Can I keep my gut flora healthy by drinking Dannons Activia?
Theoretically, you canbut only from naturally fermented yogurt or kefir, not Activia. These are Eastern-style dairy beverages made from whole raw milk soured in clay pots or leather sacks. Because raw milk was infested with all kinds of bacteria picked up from udders, unwashed hands, porous clay, or leather, natural fermentation was the only way of disinfecting and preserving dairy before the era of pasteurization and refrigeration. After naturally-occurring fermentation, these beverages were bubbly, acidic, and slightly alcoholic. These qualities made them safe to drink for three reasons: (1) bacteria were killed by high acidity and alcohol; (2) lactose intolerance was eliminated because lactose was rendered out by fermentation; and (3) caseina highly allergenic milk proteinwas broken down by bacteria into easily digestible essential amino acids. While growing up in the Ukraine in the fifties and sixties, we regularly drank raw milk and natural kefir (partially fermented, non-alcoholi
