How can I tell if my yogurt still has live cultures?

The label should say 'live and active cultures.' Pasteurised-after-culture yogurts don't qualify. A small spoonful should also successfully start a new batch of yogurt at 43 °C.

Should I take yogurt with antibiotics?

Yes — but space by about 2 hours. Yogurt taken alongside tetracyclines or fluoroquinolones can bind the drug and reduce absorption. Taken 2 hours away, it substantially reduces antibiotic-associated diarrhoea.

Chapter 1 of 23

Yogurt (Mast)

If You Read Nothing Else

A glass bowl of thick plain white yogurt on a marble table, its surface smooth and glossy — Plain set yogurt — thick enough to hold a spoon mark, with no watery pooling on top.

Live-culture yogurt supplies probiotics (live helpful bacteria), calcium, high-quality protein, and B12 in a single spoon.

Sheep or goat yogurt is often better tolerated by adults with dairy sensitivity than cow.

Choose plain, unsweetened yogurt with live active cultures — flavoured yogurts are usually sugared desserts.

Mast is on the table at every Persian lunch and dinner — plain, whipped with cucumber and mint (mast-o khiar), folded with spinach and garlic (borani), or thinned with cold water and salt into doogh. Live cultures support gut and immune health, calcium and protein support skeletal aging, and the classical cooling nature balances warming stews and saffron rice.

Known to botanists as Lactobacillus bulgaricus + Streptococcus thermophilus (starter cultures).