Natural Yogurt

Many of us enjoy eating a pot of delicious creamy yogurt each day. And thanks to widespread advertising we’re becoming increasingly aware of the health benefits of yogurt due to the live cultures they contain.

These cultures are often referred to as probiotics and you’re most likely to find them in yogurts and other cultured or fermented foods. But have you ever wondered why these cultures are live and why they are so helpful to our health?


The fresh, refrigerated yogurt we buy today has to be made with live cultures in order to be called yogurt. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), states that yogurt ‘must be produced by culturing permitted dairy ingredients with a bacterial culture, which contains Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus.’

These cultures or ‘friendly’ bacteria are called ‘live’ because they are active. Inside our intestines we all have millions of these friendly bacteria as well as bad bacteria. Usually they muddle along happily together.

However, on occasion our natural levels of bacteria can become unbalanced. For instance, if we’re ill, stressed or eating a poor diet. And external factors such as pollution and smoke can all cause a drop in levels of good bacteria. Food poisoning is another obvious cause of the balance being upset. When this happens, the bad bacteria begins multiplying and rapidly starts taking over and our health starts to suffer.

In order to redress the balance of good and bad bacteria, we need to top up with friendly bacteria in the form of live cultures. But in order for these live cultures to be of any beneficial use to us, there must also be enough of them in the yogurt we’re eating. The National Yogurt Association (NYA) has a set standard whereby each gram of yogurt must contain at least 100 million cultures when manufactured. Once these criteria are met, manufacturers can use the ‘Live & Active Cultures’ seal on their products.

Not all yogurts contain these live cultures. For instance, yogurts that have undergone some form of heat treatment, such as long life yogurts where the majority of live cultures are destroyed during the heating process. Likewise, frozen yogurt doesn’t always contain enough of these good bacteria if they have been made using heat treated yogurt. So always be on the lookout to make sure the label shows the Live and Active Cultures seal or some other indication that the yogurt contains live bacteria or cultures.

Because these bacteria don’t remain within our intestines, they need to be regularly replaced by eating products such as live yogurt, yogurt drinks or powders and capsules. And there are so many products to choose from these days that contain these live cultures, it’s not difficult finding them on major supermarket shelves.

Manufacturers realise how popular these products are as consumers become more health aware, so we no longer have to stick to plain, sour tasting yogurt to obtain our daily good bacteria intake. So when you’re buying your next pot of yogurt, check the label for the Live & Active Cultures seal. This way you can be sure it has enough of the recommended number of live cultures to help keep your insides in tip top condition.