Play mishti for me

MUMBAI: Like millions of people on theIndian subcontinent, Debasis loves dahi. He is crazy particularly about themishti variety, which comes from Bengal in a hard earthen pot and has anall-white, squelchy centre. Sometimes, when it''s pouring elephantsand rhinos at night, when Debasis is home safe and dry and well-fed on jhol andbhat and the light is shining kindly on his well-kept home, the 40-ishcopywriter will narrate a legend about dahi he heard as a child from hisPishima. Of all organisms that are born, Pishima said a vastmajority die before they come of age. Of the fraction that survive and breed, aneven-smaller sliver would have a descendent alive after 1,000generations.Now dahi ranks among these rarest creatures, whichrepresent the unbroken line that goes back to the first sparks of life thatappeared on earth, she continued. For one ferments today''s daughter milk byadding some dahi made from yesterday''s mother milk which in turn was curdledwith the whey from day-beforeyesterday''s dahi from the grandmother milk.In this manner, the pious lady from Krishnapur traced the long lineof dahi-handis all the way back to Brindaban, where she said the primordial dahiwas born when that blue child who hides the entire cosmos in his mouth oncechurned some milk in a childish prank. Less-sublime genealogies date the originof dahi or yogurt to 2000 BC in mid-Eastern civilisations. The wordyogurt itself is Turkish in origin and the ancient Assyrian word for yogurt,''lebeny'', meant life. The modern word ''probiotic'' can literally be translated to"for life". There has indeed been a longstanding belief that eatingyogurt or the consumption of some type of cultured milk product is associatedwith longevity due to the friendly bacteria that are present in the dahi andtheir ability to fight disease. A Russian-born biologist, ElieMetchnikoff, wrote about the life-extending benefits of eating cultured foods,especially yogurt. Dr Metchnikoff received the Nobel Prize in Physiology andMedicine for his research on phagocytosis, an important function of the immunesystem in 1908. However, what was nearer and dearer to his heartperhaps was his study of bacteria that produce lactic acid. The biologistbelieved the consumption of such bacteria was responsible for the observedlonger lifespan so many Bulgarians (where yogurt ostensibly originated).He was also one the first to recognise the relationship disease andwhat he called the "poisons" produced in the bowel. But what probably gave thebiggest boost to yogurt''s image in the collective consciousness his book ''TheProlongation of Life'', which Dr Metchnikoff argued that with regular yogurtconsumption, it was possible to live to be 150. Such beliefs arealso responsible the ultra-modern food trend for probiotics and prebiotics thatenthusiasts offer new pathways to a whole new generation of engineeredfunctional foods designed to meet ever-changing demands of today''shealth-conscious consumers. Those extolling the pros of the bioticspoint that healthy bacteria the form of intestinal flora flourish naturally inthe gastrointestinal system, where they limit the ability of harmful bacteria tomultiply and thrive. However, says Judy Rice, a USbased foodindustry consultant, as we or when we encounter stress or when we ingestantibiotics, populations of the friendly bacteria tend to diminish inside thebody, leaving more vulnerable to gastrointestinal disorders disease.By consuming probiotic food supplements and pre-biotic bacterialgrowth enhancers, aficionados say you can replenish the needed supplies of thegood bacteria. Recent research indicates that this not all folklore.Investigators in Finland have discovered that women who regularly drink freshjuices and eat yogurt and cheese may be less likely than others to developurinary tract infections (UTI). Women who reported eating milkproducts that contain helpful or probiotic microbes at least three times eachweek were almost 80 per cent less likely to have recently developed a UTI thanwomen who eat similar foods less than once a week, the scientists noted. TeroKontiokari of the University of Oulu Finland and colleagues explained UTIs canbe caused by bacteria that migrate from the stool. Foods that modify the stool''sbacteria content may therefore influence the risk of UTIs, they said.