Is my yoghurt really alive?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8 • 985 Ratings

🗓️ 16 May 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bulgaria is famous for its yoghurt, a fermented milk food full of ‘good’ bacteria that has kept hungry Bulgarians healthy for over 4000 years.

Inspired by that, and a question from a CrowdScience listener in California USA, Marnie Chesterton and Caroline Steel are immersing themselves in Bulgarian culture with a programme about Bulgarian cultures, recorded at the 2025 Sofia Science Festival.

So, are the ‘live’ cultures in fermented foods actually alive by the time you eat them, and how can you tell? If you can eat the mould in blue cheese, can you eat the mould on cheese that isn’t supposed to be mouldy? Is traditional food really better for you? And if you put a drop of vanilla into a litre of milk, how come it all tastes of vanilla?

Marnie and Caroline are joined by a chemist who was a member of Sofia University’s ‘Rapid Explosion Force’, a food technologist with a PhD in sponge cakes and a Professor of molecular biology who says that we contain so much bacteria that we’re only 10% human.

With questions on food from around the world and from the audience in Sofia, Marnie and Caroline will be digesting the answers, as well as some local delicacies.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Ella Hubber Series Producer: Ben Motley

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast, I'd like to introduce myself.
0:03.7	My name's Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport podcasts.
0:08.4	I'm lucky to do that at the BBC because I get to work with leading journalists, experienced
0:12.2	pundits and the biggest sports stars.
0:14.3	Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights straight from the player's mouths.
0:19.1	But the best thing about doing this at the BBC is our unique access to the sporting world.
0:24.8	What that means is that we can bring you podcasts that create a real connection to dedicated sports fans across the UK.
0:31.3	So if you like this podcast, head over to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more.
0:39.3	Hello and welcome to a very special edition of Crowd Science from the BBC World
0:44.9	Service coming to you from Sofia Science Festival here in Bulgaria.
0:48.6	And we have something today that we don't usually have on Crowd science, an actual crowd. Say hello crowd.
0:57.5	So our bread and butter is answering your science questions and we've had a lot of them
1:06.9	from you, our wonderful listeners, all about food. So we've rounded up a bunch of our
1:12.0	favourites to try and tackle today. And we're joined by a panel of three fantastic scientists to help
1:17.5	us. We have Professor Svetler Daneva. Svetla, do you want to introduce yourself? I am head of
1:22.7	laboratory in Institute of Microbiology, Stefan Angle, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
1:28.4	More than 25 years, intensive research on the Bulgarian lactic bacteria
1:34.1	and traditional milk-fermented products.
1:37.7	The famous yogurt, the cheese, the way he's so healthy and delicious.
1:42.4	Okay, and we also have Nasco Staminov. Nasco, tell us about yourself.
1:47.2	Hello, I'm Nasco Staminov. I'm a science teacher and science communicator from Bulgaria. I teach
1:53.4	chemistry and I like to introduce people to chemistry in talks or maybe experimenting, which we are going to do afterwards.
	...

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