Message text written by Ilya
>>Steve Carper wrote:
>> The bacteria added to milk to make yogurt has all the protein it needs.
It > does not use, break down, digest, or in any other way touch the
protein in the milk.  Any casein in the milk to begin with stays there.<<
 
>Are you saying that acidophylis, etc. do not multiply in yogurt? I was
under an impression they do. If they do, then the new ones must get the
proteins for their needs. And since their needs are not casein or whey they
would break those into amino acids and build the proteins they need from
them.<
 
>> Bacteria protein is not counted as part of the overall protein count.<<
 
>Hmm. Another hmm. More hmm. Scratching my head... You are turning upside
down many of my assumptions about how food is analysed for labeling. I
remember being told in school that calories where determined simply by
burning a chunk of food and measuring something (heat I think, or CO2). As
for proteins, carbos, fat there was a similarly simple method. Use
something to separate them and then measure. This 'something' would break
up whatever was in there, including bacteria cells and then measure total
macronutrients. Are you telling me they don't break up the bacteria cells
as part of the analysis? If you are telling me they don't do this for
yogurt, then what do they do for meat, where almost all the nutrients are
contained within cells?<
 
Well, the bacteria are live, so I suppose they multiply, but they certainly
don't do so very well.  In fact, they die in droves.  The actual bacterial
count per gram in the product you eat can be one/tenth or less of the
original.  And I think you're forgetting just how small bacteria are.
Their total weight adds effectively nothing to the final count of any
nutrient.
 
 
Steve Carper
author of Milk Is Not for Every Body: Living with Lactose Intolerance
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper