There is a widespread belief that organic yogurts and other dairy products containing bifidobacteria are a recent innovation that has only recently made its way into our food industry.

However, more than 100 years ago, our distinguished fellow Kharkiv native, the biologist Ilya Mechnikov, conducted numerous studies that demonstrated the remarkable health benefits of dairy products enriched with what is known as Bulgarian bacillus culture.

He developed a recipe for “prostokvash or yogurt,” soon dubbed the “Mechnikov method,” which treated serious diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and even helped with typhoid fever. Incidentally, Ilya Mechnikov was our first fellow Kharkiv citizen to win a Nobel Prize (1908, Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his research on immunity). Everything new is just the well-forgotten old.

You can read Ilya Mechnikov’s book on the health benefits of dairy products here: