The Binary Circumstance

I wanted to make my own yogurt and found many sites that offered great advice but MakeYourOwnYogurt.com had very clear instructions and photographs.

My first attempt was a success!

I used my food dehydrator to keep the yogurt at the right temperature for the bacteria to grow instead of a heating pad. But I thought the heating pad was a great idea as well.

Some of the health benefits and information about the bacteria in yogurt can be found here.

Based on federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards, in order for a product to be called “yogurt” it must be made by combining a dairy product with a bacteria, usually Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. The National Yogurt Association (NYA) has made its own rules for yogurt. In order for a special “Live & Active Culture” seal to appear on a container of yogurt, the product must contain at least 100 million bacteria per gram of yogurt at the time it is made.

That’s a lot of bacteria.

One of the advantages of making your own yogurt is that you can choose the types of bacteria you want to put in it. For example, if you want the same cultures they use in Dannon’s Activia, you just go to the store and buy some plain Activia and use it for your starter. The same is true for DanActive or any other brand of yogurt.

The cost savings is also very substantial. A 24oz container of Activia currently costs $3.99 or $0.166/oz. A gallon of whole milk costs $2.99 and that will make a gallon of yogurt for $0.023/oz. The equivalent of a gallon (128oz) of Activia would cost $21.25.

DanActive is even more expensive. An 8-pack cost $6.49 and each container is 3.1oz which comes out to $0.261/oz. A gallon equivalent would cost $33.50, eleven times the cost of making your own.

Lady Astor: Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.
Winston Churchill: Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.

Source

Lady Astor: “Mr. Churchill, you’re drunk!”
Winston Churchill: “Yes, and you, Madam, are ugly. But tomorrow, I shall be sober.”

Source

By accident last night I discovered that Julia Sweeney who played the gender-ambivalent character “Pat” on Saturday Night Live, has a blog.

She talks a lot about atheism and religion and recently posted about the recent raid on the LDS ranch in Texas.

She pointed out how frightened the children must be.

The children are caught between a rock and a hard place. They’ll clearly want to be with the families and their community because that’s all they know but at the same time their parents are teaching them nonsense, raising them in slavery and shutting them off from the outside world, a classic characteristic of an abusive, controlling relationship.

Lately I’ve been remembering how much terror I felt as a child being brought up Catholic and being taught by nuns who continually reminded us how we were going to Hell if we didn’t do what God wanted us to do, which coincidentally was always what they or the church wanted us to do.

I’ve certainly dealt with the issue many times before so I don’t know why it’s been on my mind so much lately. Maybe because of the LDS raid or the fact that I recently read a book about the history of the LDS church.

I feel for the kids too.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Religion is built on delusions and is therefore a form of mental illness. Religion forced on children is child abuse. Terrorizing children into obedience is wrong. Destroying their ability to think rationally with religious dogma is wrong as well. (See my book.)