Food related I want to talk about something important this week. Probiotics have become a hot topic attracting everyone’s attention in recent times. They seek out and eat different types of food and drinks from around the world, believing that it is good for their health. These probiotic foods are available in a variety of names that we have never heard of before like yogurt, available in different flavors to kefir, kombucha, tempeh, kimchi etc. The price is not cheap. But it has captivated the younger generation. Know Antibiotic, What is Probiotic?
These probiotic foods were not invented today. Not many people know that they have been part of our lifestyle for more than 2,000 years, since the Sangam period. Let’s first look at what a probiotic is. Foods that contain beneficial microorganisms for our health are called ‘probiotic foods’. ‘Microbes? Are they all harmful? If you have a fever or vomiting, doctors give you antibiotics to kill the bacteria. You are saying that the same micro-organisms are beneficial to our body… I don’t understand’ you are asking.
There are 2 types of microbes. The first type is bacteria that cause disease. It is because of these that sinus infection, pneumonia, vomiting, urinary tract infection and more dangerous diseases occur. When these cause problems in the body, we use antibiotics to kill them.
The second type of germs are the good microbes that live in our bodies from birth to death. We call these as commensal. They are everywhere including our mouth, stomach, intestines, skin, anus. No disturbance. Instead, it provides some good benefits to the body. For example, the good microbes in the gut provide good protection for a baby’s gut from birth. It helps the intestines of preterm babies to not get spoiled and helps to digest some of the things that we cannot digest in the food we eat. When bad germs invade our gut, these good microbes, along with our immune system, fight to destroy the bad germs. Strengthens our immune system. These commensal microbes are so benign.
Humanity has known for tens of thousands of years that many microbes present in nature have many positive benefits for the body. When humans started farming and raising sheep for their dairy products, yogurt, the first probiotic food, was discovered. Man knew then that curd was formed by leaving milk as is, or adding lemon, or adding a portion of already fermented curd. As far back as 7,000 years ago in China, there are medical notes that ‘certain fermented foods are beneficial to the body’. Greek yogurt was said to have many medicinal properties back then. Yogurt has a special place in our Ayurvedic and Siddha systems of medicine and ancient diet.
A beautiful song featured in the CD is ‘Mulitahir Pisaintha Kanthal Melviral.’ This song says that a woman during the Sangam period took curd filled with mustard and served it to her husband by making delicious buttermilk. By this we can understand that curd and whey have been part of our diet for thousands of years. Since not only milk but also rice, vegetables and fruits are fermented, various natural probiotic foods have been in vogue in different parts of the world for a long time.
But it was not known at that time that microorganisms were responsible for the fermentation of these ordinary foods. This history begins a few hundred years ago. When the French King Francis I suffers from a serious stomach problem, the Turkish Emperor Suleiman sends his physician. The doctor is said to have cured the French king’s stomach problem by mixing some herbs with goat’s fat. The search for ‘there is something sweet in these fermented foods’ has started for the people of the West.
Louis Pasteur, the father of microbiology, makes the first point of this. He was the first to discover that certain types of bacteria are responsible for turning milk into curd. He called them ‘Lactobacillus’. Henry Tissier, a pediatrician, discovered that healthy infants have good bacteria called Bifidobacterium in their stomachs. But the credit for popularizing the field of probiotics goes to Elie Metchnikov, who is known as the father of probiotics. He found that people in Bulgaria who ate more yogurt lived longer and suggested that ‘some of the good bacteria that ferment milk could be used in medical treatment’. It was only after him that the field flourished.
Now research is going on to see if these good bacteria known as probiotics can be used for stomach problems, allergies, asthma, urinary infections, cancer, diabetes, high blood cholesterol, immune deficiency, various skin diseases, mental diseases, infant health and many more. The trend of the latest medical research is to find out which probiotics are beneficial for which disease. There are many types of these probiotics. Lactobacillus, Saccharomyces, Bacillus clausii are some of them. Now these are naturally used by doctors as a remedy for the above mentioned problems.
You may ask if all these probiotics should be taken in capsule or powder form like medicine. Many of the foods we eat daily are rich in probiotics. Chief among these are curd and buttermilk. Among them, Lactobacillus is the most widely used probiotic in medicine. It has been revealed in some researches that the curd available in our South India contains good microbes capable of fighting deadly germs including cholera and typhoid. The more sour the yogurt, the more probiotic it contains. That’s why we tell you to eat more curd and buttermilk when you have vomiting and diarrhea.
However, there are a few things to keep in mind. Now a days yogurt like food is available in shops in various flavors. Apart from that, various companies sell thick, tasty yogurt. Doesn’t homemade curd go sour after a day? The reason for this is that the micro-organisms that are alive in it overgrow and produce large amounts of lactic acid. But store-bought yogurts and curds do not ferment much even if left outside for a day. That’s because they are heated to prevent further fermentation and destroy the microorganisms in them. Don’t imagine that you’ll be super healthy by eating these delicious, sugar-free, microbe-free foods. If you eat this, you will get a stomachache. Natural homemade yogurt is best.
If you are using store-bought curds and yogurts, look for the words ‘Contains live active cultures’ on the container. They are beneficial for the body.
Another great probiotic food that fits into our lifestyle, but is now not eaten by many of the younger generations, is old rice. Just as milk contains good bacteria to form curd, leftover rice also contains the same Lactobacillus type of good bacteria to form healthy food. Our food system used to keep the leftover rice in a pot and eat it with buttermilk the next day. See how our ancestors have been amazing by taking double probiotic foods in combination. Apart from probiotics, we also get good salts like potassium in it. Medical researchers say that this old rice can be a solution for various diseases starting from simple ulcers to serious stomach related diseases such as Ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, Celiac disease.
Another probiotic food is pickles. But bottled pickles do not contain probiotics. Most of the home-made varieties are available. Add buttermilk to old rice and add home-made pickles for a wonderful probiotic combination.
A variety of Western probiotic foods are now available in the market. Kefir yogurt is a food that is similar to our yogurt, but made by growing a different type of good bacteria in the milk. Kefir grains are used to convert milk into kefir curd instead of normal curd. If you mix it with milk and leave it to ferment, khebir curd is ready. The good bacteria in it are also said to have many medicinal properties. But remember that Namur yogurt is not immune to this either.