Yogurt, the bacteria we eat. Surprisingly though this bacteria is a very popular snack. In fact, Americans annually spend well over 100 million dollars on this milk product, and eat over 200,000,000 pounds of it each year! Are you into the yogurt habit yet? If not, here are half a dozen good reasons why you should be.

1. Yogurt is not fattening. Plain yogurt contains one third of the fat than one piece of apple pie does.

2. It can help your intestine. Doctors prescribe it to patients who suffer from ‘Intestinal Flora’ which can destroy your intestines due to it’s having a large amount of antibiotics or sulfa drugs.

3. This one may be of interest to teenagers, it can help your acne. Eat a lot of natural - preferably unsweetened - yogurt. As well as eating yogurt you can wash your face daily with water combined with lemon juice (one lemon to every liter of water). Apply a mask of honey to your face once a week, for approximately one hour, and you’ll have a pimple free face!

4. Suffer from bad breath? Well, eat a lot of yogurt and yes, you guessed it, people might actually sit next to you without holding their nose.

5. Does milk give you an intestinal discomfort? Then switch to yogurt. People lose the enzyme lactase through childhood. As a result, many adults can not properly digest milk. However yogurt already has lactase in it, allowing the food to digest in the body three times quicker than milk.

6. Does osteoporosis run in your family? Or maybe you just have brittle bones and/or teeth? Well eating lots of yogurt can help to strengthen bones and teeth because yogurt is high in calcium.

7. So, are you ready to add a little yogurt to your diet? Want to make it at home? It’s simple. Take some milk (ordinary or skim milk, it does not matter) and bring it to the boil, and then pour it into a container. If you want the yogurt to have a thicker consistency, then add some powdered skim milk. Let it cool down, then add some yogurt culture, or some store brought yogurt, about half a cup to a quart of milk. Stir well until no lumps remain. Then cover the container in a blanket, or keep it in a warm place, around 55 to 60 degrees celsius overnight. Sometimes there is difficultly keeping the mixture warm, so it is recommended that you buy a ‘yogurt maker’ which keeps the mixture at it’s needed temperature. Once it has thickened, you can put it in the refrigerator until you want to eat it.

As you can see, yogurt has a lot going for it. It’s tasty, low in calories easy to make, economical, and most important enjoyable to eat.