What are Probiotics?

Bacteria suffer from a bad rep! When you hear the word bacteria, you probably think of nasty, destructive bugs that grow on food sitting under a heat lamp or germs that sit on door knobs and toys at your kids daycare that get you and your family sick. Now, while those ones do exist, not all bacteria are bad for you…You actually need bacteria to live - the good ones that is.

Right now there are at least 25 different kinds of probiotics living in your mouth⁹ and about 400 living in your gut¹⁰! These guys are as friendly as they come…they are constantly working for you, fighting off bad guys and keeping your digestive system running smoothly so you can be healthy as can be! In fact the word probiotic literally means “For Life” (Pro = For and Biotic = Life) so make sure you get plenty of them!

Where?

Probiotics were first “discovered” by the Russian born Nobel Prize winner Élie Metchnikoff in the early 1900s (ironically this guy worked at the Pasteur Institute – more on that below). After studying Bulgarian peasants that lived in the Caucasus Mountains, he came to believe that their longevity—they lived twice as long as their European counterparts—was due in large part to the raw fermented dairy kept in goat skins that they drank all day long and carried with them to work like a lunch box¹¹.

Unfortunately, in the US, all dairy products sold for human consumption are legally required to be pasteurized¹² (heated to a point that it kills bacteria and essentially wipes out the nutrition). Pasteurization was created by the French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur¹³ – the creator of the Pasteur institute who Élie Metchnikoff worked for…interesting. So basically, unless you have your own farm to make your own Bulgarian longevity drink – you are out of luck. Yes, there are yogurts and kefir and all kinds of foods out there claiming to have probiotics which some do have them SUPPLEMENTED usually in SMALL amounts. But if you want to get a good amount – an amount that will actually work for you – then you need to take a high quality, yummylicious supplement like Healthy Delights™ ProBiotic Bites.