Maybe this explains why the allergy was rare when yogurt used to be consumed daily in Bulgaria although I am not able to find reliable statistics and I'm basing this on anecdotal data.
It used to be a healthful breakfast given its balanced nutritional profile per one cup: 150 calories, 8 g of fat (5 g of which saturated), 5 g of carbs, and 13 g of protein while supplying 1/3rd of your daily calcium need.
In Serbia we have different types of yogurt some more thick (the westernized with flavor), yet some runny/less thick. But sour milk (kiselo mleko for us) is always of same texture and we eat it with a spoon. So, my question is - do Bulgarians drink their yogurt or do they eat it with a spoon?
1. Heat milk and milk cream (mostly milk cream), let cool, add yogurt culture
2. After yogurt is set, add water and churn
3. Extract the butter that you get from churning, drink the leftover buttermilk :-)
4. Heat the butter till it's ghee
But what I meant is that ghee is not made with yogurt and not solely from fermented milk - and ghee doesn't have to be cultured either (most brands available in US stores are not). Again, my point was, that for fermented milk to be called "yogurt," it needs to have a particular Lactobacillus profile, which is not traditionally available in India. Nowadays, maybe you use the imported starter cultures just like Japan, USA, and EU does.
Please do :-)! The butter by itself is quite tasty; more tangy than store-bought butter and delicious when whipped with powdered sugar then spread on bread.
> it needs to have a particular Lactobacillus profile, which is not traditionally available in India
Sorry, do you have a source for this? I was unable to find anything. I don't think it would've been too difficult for yogurt cultures to diffuse gradually from Bulgaria to India in ancient times. There were plenty of traders and conquering armies going back and forth. Yogurt has been in India for thousands of years.
With regard to yogurt cultures used in India, I only found the following: "In India, a combination of "Lactobacillus bulgaricus" and "Streptococcus thermophilus" is used for commercial production." [1]
[1] http://www.indiacurry.com/faqmilk/mfaqdahichemistery.htm
Every country has some regulation on what should be marketed as "butter," "cheese," "yogurt" so that consumers are not deceived. For example, in Bulgaria, recently there's been "butter" on the market with 70% hydrogenated palm oil! If there's no precise definition of what "yogurt" is, kefir, butter milk, and lassi can be sold as yogurt then - they are fermented dairy products as well
Here's the definition of FDA although it's possibly the vaguest: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFR...
In Bulgaria, for example, there's strict standard, which even limits the types of containers that can be used to sell yogurt (as some may alter the taste or leach chemicals).
I know that there's EU regulation on yogurt as well, but I'm not able to find it, unfortunately.
In the US, I think this is being marketed as "Greek yogurt." (I don't like yogurt so no first hand experience, but in the last few years I've noticed many brands being advertised as "Greek", and as being more tangy and possibly more healthy/"natural")
I don't think either process affects acidity.