Yogurt, in the context of the Primal Diet, is predigested milk, milk that has been broken down by bacterial cultures so that the fat, lactose, and protein have already been partially metabolized before they enter your digestive system. It is part of a continuum of fermented dairy that includes kefir, and it sits at the more fermented, thicker end of that continuum. The core distinction I make is this: in the raw, unheated world, yogurt and kefir are fundamentally the same thing, one is simply further along in the culturing process than the other. Kefir comes first, and then, given more time and more bacteria, it thickens further into what we call yogurt.

Raw dairy in all its forms, fresh milk, kefir, yogurt, cheese, cream, butter, is a medicine, and each form does something entirely different for the body. Milk in its fresh fluid form neutralizes and builds. When you turn that milk into kefir or yogurt, it becomes a concentrated nutrient that can do far more than simply build the body. The bacteria in yogurt have already performed a digestion that your body, in its compromised modern state, is often incapable of performing properly on its own. This is why predigested dairy, yogurt and kefir, is almost always preferable to fresh milk for most people on the Primal Diet.

The Hunzas and tribal Africans understood this. Seventy-five to eighty percent of the Hunza diet consisted of raw dairy: kefir, yogurts, cheeses, raw fresh dairy. Their entire culture was built around it because it is so exceptional, and because of the many things you can do with it medicinally.

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When milk is fermented into yogurt, bacteria have eaten the raw milk and their byproducts become your food. Bacteria is 90% of all the functions of your body. Bacteria is what eats everything, and their byproducts are our food, it is that simple. The bacteria in yogurt consume the fat, the lactose (milk sugar), and the casein (milk protein), breaking them down into forms that are dramatically easier for your body to absorb and utilize.

This means that when you eat raw yogurt, you are receiving more protein, more carbohydrates, and more fats, all predigested, and you absorb them far more easily than from fresh milk. Predigested milk is much better for most people because we don't have great digestion in our toxic modern condition.

Commercial yogurt is made from pasteurized, heated milk, heated to at least 115°F (and I cite 112°F in some contexts) to force thickening. When milk is heated that way, everything in it is no longer a whole, live product. The yogurt bacteria then eat this dead substrate and the milk proteins swell up, that is the only reason commercial yogurt is thick. It has nothing to do with health. It is an artifact of destruction.

Raw yogurt made at home from raw milk will never be hard and thick the way commercial yogurt is. In raw dairy, the yogurt will thicken and stay firm, but as soon as you shake it, it is going to break up and it won't be hard and thick again to where you can just spoon it out. We should never look for it to be that way. That commercial thickness is a sign of dead, cooked milk that has been structurally altered.

Yogurt, in its typical commercial or grain-culture form, contains usually only one strain of bacteria. Kefir contains all three, bulgaris, cocosicus, and acidophilus, so everything digests properly. The bulgaris is the one that predigests the fat. If there is not enough fat present, the bulgaris enzyme dies in the culture. This is why, when commercial producers make yogurt or kefir, they start with skimmed milk and then add cream back, because the whole milk sold commercially is really skimmed milk, and without the fat, the bulgaris cannot survive.

This is one of the most important things I say about yogurt, and it is a point almost nobody understands: there is a fundamental difference between yogurt made with your own bacteria versus yogurt made with introduced grain cultures, commercial starters, or bacteria from cow stomach rennet.

When you eat yogurt made from cultures that are not indigenous to your own body, grain-based kefir cultures, commercial yogurt starter cultures, those bacteria compete with your own intestinal bacteria. They literally compete with it. So although you are getting a food substance you can absorb, those foreign bacteria reduce your own digestive bacteria and break down your digestive abilities. You don't increase in your own ability to digest. You become dependent, addicted, even, on that external bacteria to predigest for you. You will improve your health, but you will not improve your digestion.

Kefir grains and yogurt starters that have been washed and grown commercially are mutated, hybrid substances that have no relationship to the natural bacteria in milk or in your intestines. When that bacteria feeds on the milk, it is making it for itself, not for you. You will get a lot from the milk because their byproduct is already digested, but it will always interfere with your own bacteria.

Contrast this with yogurt made using your own saliva, or with honey as a starter to encourage the natural bacteria already present in raw milk. When you make yogurt with honey, it does not interfere with your own bacteria. It encourages your own bacteria. It builds your own intestinal bacteria. That is the correct direction.

When you turn milk into kefir or yogurt, it becomes a concentrated nutrient. Straight milk always builds the body, but when you turn it into kefir or yogurt, it can do many different things beyond just building. It can act medicinally. This is why I call dairy in all its forms a medicine.

Also of note: because yogurt and kefir are predigested, you can actually drink them cold without the problems associated with cold fresh milk. Cold fresh milk contracts the stomach, prevents hydrochloric acid secretion, lets casein and lactose pass undigested into the bloodstream, and causes irritation. But predigested milk, yogurt and kefir, does not carry those same risks, because the casein and lactose have already been broken down.

The bacteria from another animal's milk, a goat, a sheep, a cow, provides good bacteria that is a good resource for nutrients. But it is not the ultimate. The ultimate is your own bacteria breaking down the milk. When a baby suckles at the nipple, it draws all the bacteria from the mouth into the milk, and the digestion is better because of that. You notice when a child starts drinking, the digestion improves because of this transfer of bacteria.

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Commercial yogurt is always made with heated milk and will not thicken unless the milk is heated to at least 115°F (or 112°F, as I state in other contexts, both figures appear in my teaching). Most store-bought yogurt is made from pasteurized milk and is an inferior food. Raw kefir is considerably superior.

Raw yogurt, made from raw milk that has never been heated above body temperature, is a fundamentally different product. In raw dairy, the bacteria are alive, active, and performing actual digestion. Everything is alive and active in raw kefir and yogurt, whereas in commercial yogurt, nothing is alive.

I specifically stated that I never eat unnaturally cultured yogurts or kefir because the bacteria on which they depend are not indigenous to my system and compete with my own bacteria. Even raw yogurt made with grain cultures has this problem, though it is still far better than commercial pasteurized yogurt.

Raw milk, left to sour on its own, goes through stages. It will kefir first and then go to yogurt. Even milk that has been refrigerated, once you take it out, it will sour on its own. Kefir comes first, and then it becomes yogurt. This natural progression produces the best product because it is not processed. It holds all the latent bacteria in it.

Raw yogurt made at home will thicken but will never achieve the hard, spoonable consistency of commercial yogurt. As soon as you shake or disturb raw yogurt, it breaks back down. This is normal and correct. We should never be looking for that commercial consistency because that thick, hard texture is produced only by the heat damage to the milk proteins.

If you want thicker raw yogurt, you spit more into your milk. The more bacteria present, the faster it cultures and the thicker it will culture.

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Kefir grains and yogurt grains that you buy commercially have been washed and grown many times over. They look nothing like they do in nature. They are a hybrid substance that has no relationship to the natural bacteria in milk or in your intestines. The Hunzas and those people used to make kefir and yogurt, but when they did it traditionally, their grain was grains of honey, not these grains produced from the rennet of a stomach or anything else. These modern commercial grains are washed bacteria that are not natural once they have been washed and conditioned.

Even if you use these grains with raw milk, the bacteria is very different from what's in your intestines, and it will eat the bacteria that's in your intestines and prevent them from procreating and building. This is a backward way to go about it.

The best natural way to make kefir and yogurt from raw milk, if you are not using your own saliva, is to use honey as a starter. Put one to two tablespoons of honey per quart of milk. This encourages the quick growth of the bacteria that is naturally in the milk. In a warm house, this will take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to produce a nice thick kefir.

I do two tablespoons per half gallon now. I used to do two tablespoons per quart, but it got a little sweet after a while.

The precise method: take about six ounces of milk out of the bottle, put two tablespoons of honey in that milk, blend it, and then pour it back into the bottle with the rest of the milk. This is critical, if you put honey into cold milk without blending, it will not dissolve properly and won't make kefir or yogurt quickly. After blending the honey into those six ounces, pour it back into the jar and put it in a cupboard. At room temperature, say 70 degrees, you'll have a nice thick kefir in about 24 to 36 hours. Then you can refrigerate it.

When you make yogurt and kefir with honey, it does not interfere with your own intestinal bacteria. It encourages and builds your own intestinal bacteria. That is the critical difference.

The best possible way to make kefir and yogurt is to use your own saliva, your own bacteria. This is because the primary function of saliva is to add bacteria that is going to digest your animal products. When you expectorate lots of saliva into your milk, it is going to be the bacteria that is perfect for your body. It will go down and break it down perfectly for you. The cream will be utilized to fulfill your brain and nervous system needs absolutely.

The method: take some milk, put it in your mouth, swish it around until you get lots of saliva mixing with the milk, and then put it back into your quart of milk. That's it. You now have the bacteria that is right for you digesting that milk perfectly for your body.

Another approach I use personally: take a heaping tablespoon of honey, get your mouth full of saliva while mixing with the honey, and then expectorate that into the milk. Put it in a warm place, and you'll have kefir in 24 hours or less. That is how fast it works.

If you let the milk sour on its own without either honey or saliva, it sometimes just doesn't make kefir except for many, many days, and then all of a sudden it goes, you have the curdling, and you have the whey and the curd separated. Using honey or saliva as a starter speeds this up dramatically.

If you do oil pulling, milk pulling or coconut cream pulling, first, before you use your saliva, the bacteria that will grow in the yogurt will be your specific bacteria for digestion. Use that saliva in the next batch. Keep doing this until the starter won't grow anymore, and then put your saliva in again. This maintains the most personally appropriate bacterial culture for your system.

You can heat raw milk up to 105°F, even 104°F, without damaging it. A lot of people say you have to take it up to 112°F to get yogurt, but that is not necessary. Especially with fresh unrefrigerated milk, milk that has just been milked and never refrigerated, it will go quickly once you expectorate into it. With room temperature or slightly warmed milk, it may take two to three days depending on room temperature.

The key point: yogurts are heated to at least 112°F in commercial production to further thicken them. That heating is the damage. We can make perfectly good, thickening yogurt at 104-105°F, which is within a cow's body temperature range.

When you put your starter in milk, keep it in a dark cupboard. This is part of the process. Let it kefir first, and then wait until it gets very thick if you want yogurt. You can wait and watch the progression.

Once you have a kefir or yogurt culture growing, you can take a cup back and add it to a new vat. They regulate certain temperatures so it grows perfectly. This is how traditional yogurt and kefir makers perpetuate their cultures, they add a cup of the old starter back to the new batch.

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Yogurt is not a high-fat food on its own. When combining yogurt with fruit, yogurt alone is not sufficient as the fat component. Milk is high in lactate, high in sugar, and when you have it with fruit, it creates too much sugar. You need extra concentrated fat. Milk, and by extension, yogurt, won't provide it. You need cream, butter, or coconut cream in that meal.

So while you can use yogurt as part of a fruit combination, it must be accompanied by additional concentrated fat, raw cream, raw butter, or coconut cream, to buffer the sugar and allow proper digestion and assimilation.

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Four ounces of plain raw kefir used as a douche eliminates discomfort from vaginal yeast infection. This is one of several options I give, the others being ½ tablespoon raw apple cider vinegar in 4 ounces of water, or 3 ounces of your own urine. The kefir option is noted because it delivers live beneficial bacteria directly to the affected area.

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Kefir is fine at any time as a regular dairy beverage, it can be consumed as part of a nighttime routine, between meals, or whenever a predigested dairy food is appropriate. Yogurt, being the thicker, more advanced stage of fermentation, is similarly suitable but functions more as a food than a drink.

I use one to two tablespoons of honey per quart of milk. I now do two tablespoons per half gallon (which is one tablespoon per quart) because two tablespoons per quart made it a little too sweet after a while.

For the saliva method, a heaping tablespoon of honey in the mouth to generate saliva, then expectorate into the milk per quart.

You can take milk up to 105°F (some contexts say 104°F) for making yogurt. Do not exceed this. Commercial yogurt requires 112-115°F, but that is the damage threshold. Raw yogurt should never require temperatures above 105°F.

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When raw kefir is available, it can be added to a salad dressing. Decrease the amounts of wine and vinegar to ¼ cup each and add ¼ cup raw plain kefir. This provides a fermented dairy element to the dressing.

Raw yogurt from raw milk will be thicker than raw kefir but will never achieve commercial spoonable thickness. You can use it in similar applications as kefir, as a drink, as a base for other preparations, or consumed on its own.

Yogurt can be used with fruit but must be combined with additional concentrated fat (raw cream, raw butter, or coconut cream) because yogurt on its own doesn't provide enough fat for proper fruit digestion and assimilation. The fruit-fat ratio must be maintained even when yogurt is used.

If you let the milk sit until it turns into kefir, one stage, you can then wait further until it gets very thick, which is yogurt. Just keep it in a dark cupboard. This is the most natural culinary preparation: patience and darkness.

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The primary derivative relationship here is the progression from fresh raw milk → kefir → yogurt. Kefir comes first, it is the thinner, earlier stage of fermentation. Yogurt is kefir that has continued to culture and thicken. Beyond yogurt comes further separation into curds and whey, which gives you raw cottage cheese and eventually raw cheese.

This entire continuum, from fresh milk to kefir to yogurt to cottage cheese to raw hard cheese, represents dairy in all its different medicinal forms. As the milk progresses through fermentation, it changes what it does in the body:

• Fresh milk: builds the body, neutralizes, nourishes
• Kefir: predigested, easier absorption, good for poor digestion
• Yogurt: more concentrated than kefir, more predigested, thicker bacterial activity
• Cheese (no salt): acts as a sponge, pulls toxins from stomach lining, passes toxins out through feces without digesting
• Cheese (with salt): salt predigests it, causes it to be absorbed with all the poisons, do NOT use salted cheese if your goal is detoxification

Each form of dairy is medicinal in a specific way. Yogurt's particular role is as a concentrated, predigested nutrient delivery system, better than fresh milk for anyone with compromised digestion.

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The entire commercial yogurt industry is built on a deception of sorts, heating the milk to create an artificially thick consistency that gives the impression of quality and substance. The thickening in commercial yogurt is not from bacterial activity alone but from heat-denatured proteins that swell when the bacteria act on them. This is not a sign of better fermentation, it is a sign of dead milk that has been structurally altered by heat damage.

Most store-bought yogurt is made from pasteurized milk and is an inferior food. Raw kefir is considerably superior.

The kefir grains commercially available have been washed many times and grown under controlled, artificial circumstances. The traditional grain of the Hunzas was a grain of honey, natural honey starter, not these grains produced from the rennet of a cow stomach or grown and re-grown in laboratory conditions. These commercial grains are mutated. They have no relationship to what happens in the body at present. The sugars don't break down properly. Nothing breaks down properly because these are violated organisms.

Any of the grains you buy have been washed and washed and washed again, stripping them of their natural relationship to the body and to the milk. The bacteria in them are very different from the kefir grains and yogurt bacteria that your system actually needs. They have gone through alterations, and they are not the same as the indigenous bacteria of fresh raw milk or your own saliva.

Commercial kefir is often thickened with gelatin to give it a yogurt-like consistency. Raw kefir is healthier when not thickened with gelatin. Gelatin is an additive used precisely because raw kefir fermented correctly, without heat, will not achieve yogurt-like thickness on its own.

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