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