Sour milk are deservedly popular with millions of people around the world. They are produced from milk and cream through fermentation of various microorganisms. Sour milk products and, in particular the beverages have a long history. The people of Greece and Rome, India, Middle East and the Caucasus have long used the sour-milk drinks, which were prepared from cow, sheep or donkey's milk. Scythians were known mare - fermented drink made from fermented mare's milk.
Being engaged in livestock, people noticed that skisshee milk longer shelf life, has a pleasant refreshing taste. They eagerly drank this milk, making sure that it has a beneficial effect on the human body.
Thus, among different peoples began to appear national dairy drinks: fermented boiled milk and yoghurt in Russia, Ukraine ryazhenka, matsun in Armenia, yoghurt in Georgia, chal Turkmenistan, kurunga in Northeast Asia, ayran and kefir in the North Caucasus, the mare in Bashkortostan , Tartary, Leben in Egypt, yagurt in Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Romania, Pogrebnoy milk in Norway, etc.
It is believed that fermented drinks were the first product made from milk.
The value of lactic acid beverages in human nutrition for the first time scientifically proven an outstanding scientist, Mechnikov. He belongs to the theory of antagonistic microorganisms. For lactic acid products, it is the following: lactic acid bacteria during their life produce lactic acid which creates an acidic environment that can not develop putrefactive bacteria. In addressing the longevity, II Mechnikov came to the conclusion that dairy drinks can prevent premature aging.
It is now established that lactic acid bacilli (eg, oxyphilic and Bulgarian), as well as the yeast form antibiotics that act on the intestinal, paratyphoid and typhoid, dysentery and tuberculosis bacillus, as well as putrefactive microorganisms. In addition, fermented beverages by the content of lactic acid and carbon dioxide have remarkable properties: they stimulate the appetite, quench thirst, increase the secretion of gastric juice, increase peristalsis of the stomach and intestines, improve the functioning of kidneys that can infect people all the nutrients of milk, contain methionine, choline, calcium, have antibiotic properties.
In Fermented beverages, many of the nutrients of milk are becoming more and more useful, more digestible, such as proteins, as well as proteolytic enzymes, lactic microflora isolated, partially decompose proteins, which increases the completeness and speed of their assimilation. It is better absorbed and minerals, and carbohydrate (lactose) produced substances that improve the dietary properties of these products.
Some vitamins lactic acid bacteria able to synthesize vitamins C and Group B.
Special selection of microflora can further enhance the beneficial properties of fermented beverages.
By type of lactic starter cultures differentiated products and mixed fermentation. By products of lactic fermentation are sour (mild, Mechnikov), ryazhenka, fermented boiled milk, acidophilic milk to mixed fermentation products (lactic acid and alcohol) - sour milk, mare's milk, acidophilic-yeast milk. These drinks are also fermented taste, but more acute. Because the content of a small amount of alcohol and carbon dioxide, they have a refreshing effect, and the clot is permeated by small gas bubbles.
For the production of high quality lactic acid products need good sourdough, which consists of three main groups of microorganisms: lactic acid streptococci, lactic acid bacilli, including acidophilic, and yeast.
