Yogurt

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If you're tired of plastic supermarket chow and you'd like to grow at least part of your food . . . but you live in a fifth floor walk-up or on board a pirate radio ship . . . keep the faith, baby. This series is for you - and anyone else interested in the world's best tasting, most natural, least processed, least poisoned, most nutritious . . . and least expensive foods. For, surprisingly, some of the very finest (from every standpoint) eating is not only easily grown right in the house - but is positively better when so produced.

One such food is yogurt. Yogurt? Yes, yogurt . . . and I know all about the stuff they sell under that name down at the local market. I don't like it either. All I can tell you is that pure, natural homemade yogurt-just like home-baked breadis a quantum jump ahead of the artificially sweetened, flavored, preserved and processed variety.

Trust me - even if your first batch falls flat on its face. Mine did too . . . but the second was better and the fourth or fifth was superb! Relax, experiment a little and you'll soon be producing perfect runs of one of mankind's oldest and most beneficial foods.

And, if you're wondering what you'll do with all that yogurt, Catharyn Elwood has pretty well summed it up in her book, FEEL LIKE A MILLION! (Pocket Books, 75¢), "Yogurt has a delightful smooth-as-velvet consistency when properly made. It can be eaten any time of day as a between-meal or before-bedtime snack, because it is not too filling. It leaves the mouth with a fresh "clean" taste. Yogurt may be eaten by itself, as a dessert combined with fruits such as berries, pineapple, peaches, grapes, apricots, honeydew melons or any sprightly-tasting fruit. It is an excellent vegetable-salad dressing when combined with parsley, tomato sauce, and grated horseradish or spiked with chopped chives and Roquefort cheese. You'll use yogurt at every meal, including breakfast, once you acquire a taste for it."

If you need more ideas, DaisyFresh (see the classified section of this issue) has compiled a booklet of something like 373 ways to use yogurt. Just remember; it tastes good, it's packed with B vitamins, protein and calcium, it aids digestion and very learned doctors believe it can - if eaten regularly - materially lengthen your life. Besides that, it's dirt cheap when you make it yourself: Twenty to thirty cents a quart.

Once you really get into making your own, you'll want a "Culturizer" or yogurt maker. This is a constant-temperature, electrically-heated base and a set of poly or glass (which I prefer) containers with tight fitting lids. Culturizers make four individual pints or quarts of yogurt at a time, take out all the hassle, are foolproof, cost from $10.00 to $15.00 and can save you $50.00 - $100.00 or more a year for years.