Sira-sira store: Yogurt lately

YOUGURT (also yoghurt) is defined by Wikipedia as “a dairy product made “by bacterial fermentation of milk. The bacteria used to make yogurt are known as ‘yogurt cultures.’

Fermentation of lactose by these bacteria produces lactic acid, which acts on milk protein to give yogurt its texture and its characteristic tang.”

It’s this tang that puts off some people, including me in the past. I could not understand how something sour (plain yogurt) could be so healthy for the stomach.

I even used to turn up my nose whenever my beloved aunt, Tita Blitte, would offer me some. Times change and I have become a yogurt fan lately.

There was a time when I persecuted health buffs who promoted everything with yogurt in them—from yogurt drinks to yogurt ice cream. I was like St. Paul, who persecuted early Christians until his conversion, in my work against the health food. I was a zealous anti-yogurt fighter and made fun of joggers who refreshed themselves with yogurt products.

From my readings, I have learned that yogurt benefits people who are lactose-intolerant. The product is full of protein, calcium, and B-vitamins.

According to Wikipedia, “a study published in the International Journal of Obesity (11 Jan. 11, 2005) also found that the consumption of low-fat yogurt can promote weight loss.”

Nothing of this convinced me to try yogurt, until someone played a trick on me, offering me fruit salad with berry-flavored yogurt for dressing. I have since mended my ways and will take yogurt at the drop of a spoon.

There is this fruit juice counter—you can find the franchise in many supermarkets and malls—that offers on its menu fruit salad with two dressings to choose from: regular sweet cream and fruit yogurt. In the past I would have chosen the cream dressing. Now I choose the yogurt blend, with pride.

My father would have been proud of me, his soul rest in peace. Wherever he is, I am sure he is smiling at the great dietary reform his errant son has made.

Dad was a health nut, just like my friend Illustracio, who now considers me a buddy more dear than dragon fruit.

My old man’s voice still reverberates in my ears: “You need three servings of fruit and four servings of vegetables each day.” He not only ate his way through our vegetable garden, he exceeded the limit. I suspect this is the reason why he lived up to 92. He died in his sleep.

I don’t know what I will do at 92, should I follow in my father’s big footsteps. By 86, he had lost all his contemporaries but since he was friendly, he struck up new friendships with men 65 years old and up. After he lost his new friends to disease, he gave up having new cronies and just settled with us.

With my yogurt conversion, my vegetable count has also increased. I have learned to use plain yogurt as a dressing to my arugula salad. Predictably, the young ones in the house turn up their noses upon my culinary work of art.

In time I know they will see through me—I mean, see what I am driving at. Oh dear, I think you caught me in a lie. I still love red meat, alas. But I try hard to be a good boy.