Modern medicine has recently discovered the benefits of a healthy gut micro biome using probiotics and yogurt cultures to keep the gut running smoothly. Many of the modern pharmaceuticals can destroy a large part of our beneficial bacteria in the gut — medicines such as antibiotics, birth control pills, immunizations, steroids and acid reflux medicines. Thus it becomes critical that we learn how to replenish the healthy bacteria as they prevent irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, food allergies and autoimmune diseases. You might be surprised to learn that the friendly bacteria were documented in the ancient Vedic texts long before the advent of modern medicine.
These invisible creatures such as bacteria (both friendly and unfriendly), viruses, fungi, protozoa, helminthes, and algae are referred to as Krim in the Vedic texts. And within the Vedic literature, Atharva Veda offers many descriptions of both friendly and bad bacteria.
The Charak Samhita, the famous Ayurvedic text of internal medicine discusses the relationship between bacteria and sunlight. Now we know how UV light inhibits the growth of bad bacteria.
The Shaka Vansya lineage of Ayurveda, (SVA) which is my teacher Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra’s family lineage, coined the term “yoginies” when referring to the friendly bacteria because they receive the prana or life energy from what we consume in our diet and deliver them to our whole body. Prana is the universal cosmic life energy that is found in all living things such as amoeba, plants, animals and humans.
Yoginies in essence connect our inner body with the universal body and act like little goddesses that give and support life from both a mental and physical perspective. Nowadays it is well documented how the friendly bacteria in the gut make 90% of the neurotransmitters in the brain, which dictates our mental state, and they are also responsible for the breakdown and absorption of nutrients into the bloodstream, keeping our physical bodies strong into old age. They also stabilize the immune system preventing it from attacking food or worse, your own body, which could result in both food allergies and autoimmune diseases. It’s no wonder they were considered little goddesses which protect our physical and mental health!
Making your own home-made yogurt is one of the best ways to nourish your body with these little yoginies however, since it is cold dairy it is considered “abishandi”, which means it can form ama, or partially digested food, which is clogging to the body’s physical and vibrational channels.
This is why we always add heat to cold dairy, to prevent its cold, clogging nature —such as boiling milk before consuming it or simmering the butter to make ghee — in these instances we are adding agni or fire to burn the heaviness of the soma contained in these dairy products, rendering them less capable of forming ama.
But we can’t boil yogurt or we’ll kill the friendly bacteria contained within it. Because of this fact there are several rules regarding the best way to consume yogurt, so as not to cause clogging and mucus formation and yet retain its live bacterial cultures.
So let’s start at the very beginning. First, it’s best to start out with a good yogurt starter culture. We recommend the Natren Yogurt Starter from a company known as Natren, who originally took the culture to America from Russia and figured out how to keep the cultures alive as they processed it. Don’t forget, these strains of bacteria are very delicate and can die during the processing of both the probiotics and yogurt strains, which happens all too often with most of the probiotic companies on the market.
Vaidya Mishra and I had tried several yogurt starters and several yogurts on the supermarket shelves, but none had the alkalinity he was looking for. The ancient texts or shastras said that the yogurt shouldn’t taste too sour or else the acidity could kill the friendly bacteria. And this type of alkaline yogurt is easier on the colon unlike kefir which carries high yeast which may overwhelm both the immune system and the colon. If an individual has a sensitive immune system they may experience complications or additional symptoms when ingesting kefir. Also, yogurt is not contraindicated for pregnant women unlike kefir. According to the shastras yogurt starter is better for you than kefir as it has a more satvic nature. Satvic foods are those that are fresh, pure, nutritious and balanced giving physical strength and mental clarity.
The bottle of the yogurt starter has an expiration date, which is usually around a year, so it can be kept in your refrigerator to keep the cultures live.
The jar will tell you exactly how to make the yogurt. Basically, you heat 6-8 cups of whole non-homogenized milk over a low flame to at least 180 degrees F (82 degrees C) — do not boil. Maintain this temperature for at least 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the milk to cool to 108-112 degrees F (42-44 degrees C). Then place 1-2 level teaspoons of Yogurt Starter into 2 tablespoons of the cooled down milk and whisk to make a smooth paste. Continue to add more milk a small amount at a time, blending thoroughly after each addition until all the milk is used. You can then pour it into a yogurt maker or put it in a large bowl covered with a towel in an oven that’s kept warm with a pilot light. Leave it overnight and wake up the next morning to your first batch of beautiful home-made healthy yogurt.
It might take a few tries, but you want to aim towards getting a yogurt that isn’t too sour. The longer it stays in the yogurt maker or oven the more sour it will become, so it is best to keep it in for no longer than 6 hours or so.
For your next and future batches of yogurt use one cup of yogurt from the previous batch to whisk into the cooled down boiled milk. And you can continue to do this for two months. Each time you make a new batch there will be a little less live bacteria in the new batch, so it is good to start over with the yogurt starter powder every two months to guarantee ample amount of beneficial cultures.
Once you have made your yogurt you’ll be so excited to try it and receives its numerous health benefits. There are several things you can do to cut back on its channel clogging aspect.
First, you could make a medicinal lassi where you blend one-fourth cup of plain yogurt with three-fourths cup of room temperature spring water with a pinch of ground cumin and three cilantro leaves. Blend for a minute, skim off the fat that rises to the top and discard it, then repeat this process again. Take sips of this lassi in between bites of food at lunchtime only, when the digestive fire is strongest.
Or you could try wrapping the yogurt in cheesecloth and letting it drip into a bowl overnight in the refrigerator. You can drink the drippings again at lunchtime in between bites of food.
You could always try stirring the yogurt into you dahl or vegetables. And you could eat the yogurt plain with a little bit of raw honey and some nutmeg. Both the honey and nutmeg are heating and can cut through the coldness of the yogurt, decreasing its mucus forming quality. In fact, you can even try to boil the milk with a cinnamon stick or a few thin slices of fresh ginger in the very first step of making the yogurt, strain them out and then whisk in the yogurt culture once the milk has cooled down to the correct temperature. Both these spices add some heat to the otherwise cold clogging yogurt.
If you are very sensitive to the mucus-forming quality of yogurt it might be best to consume it only in the summertime, when the sun is closest to the earth warming up your digestive fires enabling you to digest it better.
Now, many of you are allergic to dairy products and are consuming coconut yogurt made with coconut milk. The problem here is that coconut is considered a heavy fruit which also needs a strong metabolic fire to digest it. So, if you make yogurt out of it it becomes too heavy for most people to be able to consume without making some ama out of it. But just using the coconut water obtained from a fresh coconut is OK. You’ll get the health benefits of the coconut without the clogging properties of the coconut milk.
Here’s how you get the coconut water out of the coconut — press into one of the three eyes at the top of the coconut. One will be soft so pierce it with a screw driver, turn it over and strain into a glass. Warm up this coconut water to about 98 degrees, which only takes a few seconds in a pan over the cooktop. Keep a thermometer in the coconut water so it doesn’t overheat because too much heat will destroy the friendly bacteria. Whisk in a teaspoon of the yogurt starter and keep it in the yogurt maker or warm oven for about 6 hours or overnight. Refrigerate it in the morning and each day take 1-2 Tbs every day on an empty stomach.
Yogurt does not mix well with fish or spinach. Nor does it mix well with fresh fruit.
You might ask why not fruit, since many of the yogurt companies have it mixed already with fruit and so many people do combine it with fresh fruit on their own. Both yogurt and fruit are considered somagenic, which means they both contain a high amount of cooling soma. Since soma is so cooling it takes a strong digestive fire to break it down and if it isn’t digested properly you can make ama, or partially digested channel clogging residue from this cold food.
Always remember ama in Ayurveda is considered the root cause of all diseases and if you make ama after a meal you will feel heavy and sluggish. And as it clogs your channels you might feel stiffness and inflammation in the joints and muscles.
While some people might be able to digest fruit and yogurt together, most people don’t have enough metabolic capacity to properly digest it.
I remember Vaidya Mishra cringing when I told him people in America eat bananas with yogurt, both of which are heavy and channel-clogging.
But other than these few little complications, freshly made homemade yogurt is extremely beneficial to your health and is quite tasty — and I’m sure you will reap great benefits as you continue to regrown the friendly bacteria in the gut that became depleted over the course of your lifetime. It’s always so exciting to put your yogurt cultures in your oven or yogurt maker at night and wake up to a beautiful freshly made delicious food hailed as one of nature’s greatest gifts to our health.
I hope you enjoyed this video and will learn how to make your own yogurt at home. You’ll be amazed at the difference between this freshly made yogurt with live cultures you just made versus the store-bought containers containing additives and sugars found on the supermarket shelves.
Thank you.