Homemade Yogurt: Probiotics Without the Sugar

One of the cornerstones of SCD is homemade yogurt, and it's healthful for everyone--even those with unrestricted diets--especially pregnant women.  Those of us with IBD or IBS often avoid diary, and this is a great way to get calcium that you need now more than ever.
Additional benefits of homemade yogurt are:

• It has very little lactose (even less if you use goat milk). 
• It has probiotics that can help with digestive upset that all women suffer from when pregnant.
• You can control the ingredients.  Conventional yogurt has a ton of sugar, but homemade yogurt is literally just milk and probiotics.

My sweet mom makes me a batch every few weeks.  (I've done it myself too but failed because I didn't mix the probiotics well enough.)  She uses the Yogourmet yogurt maker and GI ProHealth probiotics.

Here are the steps:

1. Heat 2% organic milk for 2 minutes, keeping it between 185 and 190 degrees to kill bacteria.
2. Refrigerate milk until it returns to 70-80 degrees.
3. Slowly add probiotics (heaping 1/4 teaspoon for a gallon), mixing VERY well.
4. Allow the yogurt maker to heat the milk for 24 hours.
5. Remove internal container from yogurt maker (but don't open!) and refrigerate for 8 hours.
6. Enjoy!  I always top with honey and bananas or berries.  (Not tough enough for plain yogurt...)