Thanks to the active promotion of "live" yogurt and all sorts of sour-milk drinks, the word "bifidobacteria" is heard by everyone. In the dairy department of the store, our hands are drawn to the next newfangled product containing "living bacteria".After all, without them, as TV advertising says, the normal process of digestion is impossible!
Contents:
- New old bacteria
- Benefits of bifidobacteria
- Are all dairy products equally useful? What is good about bioproducts?
From TV screens we are constantly told that bifidobacteria contained in fermented milk products are not just necessary, but indispensable for proper digestion. And this is the truth. However, thanks to all the same advertising, there is an opinion that bifidobacteria are some recent sensational discovery of biologists, a "marvelous miracle", a "miracle miracle", which no one has ever heard of before. But it is known: everything new is a well-forgotten old!
New old bacteria
Lactic acid bacteria, squirting ordinary milk, are not at all "the number one discovery" of recent decades. These tiny living organisms were both contained and contained in all sour-milk products, because without them the process of ripening would not have taken place!
Lactic acid bacteria were discovered by scientists only in the XIX century. Nevertheless, the benefits of fermented milk products have been known to all nomadic peoples since ancient times. They transported the milk of mares and cows in their wineskins, where by natural fermentation a pleasant sour milk drink with many useful properties was obtained.
Even the ancient Roman historian Pliny the Elder, who lived in the 1st century AD, wrote that the Scythians know how to thicken milk, turning it into sour, but very tasty drink. The Turkic peoples have always been yogurt and katyk in honor of the Caucasus, the ayrans in the Caucasus, kumis from the nomads of Central Asia, and yogurt from the Slavs.
What is the use?
Bifidobacteria( from Latin Bifidus - divided in two) is a genus of gram-positive anaerobic bacteria that live in the human intestine. They are different - thermophilic streptococcus, acidophilus and Bulgarian sticks, lactococcus.
"People inhabiting" the gastrointestinal tract of any healthy person, lactic acid bacteria, however, are dying from taking human antibiotics and alcohol, malnutrition, stressful situations. This most unfavorably affects the state of the body, causing diseases of the digestive system and weakening the immune system. That's why nutritionists recommend to use sour-milk products every day. After all, the benefits of bifidobacteria are enormous:
stimulates the development of useful microflora in the digestive tract, actively participates in the digestion process;
• inhibit the development of pathogenic, putrefactive and pathogenic microbes;
• are an excellent "shield" from the penetration of harmful microbes and toxins, have a strengthening effect on the body;
• help the body absorb vitamin D, iron and calcium.
Among other things, the constant use of sour-milk drinks helps to reduce weight and is an excellent prophylaxis of dysbiosis.
Are all dairy products equally useful?
The assortment of sour-milk products on supermarket shelves is impressive. Dozens of varieties of yogurt, kefir and kefir products, leaven, bifid, ryazhenka, yogurt. .. What to choose?
It is more useful than others to conditionally call "live" lactic acid products with a mandatory label on the label saying that at the end of the shelf life the number of living bacteria should be "not less than 1x10 7 cfu / g."The shelf life of these products should not exceed 7, and even better - 3-4 days.
A longer shelf life indicates that the product used leaven with a stop-effect( passive bacteria that start to multiply only when the package is opened), or preservatives are added to it.
If the packaging of a fermented milk product has the inscription "fermented", this means that it has undergone high-temperature treatment. This product is better left on the shelf in the store - the benefit from it will be minimal.
The most useful are sour-milk products without sugar and fruit and berry additives. Synthetic flavors and dyes, which are often added to yoghurts, reduce their usefulness, as they create obstacles for the life of bifidocultures.
It is worth knowing that "kefir" and "kefir product" - this is not the same thing! Operating GOSTs set different quality standards for them. In the composition of natural kefir, the presence of lactic acid bacteria is mandatory, and in the "kefir product", subjected to pasteurization, this culture has already died and there is no need to benefit from it. The same applies to any "products": yoghurt, curd, sour cream.
By the way, nutritionists have found out that acidophilus is digested better than bifidoproducts. This is explained by the fact that acidophilic cultures in the intestine are well established and purify it, promoting the development of a "useful" microflora.
With the prefix "bio"
In addition to sour-milk products in stores, bio-yogurt, biomethane, biotarget, etc. have been sold recently. The prefix "bio" says that during the manufacture of the product special starter preparations of direct application were used: thermophilic and mesophilic lactic streptococci, acidophilus rods. Such bioproducts will be slightly more useful than usual ones.
By the way, bifidobacteria badly "get along" with kefir ferment. After only 12 hours from the moment of production, the quantity of "living" bacteria in kefir decreases significantly, which implies that this product is useful only very, very fresh! But yogurt is an excellent environment for bifidiculture - their quantity practically does not decrease throughout the life of the product.
Despite the fact that each sour-milk product contains its bifidobacteria( in rjazhenka - one, in bio-yogurt - others), each of them is useful. Hence the conclusion: a great health benefit will bring and quite ordinary and familiar dairy products, and not just newfangled and super-expensive!