Run a test on Yakult and Inner Health Plus Probiotics.
These brands and others make wild claims about how many live good bacteria their products contain. I would love to know haw many live bacteria are still present at 1. When we purchase them off the shelf. 2. From the time of shopping, (considering we normally do a whole grocery shop and then go home to refrigerate this product), until the first consumption. I’d hate to think that we are spending all this good money on a product for valid health reasons only to find that it is in essence ineffective if the bacteria have been destroyed during transportation.
You might like to read the following two articles from Choice which answer your questions.
From the second article: "There is no guarantee that the bacteria survives in the yoghurt to colonise the gut. “The trouble with probiotics is there are many factors that affect whether the bacteria survives,” says Gudorf. “For those products that do list the number of probiotic cultures on the packaging, that number reflects the amount of bacteria added at the time of production. But bacteria can be affected by storage, air, light and moisture, and there is no guarantee that the bacteria survives in the yoghurt to colonise the gut.”
If conditions are right and the bacteria survives, you’d need to eat 100 million colony-forming units (CFU) regularly every day to increase the activity of good bacteria. And, says Gudorf, probiotics by themselves are not enough to increase the activity of good bacteria. You should also eat 10g per day of prebiotics, which are non-digestible carbohydrates that act as food for the good bacteria."
If you do choose to continue buying these products, @user31687985610 - indeed, if you purchase any product from the fresh departments - you might like to know this:
Most supermarkets are designed to allow you to visit the dairy, delicatessan, bakery, and produce departments last in your shop. You walk up and down the ailes in a zig-zag then head back along the freezers and fridges to end up at the produce and bakery departments. General groceries go in your trolley then soft meats, produce, bread go on top and are only in your trolley for minutes instead of half an hour.
I agree with you. I noticed one in Aldi as well. When I checked it was made in Vietnam. How could they guarantee that the good bacteria were still alive and kicking??
Thanks so much for referencing that article. I daresay you could be right. I am investigating recipes for fermented foods that contain probiotics such as miso soup an kimchi and then at least if there is not a lot of benefit it tastes good and it hasn’t cost me a pretty sum. Thanks again!!
Don’t forget that probiotics/fementing bacteria if allowed to fully ferment sugars, produce acids (lactic) which can denature proteins making them more digestible by the human gut.
The live bacteria benefits are one thing, but denaturing of the milk/yoghurt is another which is often ignored.
Here is an article which outlines the processes associated with microbiological fermentation of milk.
I make my own yoghurt, a couple of litres every week to 10 days, and add probiotic powder that has been kept in my freezer, so I figure the bacteria wont have died before multiplying in the yoghurt production at 40C.
Whether or not it is helping… well it’s hard to say, but I ride a mountain bike ~300km every week and it doesn’t kill me
In relation to a post in another thread about inflammatory effects of ultra-processed foods, this article is also interesting in relation to fermented foods anti-inflammatory effects…
