Bulgarian Yoghurt:Secret to a Long LIfe
Posted: Friday, January 04, 2008
by Shamrock Consultancy Svs
Shamrock Consultancy Services (Irl-UK-Bg)
Lactobacillus bulgaricus sounds like a nasty infectious disease but the organism that curdles milk may be the reason many Bulgarians can celebrate their 100th birthday.
Now found at supermarkets around the world, it wasn't until the early 1900s that Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov, a 1908 Nobel Prize winner, linked yoghurt with longevity.
Mechnikov, who worked at the Paris-based Pasteur Institute, compiled statistics from 36 countries to discover more people lived to the age of 100 in Bulgaria than in any other. He attributed this to the country's most traditional food -- home-made yoghurt.
Later, numerous scientific studies in Europe, Japan and the United States proved the bacteria in yoghurt help maintain good health by protecting the human body from toxins, infections, allergies and some types of cancer.
Historians think yoghurt was part of the diet of Bulgaria's most ancient inhabitants, the Thracians, who were good sheep breeders. They say that in Thracian yog meant "thick" and urt meant "milk" and that's how the word yoghurt appeared.
Between the fourth and sixth century BC, they used to put milk in lambskin bags, which they carried about on their waists. The warmth of the body and the bags' microflora fermented it.
Some scientists think that yoghurt's predecessor was a fermented milk drink called "kumis". It was made from mare's milk by the proto-Bulgarians, a nomadic tribe who moved from Asia to the Balkans in AD 681.
Legend says that the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan used yoghurt to feed his army because of its healthy properties.
In Western Europe, it made its debut in the 16th century in the court of the French king Francis I, when a Turkish doctor cured the king's persistent stomach trouble by putting him on a Bulgarian yoghurt diet, writes professor Hristo Chomakov in his book "Bulgarian yoghurt -- health and longevity".
The traditional Bulgarian yoghurt is a unique product because of our country's unique microclimate,"
It has its own specific taste and properties. It is sour and thick so that when you turn the pot over, yoghurt sticks and does not fall,
LB Bulgaricum has a unique collection of over 700 strains of bulgaricus, which allows it to produce various yoghurt starter cultures and achieve different flavours and density.
Over the past 30 years the company has sold yoghurt know-how to more than 20 countries, including Japan, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, the Philippines and Austria.
"Bulgaricus can grow only in Bulgaria, elsewhere it mutates,strains are found in soil, on some trees' bark, in blossoms and even in ant-hills in Bulgaria's most environmentally clean regions such as Momchilovtsi in the southern Rhodopa mountains.
Experiments showed that a wooden stick left over an ant-hill for a while and then dipped into boiled and cooled milk would ferment it and turn it into yoghurt, as would antique silver coins, said Georgiev's assistant Nikolai Zhilkov.
A good source of vitamin B, calcium and protein, yoghurt's virtue as a health food has defied time.
Apart from having a reputation for being kind to the digestive system, it is also an excellent face cleansing mask, a soother for sunburn and douche for a thrush attack.
Numerous researchers have shown that fermented milk has strong anti-tumour effect, which is due to its lactic acid bacteria," said Professor Akiyoshi Hosono at Japan's Shinsho University, who studies fermented milk's anti-mutagen impacts.
International food giants such as France's Danone, Swiss Nestle and Japan's Meiji Milk Products have been using friendly bacteria to produce health food known as probiotics over the past few decades.
Although local consumption may have dropped, Bulgaria is not ready to give up on its claim as the inventor of yoghurt.
Shamrock Consultancy Services
Your Partner In Bulgarian Property
Now found at supermarkets around the world, it wasn't until the early 1900s that Russian scientist Ilya Mechnikov, a 1908 Nobel Prize winner, linked yoghurt with longevity.
Later, numerous scientific studies in Europe, Japan and the United States proved the bacteria in yoghurt help maintain good health by protecting the human body from toxins, infections, allergies and some types of cancer.
Historians think yoghurt was part of the diet of Bulgaria's most ancient inhabitants, the Thracians, who were good sheep breeders. They say that in Thracian yog meant "thick" and urt meant "milk" and that's how the word yoghurt appeared.
Between the fourth and sixth century BC, they used to put milk in lambskin bags, which they carried about on their waists. The warmth of the body and the bags' microflora fermented it.
Some scientists think that yoghurt's predecessor was a fermented milk drink called "kumis". It was made from mare's milk by the proto-Bulgarians, a nomadic tribe who moved from Asia to the Balkans in AD 681.
Legend says that the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan used yoghurt to feed his army because of its healthy properties.
In Western Europe, it made its debut in the 16th century in the court of the French king Francis I, when a Turkish doctor cured the king's persistent stomach trouble by putting him on a Bulgarian yoghurt diet, writes professor Hristo Chomakov in his book "Bulgarian yoghurt -- health and longevity".
The traditional Bulgarian yoghurt is a unique product because of our country's unique microclimate,"
It has its own specific taste and properties. It is sour and thick so that when you turn the pot over, yoghurt sticks and does not fall,
LB Bulgaricum has a unique collection of over 700 strains of bulgaricus, which allows it to produce various yoghurt starter cultures and achieve different flavours and density.
Over the past 30 years the company has sold yoghurt know-how to more than 20 countries, including Japan, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, the Philippines and Austria.
"Bulgaricus can grow only in Bulgaria, elsewhere it mutates,strains are found in soil, on some trees' bark, in blossoms and even in ant-hills in Bulgaria's most environmentally clean regions such as Momchilovtsi in the southern Rhodopa mountains.
Experiments showed that a wooden stick left over an ant-hill for a while and then dipped into boiled and cooled milk would ferment it and turn it into yoghurt, as would antique silver coins, said Georgiev's assistant Nikolai Zhilkov.
A good source of vitamin B, calcium and protein, yoghurt's virtue as a health food has defied time.
Apart from having a reputation for being kind to the digestive system, it is also an excellent face cleansing mask, a soother for sunburn and douche for a thrush attack.
Numerous researchers have shown that fermented milk has strong anti-tumour effect, which is due to its lactic acid bacteria," said Professor Akiyoshi Hosono at Japan's Shinsho University, who studies fermented milk's anti-mutagen impacts.
International food giants such as France's Danone, Swiss Nestle and Japan's Meiji Milk Products have been using friendly bacteria to produce health food known as probiotics over the past few decades.
Although local consumption may have dropped, Bulgaria is not ready to give up on its claim as the inventor of yoghurt.
Shamrock Consultancy Services
Your Partner In Bulgarian Property
This Article has been viewed 1,486 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Very interesting article.Do the big yoghurt producers know about this bacteria?
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.