottom jelly. You know. Do you like yogurt compote?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I love yogurt. As a matter of fact. While we
Speaker 3: were researching this. I was like, I can't, I can't
Speaker 3: stand it any longer. I got up and got some yogurt.
Speaker 1: Do you eat it regularly?
Speaker 3: Uh? Not as much as I should, although I recently
Speaker 3: did a blood test and my protein was low strangely,
Speaker 3: so I'm gonna start eating more. Okay, what I'll just
Speaker 3: get like you sounded like YO believe that when I
Speaker 3: see it?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I was just curious what your yogurt
Speaker 1: intike was.
Speaker 3: What about you? You eat it every day? No?
Speaker 1: I should, Like. I don't eat yogurt much. I'm constantly
Speaker 1: slapping it on my kid's baby plate and she loves it,
Speaker 1: and Emily eats it, and I'm like, I need to
Speaker 1: eat more yogurt. I mean, I like it. I just
Speaker 1: don't think about it much.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What I do is sometimes in a like a hotel
Speaker 1: or anywhere where they have the sort of build your
Speaker 1: own parfe thing. Yes, though a little granola yeah, or
Speaker 1: granula in there grows maybe a little bit of fresh
Speaker 1: fruit and mix that all up, and I love it,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I should do this every day because,
Speaker 1: as we will find out, the benefits of eating yogurt,
Speaker 1: which are sort of up in the air as far
Speaker 1: as like hard facts, but it seems like sort of
Speaker 1: regularly eating yogurt is kind of one of the keys
Speaker 1: to getting the health benefits.
Speaker 3: That's that seems to be generally agreed to pind.
Speaker 1: It and not like, oh I eight yogurt today, that
Speaker 1: means I'm eight percent healthier.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's not how it works. Yeah, although I
Speaker 3: think it is, like just temporarily you're doing better for
Speaker 3: a second than you were before. But you know, whats Yeah,
Speaker 3: let me give you a little hint, buddy. Find a
Speaker 3: local bee keeper, and I mean local, like no more
Speaker 3: than five six miles from your house.
Speaker 1: Okay, got one?
Speaker 3: Okay, great, Take a little of that honey, drizzle it
Speaker 3: on some nice, full fat Greek yogurt, sit back and enjoy.
Speaker 3: You will be that's all you need. That's it. If
Speaker 3: you want to add some other stuff like some sliced
Speaker 3: almonds or whatever on it, that's fine too, or fruit
Speaker 3: and granola. I find really good raw local honey and
Speaker 3: in Greek yogret. It's just like you're eating health, is
Speaker 3: what it feels like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I like to taste on its own. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you get the you know, health benefits from that,
Speaker 1: honey too, you do, yeah, I mean throw some throw
Speaker 1: some broccoli in there.
Speaker 3: Throw a little broccoli in there, the Tonka truck, anything
Speaker 3: you can find, just put it onto your yogurt. Start eating.
Speaker 1: And we covered some of the stuff in our probiotics cast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot from how many years ago?
Speaker 3: Is that for twenty fourteen?
Speaker 1: Okay, four years ago? But I felt like yogurt deserved
Speaker 1: to live on its own.
Speaker 3: I was incredulous at first, but I around. Actually I
Speaker 3: was like, chucks, right.
Speaker 1: So let's get into it. I guess we should talk history, yes,
Speaker 1: because yogurt is one of those kind of great accidental
Speaker 1: discoveries that came from many many years ago, kind of
Speaker 1: like a beer and stuff like that. Because people, you know,
Speaker 1: they think it's pretty clear that at some point, many
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago in the Middle East, people were
Speaker 1: transporting stuff like milk, maybe like a goat's milk or.
Speaker 3: Whatever, probably goat and sheep first.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they were transporting that and whatever disgusting animal
Speaker 1: bladder or whatever they used to transport liquids and things
Speaker 1: like that. They got there and they're like, ah, this
Speaker 1: stuff has turned it's it's stinks but you know, we're
Speaker 1: it's a thousand years from being from being civilized humanity.
Speaker 1: So let's just try this stuff, all right, Like who's
Speaker 1: gonna who's gonna care or no.
Speaker 3: Somebody clarked me some honey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they clarked themselves a little honey. They ate
Speaker 1: a little bit of it. It was you know, thicker now,
Speaker 1: and it had this kind of sour, tangy taste.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And one of those ancient Middle Eastern people said, hey,
Speaker 1: this is not bad, right.
Speaker 3: And I think there's this guy named Adam Maskovich who
Speaker 3: wrote a post on the Salt that who basically said
Speaker 3: it's not and it's not entirely an understatement to say
Speaker 3: like civilization was in part built on yogurt.
Speaker 1: That was pretty neat, it really was.
Speaker 3: Because so all of a sudden, you have milk, and
Speaker 3: everybody at the time was like, I can feed this
Speaker 3: to my kid, but I can't. I can't keep milk down.
Speaker 3: I poop all over my saddle basically while we're out riding,
Speaker 3: because this is the Mongolian steps, right. But I have
Speaker 3: found that this weird tangy version, the sour version of
Speaker 3: milk that you call yogurt, like that doesn't affect me
Speaker 3: at all. It's the weirdest thing. And so as more
Speaker 3: people were able to eat this stuff, which is full
Speaker 3: of nutrients, lots of calories, and it has a tantalizing taste,
Speaker 3: people kind of gathered around the areas that had yogurt
Speaker 3: and other stuff too, he points out, like cheese and
Speaker 3: things like that, and bread and beer. It's possible beer
Speaker 3: was the real reason that civilization was started. But the
Speaker 3: yogurt played no small role in that. In its fermentation,
Speaker 3: it has transformed something from something that people who are
Speaker 3: lactose in tolerant can't take to something that people who
Speaker 3: are lactose intolerant can't actually eat and benefit from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they had that conversation and at the end
Speaker 1: of it one of them said, also, is it weird
Speaker 1: that we're humans and we're drinking animal milk as adults
Speaker 1: and they don't worry about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they said, stop thinking yourself is more than an an, Well,
Speaker 3: you're an animal animal.
Speaker 1: So it really thrived in the Middle East. They love
Speaker 1: the stuff, like you were talking about. It's actually a
Speaker 1: Turkish word yogurt is. And it took a little bit
Speaker 1: longer to catch up to Europe. I think at the
Speaker 1: end of the nineteenth century is really when it started
Speaker 1: to spread wide in Europe, and here in the United
Speaker 1: States it took to like the middle half of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century when it was mass marketed by Dannin. And
Speaker 1: it's not like we didn't eat yogurt at all, but
Speaker 1: definitely not like I mean, in the Middle East it was.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, we'll just eat some of this
Speaker 1: for breakfast with fruit. I mean it's in a lot
Speaker 1: of great, great dishes and dips and sauces and is
Speaker 1: kind of one of the staples of a lot of
Speaker 1: Middle Eastern food. So they're doing it right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the Middle East seems to be the
Speaker 3: home of yogurt. It was the home of civilization, and
Speaker 3: they think that yogurts is all the civilization maybe a
Speaker 3: little older. And Turkey seems to be some sort of
Speaker 3: like kind of fulcrum for the spread of yogurt throughout
Speaker 3: the world. And in fact, the word yogurt is a
Speaker 3: Turkish word. It comes from yogurt mak, which is Turkish
Speaker 3: meaning to thicken and Turkey. The fact that we in
Speaker 3: the English speaking world call it yogurt suggests that it
Speaker 3: was the Turks who introduced the West to yogurt, but
Speaker 3: they're also pretty sure that Turkey was the ones who
Speaker 3: introduced yogurt to India as well. And the neighbors, the
Speaker 3: neighboring areas around Turkey, like Bulgaria, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Iran,
Speaker 3: like all these areas are pretty famous for eating a
Speaker 3: lot of yogurt and even having their own kind of
Speaker 3: yogurt or their own version of it. But something about
Speaker 3: Turkey really seems to be the like the pivot point
Speaker 3: for the spread of yogurt in the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can't fun oh yeah, here it is
Speaker 1: even today, it says that Turkish people eat about and
Speaker 1: this was like four or five years ago, two hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty two cups of yogurt per person per year,
Speaker 1: which is definitely more than in the United States.
Speaker 3: Well it was at the time. We've since caught up
Speaker 3: quite quite a.
Speaker 1: Bit, I think, yeah, I think that stat for US
Speaker 1: is poundage though, right, yes, how many pounds of yogurt
Speaker 1: do we eat?
Speaker 3: So we ate four point eight billion pounds of yogurt
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen, four point eight billion pounds in the
Speaker 3: United States alone, and yeah, we're not like the highest
Speaker 3: yogurt eating civilization on the planet by far, but that's
Speaker 3: like about the fifteen pounds per person, thirteen point seven
Speaker 3: pounds per person, which really it sounds like a lot,
Speaker 3: but yogurt weighs a lot, so it's actually just thirty
Speaker 3: six servings per person per year in the United States.
Speaker 1: Wow. So that's yeah in Turkey two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: two cups.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Chuck, like you were saying, like yogurt didn't
Speaker 3: really make its way over to the States until the
Speaker 3: twentieth century, right, Yes, and I think it was And
Speaker 3: you said it was Dan and that brought it here.
Speaker 1: That's right, in the Bronx.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they moved their operations from Spain, Barcelona, I think,
Speaker 3: to the Bronx, which is really weird because like America
Speaker 3: was not a yogurt eating culture at all, in not
Speaker 3: really No, but they brought yogurt to a play said
Speaker 3: where in the world would be the hardest place to
Speaker 3: get a foothold business wise, Let's move our operations there.
Speaker 3: So they moved it to the Bronx and then just
Speaker 3: started slowly working on America. And it wasn't until they
Speaker 3: figured out the fruit on the bottom thing that America said, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: we like this. It's sweet. It's not some disgusting, tangy
Speaker 3: soured milk. We can put like compote in jam in it,
Speaker 3: and it's good. And that is when it started to
Speaker 3: take off. And basically you have Dan and Yogurt to
Speaker 3: thank for bringing yogurt to America. And it wasn't until
Speaker 3: what maybe twenty ten or thirteen before we finally started
Speaker 3: to shed like all the extra gunk and actually get
Speaker 3: into yogurt the way that the rest of the world's
Speaker 3: been eating it for thousands of years, with like what
Speaker 3: we call Greek yogurt.
Speaker 1: The way the Good Lord intended.
Speaker 3: That's right, You want to take a break, Yeah, cool,
Speaker 3: All right, Well we're about to take a break and
Speaker 3: we're gonna come back with more yogurt.
Speaker 1: All right. So we talked about probiotics in the episode
Speaker 1: on probiotics.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was a good episode if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: It was so as a as a brief recap probiotics
Speaker 1: and food. They're like culture concentrates and some kind in
Speaker 1: some foods. Sometimes they're in dietary supplements. Sometimes they're in
Speaker 1: things like yogurt and cheese fermented dairy products, and it's
Speaker 1: they're usually bacteria. Sometimes you can yeast connect as a probiotic,
Speaker 1: but when you generally think probiotic, you think of good
Speaker 1: bacteria used to ferment milk. And then sometimes with things
Speaker 1: like yogurt, they add in other bacteria on top of that.
Speaker 3: Right, which is great, just add some more bacteria as
Speaker 3: long as it's the good kind basically, yeah.
Speaker 1: But sometimes they add bacteria that's not considered probiotic too.
Speaker 3: Right, I look that up. I couldn't find what they
Speaker 3: were talking about unless it's actually a probiotic bacteria that
Speaker 3: just hasn't been shown to be probiotic, right, just at
Speaker 3: this time, that's all right, That's all I could get
Speaker 3: from it. So, and with probiotics, just kind of a
Speaker 3: quick overview, it's just basically like it's beneficial bacteria that's
Speaker 3: in your gut. And when you're born, you're not born
Speaker 3: with your own microbiome. I think you get it from
Speaker 3: breast milk and you get a coating of it as
Speaker 3: you exit your mother's vagina. Okay, so you you develop
Speaker 3: it pretty quickly. But it's kind of like gifted to
Speaker 3: you very shortly after birth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you build it out exactly so.
Speaker 3: As you as you age and live. Like, some stuff dies,
Speaker 3: some stuff gets pooped out of you, but it's constantly reproducing.
Speaker 3: But the point of probiotics, whether it's in pill form
Speaker 3: or whether it is a prebiotic like a banana something
Speaker 3: that can feed probiotic bacteria, or if it's yogurt, is
Speaker 3: to replenish the bacteria. This good, healthy bacteria that lives
Speaker 3: in your gut and does all sorts of things, from
Speaker 3: help you produce serotonin that stabilizes your mood, to digesting
Speaker 3: your food and moving poop through your intestines faster, all
Speaker 3: the amazing things. I also want to direct people. We
Speaker 3: did a microbiome episode which is one of the all
Speaker 3: time most fascinating episodes we ever did.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that one the poop cast?
Speaker 3: No, No, the one that's our microbiome?
Speaker 1: Oh right, that was just on.
Speaker 3: How completely made up. I think like ninety percent of
Speaker 3: our cells are actually not ours. They're part of the
Speaker 3: microbiome of bacteria that live on us and interact with us.
Speaker 3: And that's what you're doing when you're eating yogurt. Is
Speaker 3: bringing in some friends, some reinforcements to the good bacteria.
Speaker 3: That's the point of probiotics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so in order to and we'll get into the
Speaker 1: health effects here in a minute, but in order to
Speaker 1: get that back toe area and have it survive through
Speaker 1: gastric acid. I mean, it's a it's an inhospitable environment
Speaker 1: down there in your gut and in your intestines. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, they do think that yogurt might be
Speaker 1: just a good vehicle for that period because it's thick
Speaker 1: and goofy and it acts like a buffer against that acid.
Speaker 1: But you also have to have a lot of it
Speaker 1: because a lot of it is going to die off.
Speaker 1: So there are organizations that set minimum standards, and one
Speaker 1: of them is the National Yogurt Association of the United States. Right,
Speaker 1: you don't want to mess with them, trust me, no't.
Speaker 3: Break your legs. It's just for even looking at them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're tough, tough individuals.
Speaker 3: They really are collectively.
Speaker 1: So I believe the requirement is one hundred million bacteria
Speaker 1: per gram if you want to have that seal on it.
Speaker 1: And this is if if you want to eat yogurt,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you want to just go get a
Speaker 1: stick of gogurt and shove it down your throat and
Speaker 1: get a sugar rush. Sure, have at it. But if
Speaker 1: you actually want that live and active culture seal stamped
Speaker 1: on your yogurt, then you're gonna have to have one
Speaker 1: hundred million bacteria per gram.
Speaker 3: Right, and it has to be specific bacteria too. The
Speaker 3: FDA decreed in nineteen eighty one that if you're going
Speaker 3: to sell something in the US as yogurt, it has
Speaker 3: to contain Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Straptococcus thermophilis. We'll talk a
Speaker 3: little more about those later, but you have to have those,
Speaker 3: and then you have to have them in amounts of
Speaker 3: at least one hundred million individual bacterium of those strains
Speaker 3: per gram of yogurt or else. Buddy, that ain't yogurt.
Speaker 1: That ain't yogurt, That ain't your mom's yogurt, that ain't
Speaker 1: your dad's yogurt.
Speaker 3: It's nobody's yogurt. No, not as far as the FDA's concerned.
Speaker 3: And if you thought the National Yogurt Association was tough, boy, howdy,
Speaker 3: the FDA will mess you up.
Speaker 1: So you want to talk a little bit about how
Speaker 1: they make yogurt.
Speaker 3: Yes, but first get this. So you know, you were
Speaker 3: talking about how how yogurt or bacteria can Some can
Speaker 3: survive in the gut, which can be inhospitable. I was like,
Speaker 3: how how did they do that? Some are just coated
Speaker 3: in like a polysaccharide. That's fine, that's boring. But some
Speaker 3: bacteria actually have pumps that are designed to pump acid
Speaker 3: out of the bacteria. So when it's floating around in
Speaker 3: this bath of stomach acid and juice and digestive enzymes,
Speaker 3: it's just pumping it out and keeping it just happy
Speaker 3: as a lark. But it has like a mechanism for
Speaker 3: getting rid of the acid that that should otherwise kill it.
Speaker 3: I thought that was fascinating.
Speaker 1: Man. Life science is m h what else? What's your
Speaker 1: other big one?
Speaker 3: Earth science?
Speaker 1: Earth science, life science.
Speaker 3: Just science basically. Yeah, yeah, it all floats my boat.
Speaker 1: What kind of science do you hate? Hmmm? Cology?
Speaker 3: No, I find it fascinating. Okay, I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: I don't think I hate any science. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: don't hate any science. See their kids, No science is
Speaker 3: hate worthy.
Speaker 1: No, don't hate science and be like Josh Clark yourself.
Speaker 3: Some Josh, we just spun my head right around.
Speaker 1: Did you see that I did? That was strange. But
Speaker 1: it is October. It is the month of exorcism.
Speaker 3: It's the Dancing Headstone's best season. What was the name
Speaker 3: of the band?
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
Speaker 3: Oh man, we could have just buzzmarketed that guy.
Speaker 1: So well, all right, when you're making yogurt, like you said,
Speaker 1: it was many many, many years ago, it was just
Speaker 1: this kurdled milk and they were like, if you hold
Speaker 1: your nose tight enough, you can still eat the stuff
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really upset your stomach that much. But
Speaker 1: if you're going to manufacture yogurt, what you want to
Speaker 1: do is separate the milk into the and the skim.
Speaker 1: And this is automatically going to get a thicker texture
Speaker 1: going because it's got a lot of fat and it's evaporation.
Speaker 1: It's evaporating some of the liquid anyway during this process.
Speaker 1: But then they might say, you know what, let's add
Speaker 1: some milk powder or some gelatine. We really need to
Speaker 1: get this to the good yogurty consistent consistency that everybody loves.
Speaker 1: So now it's pretty thick at this point, and then
Speaker 1: they pasteurize it and we should do a show on
Speaker 1: pasteurization and maybe even homogenization. Okay, maybe they could go together.
Speaker 3: I think so, because homogenizing just basically means stirring. Yeah, pasturization,
Speaker 3: there's a lot to that, a lot of history and everything.
Speaker 3: But homogenize, I think they've really churched that up. It's
Speaker 3: just stirring something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to make it more homogeneous. Right, It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: The word fits perfectly, it really does. So these high
Speaker 1: temperatures that you get through pasteurization is going to help
Speaker 1: make it even more thick. But you don't need to
Speaker 1: like blast it at three hundred degrees for eight hours
Speaker 1: or whatever.
Speaker 3: Now you don't want to do.
Speaker 1: It's kind of amazing actually that it only takes about
Speaker 1: fifteen seconds at one hundred and seventy one degrees fahrenheit
Speaker 1: and that'll kill off the bacteria that you don't want there.
Speaker 3: So you know how both of our schedules are just
Speaker 3: insane right now? Yes, I was starting to feel a
Speaker 3: little worn down, Charrett. It's just the tiniest tickle in
Speaker 3: my nose, and I was like, no, I'm not having it,
Speaker 3: So I busted out the old netty pot. Yeah, well
Speaker 3: I got the double purified tap water out of my
Speaker 3: water purifier, and then I put it into a pot
Speaker 3: and boiled it for five minutes and stuck the netty
Speaker 3: pot in and left it in for another five minutes boiling.
Speaker 3: Then I took that out, boiled more water for five minutes,
Speaker 3: and then finally, after cool, I put it through my
Speaker 3: nose and I looked it up. I'm like, is that overkill?
Speaker 3: Is it not enough?
Speaker 1: It's overkill?
Speaker 3: It is overkilled from what I saw. What you really
Speaker 3: need is to once the water gets to a boil,
Speaker 3: something like ninety nine point nine percent of any pathogen
Speaker 3: is dead. But the I think I can't remember who
Speaker 3: recommends it, Maybe the CDC somebody recommends at least letting
Speaker 3: it boil for a minute, just to be safe. And
Speaker 3: then if you're above two thousand feet over sea level,
Speaker 3: you want to boil it for three minutes because there's
Speaker 3: a lower temperature required for boiling at higher altitudes. Right,
Speaker 3: So really it's a boil it for a minute is
Speaker 3: even overkill, But I'm going to stick with my five
Speaker 3: minute boiling thing.
Speaker 1: I still don't boil it at all.
Speaker 3: Dude, do you know what would happen if you got
Speaker 3: just the off chance of a brain eating amba in there.
Speaker 1: No, I know, but I also don't like get scared
Speaker 1: walking around during a lightning storm. I don't either, and
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's about as unlikely.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, well, then promise me this, uh huh.
Speaker 3: You will never netty pot with water that you just
Speaker 3: got out of a stagnant creek.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
Speaker 3: Is that a deal at least?
Speaker 1: Sure? But can I still pour that into my open wounds?
Speaker 3: No? Okay, just steer clear of that water all together,
Speaker 3: all right, fair enough, all right.
Speaker 1: All right. So at this point, Josh has boiled his
Speaker 1: water for twenty minutes by milk, let it cool for
Speaker 1: an hour, poured it through his nostril system.
Speaker 3: Is how I make yogurt.
Speaker 1: No, after they boil for fifteen seconds or heat that
Speaker 1: milk up for fifteen seconds, your cream is separating at
Speaker 1: that point, just naturally from the milk because of the temperature.
Speaker 1: That's when they stir it or homogenize the milk and
Speaker 1: create that consistently consistency. Because you don't want anything that
Speaker 1: has the consistency of curdling.
Speaker 3: No, you don't, so homogenization just stirring it up so
Speaker 3: you're breaking up the flat of the fat globules so
Speaker 3: that they're spread evenly throughout the milk, which it just
Speaker 3: means it's not lumpy milk. It's smooth, textured milk. And
Speaker 3: the same thing I guess that translates to the yogurt.
Speaker 3: It makes the yogurt smooth or more consistently smooth. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because it's homogenized milk that it's made from. Yes, okay,
Speaker 3: bam homogenization. We just did the homogenization episode.
Speaker 1: That could have been a short stuff.
Speaker 3: It could have I don't even know if it would
Speaker 3: have qualified for that.
Speaker 1: Well, we're gonna start releasing one called shortest Stuff. It's
Speaker 1: just like forty five seconds.
Speaker 3: That's our future.
Speaker 1: So here's the most important part. You think your yogurt's done,
Speaker 1: but it's not, because if you want it to be yogurt,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to pour some good bacteria back in there.
Speaker 1: And this is like it kind of depends on which
Speaker 1: company you work for what kind of yogurt they want,
Speaker 1: but they're gonna select their bacteria accordingly dump it in there.
Speaker 3: Yes that I mean, this is what are the actual
Speaker 3: All you have is hot milk up to this point
Speaker 3: hot homogenized milk. It's when you add that bacteria into
Speaker 3: this warm milk that it starts to happen. And you
Speaker 3: want to let the milk cool a little bit first,
Speaker 3: because you know, if it's too hot, it's going they're
Speaker 3: going to die. But when it cools to something like
Speaker 3: I think one hundred and fifteen degrees farentheight or lower,
Speaker 3: then you can add your bacteria and they're going to
Speaker 3: start to go to work. And all they're doing is
Speaker 3: basically fermenting the milk into yogurt. That's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why if you're lactose intolerant, you can
Speaker 1: still tolerate yogurt because that bacteria gets in there, metabolizes
Speaker 1: that milk sugar the lactose, and poops out lactic acid
Speaker 1: and you can lactic acid is fine on the body.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So not only this is just amazing, This is
Speaker 3: when I started to get jazzed by the yogurt. Not
Speaker 3: only does it break down lactic or lactose into other
Speaker 3: kinds of sh that are more digestible by the human body,
Speaker 3: these bacteria actually deposit in your gut when you eat yogurt,
Speaker 3: they deposit an enzyme that helps you break down the
Speaker 3: lactose that is found in there, so they break it
Speaker 3: down themselves, and then they help you break it down too,
Speaker 3: which is why people who are lactose intolerant can still
Speaker 3: usually eat yogurt. Yeah, unless you have a severe lactose allergy.
Speaker 3: I think it's just intolerance. You can usually eat yogurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And remember I talked about myself and my lactose
Speaker 1: intolerance and like, is it am I lactose intolerant or
Speaker 1: should I just not eat a pizza and a pint
Speaker 1: of ice cream?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: It turns out it's b.
Speaker 3: Is there? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Man, if I eat a reasonable amount of cheese
Speaker 1: and milk, come.
Speaker 3: Fine, Yeah, let's farty lot less farty good. The whole
Speaker 3: world is thanking you, buddy for coming to that doing that.
Speaker 1: Experiment, or at least everyone in this room.
Speaker 3: So pretty amazing that yogurt deposits and enzyme that helps
Speaker 3: you break down lactose. Right, yeah, Okay, it gets even
Speaker 3: more amazing. One of the other things, one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why why people say you should eat yogurt if
Speaker 3: you need protein is first of all, is from milk,
Speaker 3: so there's tons of protein. But secondly, the acids or
Speaker 3: the bacteria and they're actually break down the protein so
Speaker 3: it becomes what's called more bioavailable. It's easier for your
Speaker 3: body to take in, which normally your body doesn't have
Speaker 3: trouble absorbing protein anyway, but if it does yogurt your guy.
Speaker 3: But then also it actually synthesizes some vitamins out of
Speaker 3: whole cloth. Like there may not be a lot of
Speaker 3: folate found in milk, there's more of it found in
Speaker 3: yogurt because these bacteria during fermentation produce folate, which is
Speaker 3: something that you really want and need, especially if you're pregnant.
Speaker 3: So there's just some amazing things going on during the
Speaker 3: fermentation progret process from milk to yogurt that makes it
Speaker 3: its own thing. It's much more than just soured milk.
Speaker 3: It's something. It's like a new thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the fact that they found this accidentally from carrying
Speaker 3: sheep's milk around in some animal skin or animal's stomach
Speaker 3: ten thousand years ago is just makes it even more fascinating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: And the fact that you can add fruit on the bottom,
Speaker 3: it's really the the ice boy.
Speaker 1: Americans love a gimmick, and I think that was all
Speaker 1: about the gimmick. I'm sure then some boardroom they were like,
Speaker 1: it's interactive, it's fun.
Speaker 3: Actually, I know the story behind that.
Speaker 1: Interactive and fun, that's probably the words they used.
Speaker 3: It was actually was suggested in nineteen forty seven, I
Speaker 3: think by a young guy named Jan Metzger, whose dad
Speaker 3: was one of the co founders of Danin and he
Speaker 3: was just a lowly bottle washer at the time. But
Speaker 3: he suggested that as a way to get Americans to
Speaker 3: eat it. But at the time, the USDA said, you
Speaker 3: can't mix anything with dairy products, it's against the law.
Speaker 3: But somehow dan and convinced the USDA that no, no,
Speaker 3: the fruit's on the bottom, so it's not really mixing.
Speaker 3: If they put it on the top, the USDA would
Speaker 3: have said that's mixing. If they had mixed it, homogenized it,
Speaker 3: I guess they would have. They would have considered that mixing.
Speaker 3: But the fact that it was on the bottom that
Speaker 3: is why they got away with it. Somehow. It doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense to me. It's like the Jeopardy being
Speaker 3: somehow different from the typical quiz show, right, you know,
Speaker 3: it's the same thing. Yeah, But they they usdu DA
Speaker 3: went along with it, and that's why it was fruit
Speaker 3: on the bottom interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there wasn't like some senator from South Carolina
Speaker 1: and it said, you're counting on the good people of
Speaker 1: America to mix their own fruit.
Speaker 3: It's pretty good that was supposed to be. It sounded
Speaker 3: like Leonardo DiCaprio and Django Unchained really did like he
Speaker 3: was the senator.
Speaker 1: Man that movie that that whole sister subplot what don't
Speaker 1: even subplot that was so strange in that movie, which
Speaker 1: which remember Leo DiCaprio's like sister arrived or whatever.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and he.
Speaker 1: Was just like, where's my beautiful sister And it was
Speaker 1: just so over the top and strange, and it was
Speaker 1: never explained like are they lovers? Is it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: So weird.
Speaker 3: I love Quentin Tarantino stuff.
Speaker 1: Man, I love hate it.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I don't hate any bit of it. I
Speaker 3: love it. Oh.
Speaker 1: I think he's far too indulgent these days.
Speaker 3: But you didn't like The Hateful Eight?
Speaker 1: Huh uh? You know, I like the first four endings.
Speaker 3: Are you are you looking forward to the Manson family
Speaker 3: when he's doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I go, I go see all of them,
Speaker 1: and I think they're all worthwhile and they're Tarantino movie,
Speaker 1: so I kind of just put my tongue in my
Speaker 1: cheek and laugh no matter what.
Speaker 3: But what was his best one in your opinion?
Speaker 1: Oh well, I mean probably Reservoir Dogs or pulp fiction
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater,
Speaker 1: but there's clearly no one in his camp that's like,
Speaker 1: maybe edit some down, maybe don't be in the movie.
Speaker 3: That'll be the day, That'll be the day. Did you
Speaker 3: like True Romance?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but he just wrote that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's obviously his work. Sure he didn't direct it.
Speaker 1: No, I love it. That's one of my faves.
Speaker 3: That was a good one. I mean, like, who cass
Speaker 3: Gary Oldmin for that? Scott, I guess that's just so bizarre,
Speaker 3: but I think it was so cool.
Speaker 1: Sit down, have an egg roll.
Speaker 3: It's a good movie.
Speaker 1: All right. So let's take a break and we will
Speaker 1: get to the bottom, the fruit on the bottom, if
Speaker 1: you will, about nutrition and how if that's real or not?
Speaker 3: Right after this, all right, chuck yogurt nutrition or just delish?
Speaker 1: All right, So here's the deal. Yogurt has really caught
Speaker 1: on in the United States in the last decade more
Speaker 1: than ever, largely because it's being touted and sold as
Speaker 1: a health food.
Speaker 3: Dude, there are studies that are coming in that says
Speaker 3: it helps with everything from reducing obesity, type two diabetes,
Speaker 3: cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases, improves pregnancy outcomes, reduces allergies, improves
Speaker 3: bone health, and dental health, basically anything you can think of.
Speaker 3: There's been a study that has found that. But from
Speaker 3: what I'm gathering, either there's not enough studies, which seems
Speaker 3: not the case to me, or that there are other
Speaker 3: studies that are finding contradictory evidence to what the pro
Speaker 3: yogurt studies are finding. There doesn't seem to be any
Speaker 3: study that's like, no, no, put the yogurt down, it's
Speaker 3: going to kill all of those nothing like that. But
Speaker 3: there's it just seems like the jury is still out
Speaker 3: on whether it's actually beneficial to you or not, at
Speaker 3: least over any kind of long term.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so here's what we know for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: just ingredient wise, especially if you're lactose intolerant, you can
Speaker 1: get a lot of good calcium from yogurt that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't get or that you would get if you'd drink
Speaker 1: milk or whatever, but if you lyctose intolerant, you can
Speaker 1: get it through yogurt. Vitamin D, protein, potassium, riboflabin These
Speaker 1: are all things that are in yogurt that we know
Speaker 1: are good for you. But it's these it's like health
Speaker 1: claims that they're selling people now, which is what we're
Speaker 1: really talking about here. Like you said, will it actually
Speaker 1: help you lose weight? And there have been some studies
Speaker 1: that indicate that it could, but there are a lot
Speaker 1: of caveats attached. That feels like, like the International Journal
Speaker 1: of Obesity says that low fat yogurt could help you
Speaker 1: lose weight, but it's kind of like that's because you're
Speaker 1: replacing a meal with some yogurt as a substitution or
Speaker 1: for a snack, and it's kind of filling, so you're
Speaker 1: gonna be eating less. And all these things are kind
Speaker 1: of true, but it's a little misleading.
Speaker 3: It is. And actually you also want to be careful, Like, Okay,
Speaker 3: if you're on a diet and you're using low fat
Speaker 3: yogurt to diet with, but you're health conscious, you want
Speaker 3: to be careful because a lot of the low fat
Speaker 3: or no fat yogurts replace the fat with other stuff
Speaker 3: like artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sacharine. There's usually a
Speaker 3: lot of sodium in there to try to replace some
Speaker 3: of the flavor that's lost when you take all the
Speaker 3: fat out. So there's there's a lot of push and pull.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it does seem to be where if you
Speaker 3: are already healthy and you eat yogurt regularly but a lot,
Speaker 3: then maybe you'll start to see some actual health effects.
Speaker 3: But there's never been a study that showed, yes, yogurt
Speaker 3: is such a powerhouse that it can knock out rheumatoid arthritis, right,
Speaker 3: And those are kind of the claims that people are making,
Speaker 3: and there's like some there's some basis, there's some kernel
Speaker 3: of truth to it. Like one of the big things
Speaker 3: now with dieting is or not not dieting, but eating
Speaker 3: eating right or eating healthy I guess, whatever you want
Speaker 3: to call it, is this idea that when you eat,
Speaker 3: your body becomes inflamed as part of the immune response
Speaker 3: like what did you just eat? What is that? What
Speaker 3: is that? And it goes into a kind of like
Speaker 3: defense mode to sort things out. Well, the idea is
Speaker 3: that over time. If you're eating stuff that sets off
Speaker 3: your immune response, your inflammatory response pretty much constantly, that
Speaker 3: is a terrible effect on your body and can manifest
Speaker 3: itself in things like inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. So
Speaker 3: the logic is, and they've shown that, yes, yogurt can
Speaker 3: actually possibly maybe reduce your inflammatory response. So it's going
Speaker 3: from yogurt might be able to lessen your inflammatory response
Speaker 3: to some really really bad food, to yogurt can cure
Speaker 3: rheumatoid arthritis. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially in women, it seems to have a little
Speaker 1: bit better chance at reducing inflammation. They did this one
Speaker 1: study at the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Speaker 3: Go Badgers, right, Wolverines.
Speaker 1: Boy, I think it's got to be Badgers, right, it.
Speaker 3: Is the Badgers. I'm just giving them a hard time.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if that was. Yeah, that's Madison. Of
Speaker 1: course we need to do a show there by the
Speaker 1: way we do, or we.
Speaker 3: Could just make everybody drive to Milwaukee. It's an hour away.
Speaker 1: I did like Milwaukee.
Speaker 3: It was a great show.
Speaker 1: That was That was cool town. So they did a
Speaker 1: study where they had sixty women, half of whom were obese,
Speaker 1: and they had them eat twelve ounces of low fat
Speaker 1: yogurt every day for nine weeks, then a control group
Speaker 1: of course with eating non dairy pudding, so they.
Speaker 3: Have which is like, what is that like snack packs?
Speaker 1: I don't know. And they measured levels of proteins it says,
Speaker 1: excreted by immune cells to determine how much inflammation was
Speaker 1: in their bodies. So they're they're trying to measure the
Speaker 1: inflamma inflammatory response that you're talking about. And they did
Speaker 1: find that the yogurt yogurt ladies as they like to
Speaker 1: be called, saw improvements in some markers of inflammation. But
Speaker 1: again that's that's a long way from saying it can
Speaker 1: help your rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 3: Right, That's part of the problem. I think people just
Speaker 3: want it. It's just such a great idea, this, this
Speaker 3: natural thing that's been with humanity since the dawn of
Speaker 3: civilization can actually help help cure some of these modern
Speaker 3: ailments from our modern world. People want that to be
Speaker 3: the truth so bad. I don't see anything wrong with that,
Speaker 3: but it's it's it's not necessarily the case.
Speaker 1: I think, yes, And it was also this study was
Speaker 1: funded by the National Dairy council. And again the guy,
Speaker 1: the doctor who performed it. Of course he was like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter where the money came from, same conclusion.
Speaker 1: So you know, you can take him at his word.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not saying he's like in the pocket
Speaker 1: of big Dairy, right, but which we laugh, But I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Well, the Yogurt Association, they're the front, they're they're the
Speaker 3: the leg breakers for the dairy Association.
Speaker 1: But like I said earlier, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: protein and yogurt, it will make you feel more full
Speaker 1: and you might have fewer unhealthy snacks. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those you know things like really making that difference
Speaker 1: or is just causing you to change patterns, right, which
Speaker 1: is fine?
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah. Again, there's nobody who's saying no, eating
Speaker 3: yogurt's bad for you. You do want to watch it
Speaker 3: if you are trying to lose weight eating full fat yogurt,
Speaker 3: too much full fat yogurt, especially if you're eating it
Speaker 3: in addition to other stuff rather than using it to
Speaker 3: replace something. You can gain weight. The I think the
Speaker 3: average weight gain in that one study you were talking
Speaker 3: about from both the yogurt and the pudding Cohorts was
Speaker 3: like a kilogram I think, yeah, a couple of pounds. Yeah,
Speaker 3: over like nine weeks or something like that. So that's
Speaker 3: a significant amount of weight aain. But they were eating
Speaker 3: like twelve ounces. It's two full servings of yogurt every day.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of yogurt. I mean it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I like yogurt, but it's not the kind of food
Speaker 1: you sit down and eat a bowl of, you know.
Speaker 3: No, no, you definitely you want it in its own
Speaker 3: little amount. It's like a grape nuts bowl, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And for parents, you know, yogurt. Not to pick
Speaker 1: on them, but they definitely market that. I used to do.
Speaker 1: I did a couple of gogurt commercials back in the
Speaker 1: day as a PA, and you know, they definitely mark
Speaker 1: it towards kids. It's packaged and a little kid friendly,
Speaker 1: fun way to eat. And we're not saying yogurt it's
Speaker 1: bad for kids, but that stuff is loaded with sugar
Speaker 1: and calories from sugar. Yeah, So just know that going in.
Speaker 3: From what I understand, the closest thing to actual yogurt
Speaker 3: that you can get in the United States is something
Speaker 3: like Greek yogurt.
Speaker 1: That's only kind of eat. I think it tastes best
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 3: It's fantastic, like plaining Greek yogurt, and then you just
Speaker 3: add a little honey. Don't forget the honey chup.
Speaker 1: No, I gotta call my beekeeper.
Speaker 3: There's also something called there's both traditional Bulgarian yogurt. Bulgaria
Speaker 3: is very well known for its yogurt love. They have
Speaker 3: something called cassello mill yaco, which means soured milk. And
Speaker 3: I just think of Balki Bartaka of saying it.
Speaker 1: Is that his last name?
Speaker 3: Yeah? From Perfect Strangers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was it?
Speaker 3: Balki Bartakomos Bartaca Moose Bartaka Moose.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever heard that. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: watch that show though.
Speaker 3: Oh you were missing out the episode where they were
Speaker 3: moving a piano up up like a couple of flights
Speaker 3: of stairs.
Speaker 1: Is that a real episode?
Speaker 3: Yes, it was Chuck and I am. I would put
Speaker 3: my money on this. It is one of the greatest
Speaker 3: examples of physical comedy in television history.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's an old thing. Like Friends had an
Speaker 1: episode of moving a couch upstairs.
Speaker 3: These guys make Friends look like piles of walking poop.
Speaker 3: That's how good. That's how good this perfect Stranger's episode
Speaker 3: was like Friends doesn't even want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Oh man, But I mean that's a classic bit like
Speaker 1: the uh March Brothers or you know or something.
Speaker 3: Or Buster Keaton probably first came up with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he moved a piano or two in his day.
Speaker 3: You want to talk about the in Soviet Georgia Yogurt
Speaker 3: campaign real quick?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I actually did not get to see that, so
Speaker 1: you can teach me.
Speaker 3: Okay. So in nineteen seventy seven, Dan and who really
Speaker 3: is almost single handedly responsible for bringing yogurt and making
Speaker 3: it popular in America in the seventies, they came out
Speaker 3: with an ad campaign called in Soviet Georgia where they
Speaker 3: went to Georgia, one of the Soviet Union's republics at
Speaker 3: the time, and found like one hundred plus year old
Speaker 3: people who were still vital and active and said, hey,
Speaker 3: can we film you like Bailing Hay and then afterward
Speaker 3: you'll eat like a nice cup of dan and yogurt
Speaker 3: and people will say, hey, that's great. I want to
Speaker 3: beat Bailing Hay at one hundred and five like this person.
Speaker 3: And it was kind of risky at the time because
Speaker 3: this is the Cold War the late seventies, the Soviet
Speaker 3: Union in the United States were not friends, but to
Speaker 3: advertise to the United States, they sent their ad people
Speaker 3: to the Soviet Union and it just went off. It
Speaker 3: was a total hit, like Dan and their sales were
Speaker 3: in the gutter, and all of a sudden there's just
Speaker 3: back on top. And it's actually credited with kicking off
Speaker 3: this what we think of now is like normal. But
Speaker 3: the yogurt craze that started in the late seventies early
Speaker 3: eighties and continued on and has finally gotten to the
Speaker 3: point where we're actually starting to eat healthy yogurt. That
Speaker 3: was that commercial in Soviet Georgia. Crazy, Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: They found one guy who was eighty nine and they
Speaker 3: said his mother was one hundred and fourteen, and they
Speaker 3: filmed them in one of the commercials and they said
Speaker 3: he ate two cups and it made his mother very proud,
Speaker 3: but he's eighty nine. That was the big joke.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fourteen man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all from eating yogurt.
Speaker 1: I need to get on it.
Speaker 3: You got anything else?
Speaker 1: If I want to live to be one hundred and fourteen, you.
Speaker 3: Got to start eating some yogurt. And don't forget the
Speaker 3: honey God.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine me at one hundred and fourteen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, actually I can now that you mentioned it.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants that.
Speaker 3: I could totally see it. You'd be like, I'm back
Speaker 3: to the whole pizza and the whole thing ice cream thing.
Speaker 3: You might want to stand back. Wow, this one had
Speaker 3: a lot of fart and poop jokes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it happens.
Speaker 3: Well, if you want to know more about yogurt, go
Speaker 3: eat some yogurt, Eat the good stuff, learn to love it,
Speaker 3: and your stomach will be happy, whether science can prove
Speaker 3: that it is or not. And since I said that,
Speaker 3: it's time for the listener mail.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm gonna call this self profess medievalist. This guy,
Speaker 1: Stephen Gray wrote in and he's from Melbourne, Australia but
Speaker 1: living in London now, and he says, I'm writing for
Speaker 1: some extra info, to give you extra info for the
Speaker 1: Robin Hood episode. First of all, Josh talks about rich
Speaker 1: slash Johnny Sitch and says that Richard was king of
Speaker 1: England for two years and that John was the natural heir.
Speaker 1: Richie was actually king for ten years. That spent only
Speaker 1: six months of his reign in England, he was off
Speaker 1: on the Third Crusade. He left his chancellor, William of
Speaker 1: Longchamp as regent, but his brother John was cranky about
Speaker 1: it and schemed against him and citing a rebellion. When
Speaker 1: rich eventually got back, he forgave Johnny named him heir
Speaker 1: to the throne. So the bad King John good King
Speaker 1: Richard Bitt of the rh canon is actually based in fact. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, perhaps more interesting, he says, I set up,
Speaker 1: by the way, thank you, when the Robinhood story started
Speaker 1: coming out during the reign of Henry. Their It was
Speaker 1: during a period where Henry was waging war for his
Speaker 1: lands in Gascony, France. Henry was not a very strong
Speaker 1: willed or charismatic king, so he didn't get along super
Speaker 1: well with his nobles, and as a result, to raise
Speaker 1: funds for the war effort, he had to rely more
Speaker 1: heavily on his foresters and sheriffs to raise some mega taxes.
Speaker 1: So the Robinhood stories pit our hero against these extortionate
Speaker 1: representatives of a nasty villainus king. But of course you
Speaker 1: can't directly suggest that's the current king, so you have
Speaker 1: to be not so subtle and point to our recent
Speaker 1: but previous scenario, which everyone will draw the parallels from.
Speaker 3: Wow, this guy's not just a self proclaimed medievalist. I
Speaker 3: officially confirm him as a medievalist.
Speaker 1: He says. Hope this helps, Uh, hope this helps your
Speaker 1: insatiable appetite to keep learning, as your podcast does mine.
Speaker 3: Nice.
Speaker 1: I love you guys. That is Stephen Gray.
Speaker 3: Thanks a lot, Steven, that was a great email.
Speaker 1: We love you too.
Speaker 3: Let's hug. Yeah, Hey go Stephen. If you want to
Speaker 3: get in touch with us, like Stephen did, we want
Speaker 3: to hear from you. You can go to stuff you
Speaker 3: should Know dot com and find all of our social
Speaker 3: links there, and you can send us an email to
Speaker 3: Stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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