Where Does Yogurt Come From?

Since the domestication of cows, humans have developed many ways to preserve milk, including yogurt making. Yogurt is made by adding helpful bacteria to milk and allowing it to ferment. The bacteria in yogurt is helpful to your digestive system, and its creamy taste makes getting your daily calcium a palatable treat.

History of Yogurt

The "Oxford Companion to Food" notes that yogurt was most likely discovered by accident. Prehistoric herders who carried pouches of milk with them found that the milk soured in the heat into yogurt.

The Turkish People and Yogurt

According to "The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods," yogurt was refined and developed by the Turkish people in the eighth century, when the Turks added bacteria that grew well in warm environments to pitchers of milk.

Genghis Khan and Yogurt

In the 13th century, Genghis Khan's troops were sustained by yogurt among their rations, according to "The Encyclopedia of Healing Foods."

Homemade Yogurt

Yogurt is easy to make at home with a yogurt maker or another incubator to keep the milk mixture warm. By inoculating warm milk with yogurt culture or a small cup of yogurt, milk that is kept around 110 degrees Fahrenheit will thicken into yogurt in eight to 10 hours.

Yogurt Production

Fage, a Greek yogurt company, makes almost eight million pots of yogurt per week. In large containers in their factory, workers add live cultures to millions of gallons of milk. After the yogurt develops, it is strained to make it thicker. It is then stored in a warehouse that can hold 12 million pots of Fage yogurt.

References

• Fage Website
• Michael T. Murray, Lara Pizzorno; The Encylopedia of Healthy Foods; 2005
• Alan Davidson; Oxford Companion to Food; 1999