Probiotic Yoghurt.... anyone ?

A big hoo - haa about the latest, so called Probiotic Yoghurt, in the market...

Ever wondered what that one little word "Probiotic" can do to the marketing campaign and what it actually means ??

Probiotic, is nothing but human-friendly bacteria, which these dairy companies promise to provide through their new and improved "Probiotic Yoghurt".

Millions of bacteria live in the human intestine. These are mostly benign and are supposed to aid in digestion and help in your overall health. These bacterial colonies get disturbed for all sorts of reasons. Antibiotics kill bacteria and they thus disturb the ecological balance in your intestine.

Probiotic supporters insist that it is necessary to restore that balance by taking probiotics. Different researchers have claimed that probiotics help not just in digestion, but in lowering cholesterol, blood pressure and also in fighting throat infections. Probiotics are also supposed to improve your general immunity.

However all these claims need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Now, yoghurt prepared at home contains good bacteria, though ofcourse not been tested for which strains of bacteria are present and whether they help in digestion. Anecdotal evidence points to yoghurts generally being helpful for digestion and that has been attributed to the bacteria present in them.

But when companies started mass-producing yoghurt, which would adhere to a certain standard and also have a long shelf life, I suspect they pretty well killed off the bacteria that naturally thrive in the yoghurt. Thus the claim of probiotic yoghurts is, in all probability, just the companies having figured out how to create standardised yoghurt with long shelf life without killing off the bacteria. And now they are going to town about its health benefits…

I am willing to be corrected on this theory of mine but so far the companies have been reasonably sparse with information on their probiotic yoghurts. From the ads, I can’t even make out which bacterial species is supposed to be present in Nestle’s probiotic yoghurt.

Taking one of these probiotic yoghurts is unlikely to hurt you but it is unlikely to do you much good either… you would be better off making yoghurt at home and taking it…

And the Brand Amul, apparently has plans of launching one of these in Gujarat soon. The promos are on and mostly, everyone knows about it by now, all thanks to the intelligent use of the word "Probiotic". The deal here is, marketed as a healthy food, it doesn't really have anything special in it, and the name is giving it all the publicity it needs..

and and and.. the yoghurt is still not available on the shelves.. which makes the junta demand for it all the more.. word of mouth and lack of availability is all that is going to work in the marketin of this lil thing..

Moms are already waitin to get their hands on the product, while Amul is waitin for more publicity to happen due to the lack of availability of the product..

am I buying it..
Nopes, my kitchen produce is better than a factory produce.. and more hygienic !