How the darling of the dairy department can improve your life, one probiotic at a time.

Okay, folks, are you ready? I’m going to give you a lesson in gut health, a cool hack for polishing brass, and a cheap way to nourish dry hair. I’ll also advise you on the best way to replenish good bacteria after taking antibiotics, improve overall immunity, and enjoy a high-protein, nutritious snack. And it’s just one word: yogurt.

Most of you are aware that yogurt contains health benefits, but the details are somewhat vague — Greek is great, Skyr even better; YoCrunch types with loads of extra junk, not so great (but if it gets my kids to eat yogurt, a few crushed Oreos mixed in won’t hurt them). Out of curiosity, and because I experience a good dose of stomach ailments like everyone else I know, I dug a little deeper into the details on yogurt and discovered a few fascinating facts that are worth sharing.

Yogurt was likely invented thousands of years ago in Africa and the Middle East, when cows and goats were domesticated for milk. With no refrigeration, and in the warm desert climate, foods were often fermented as a form of preservation, and in trying to ferment milk, yogurt was born.

Many centuries later, Dr. Ilya Mechnikov, the first Nobel prize winner (in 1908) and a successor to Louis Pasteur at the Pasteur Institute, suggested a daily dose of “soured milk” to boost colon health. Further research was done throughout the 20th century, and beginning in the late 90s, scientists were able to fully research probiotics using new DNA sequencing technology. What followed was a massive surge of consumer interest in yogurt with live cultures, touting probiotic and other health benefits. And before we knew what hit us, the yogurt options had expanded and taken over most of the dairy department, becoming one of the largest selections in grocery items.

The yogurt craze mellowed slightly over the next decade, but in recent years, yogurt has been trending once again, with updates to the manufacturing process that give consumers the best possible health benefits. One example is Norman’s Greek Pro+, the first dairy (and chalav Yisrael) yogurt of its kind. Other yogurts’ probiotic content diminishes drastically during storage, but the pro+ has an added patented probiotic strain that stays dormant in the container. It only becomes active after swallowing, so your gut receives the full benefit of the entire probiotic load that’s in the yogurt.