How adding honey to your yogurt improves gut health

New Atlas ^ | August 7, 2024 | Paul McClure

[Red Badger]

Evidence has been building about the health benefits of probiotics. Now, new research has found that putting a tablespoon of honey on your yogurt helps the probiotics it contains to survive in the gut. It’s a win-win combination that’s both healthy and delicious.

Humans love to ferment food and drinks – think kimchi, kombucha and beer – and we’ve been doing it for tens of thousands of years. Yogurt is a fermented favorite. Conventional yogurts are produced by fermenting milk using a standard ‘starter culture’ of Lactobacillus and Streptococcus bacterial species; probiotic yogurts supplement the starter culture with probiotic strains such as Bifidobacterium animalis.

There’s growing evidence that consuming probiotics positively affects mood and gut health. Given that honey is commonly added to yogurt, a source of probiotics, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examined the effect that adding honey to yogurt had on the gut microbiome across two studies.

“We were interested in the culinary pairing of yogurt and honey, which is common in the Mediterranean diet, and how it impacts the gastrointestinal microbiome,” said Hannah Holscher, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, part of the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES) at the University of Illinois, and the corresponding author of both studies.

In the first study, the researchers examined whether adding one of four varieties of honey – alfalfa, buckwheat, clover, and orange blossom – to a commercial yogurt (Activia) containing B. animalis affected the survivability of probiotics in the yogurt during digestion. They added 42 g (two tablespoons) of honey to 170 g (two-thirds of a cup) of yogurt and exposed the mixture to solutions in the lab that mimicked digestion in the mouth, stomach, and intestines.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I keep some of the very very expensive stuff on hand for wounds that are not healing properly. On that it works.

As for eating it it just tastes like honey with a slight taste that is "other".

[Buttons12]

Kefir is like sour cream or yogurt, a little on the sour side. I sometimes mix it with half and half. Fat doesn’t stick to me yet. (Besides, fat is necessary!)
For probiotic, you may be better off with kimchi or sauerkraut. They say dairy probiotics are often dead on arrival in the gut, destroyed by stomach acid. Cabbage doesn’t have that problem.
More important, avoid sugar, limit grains, and increase the vegetable intake.

[Bobbyvotes]

Your mom was clever 👍

[willk]

Real men prefer Kimchi to improve their gut health.

[Svartalfiar]

WHAT? They didn’t include the famous New Zealand Manuka Honey? It’s supposed to be one of those “wonder foods.”

Well they had to get a preliminary "this might work!" study done first, so they can get the funding to be able to afford that stuff!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“so they can get the funding to be able to afford that stuff”

LOL...isn’t that the truth? Good one!