A probiotic WHAT?

Are you a probiotic person?

Forget Yakult or Activia, Probiotic Professor Arthur Ouwehand has revealed a whole new world of products that claim to be ‘probiotic’.

There is just one problem. A large number of brands are not clued in when it comes to the science behind live bacteria, and are misusing the word probiotic.

Foods often claim to have ‘probiotic benefits’ when, in fact, ‘probiotics’ is a word that covers a whole bunch of different ‘probiotic strains’. Just like every person has a different set of skills, every probiotic strain has a different set of health benefits.

Below are just some examples of foods that may wrongly claim to have the benefits of every single probiotic strain:

· Probiotic water

· Probiotic chocolate

· Probiotic cheese

· Probiotic digestive wellness cereal

· Probiotic drinking tea

· Probiotic cereal bars

During our research we even discovered a sweet chilli chicken sandwich brandished with the label ‘contains probiotic friendly bacteria’.

Choosing a sandwich filling at lunchtime is an already complex task, but adding live bacteria into the equation? This has to be one step too far.

Death by shampoo

There’s more, and these products are a whole new level of bizarre. So much so in fact, that they err on the side of entertainment.

Consider this: a probiotic contains live bacteria, and that live bacteria (similarly to most live things) thrive in an environment that allows them to… well… live.

Off the wall (for want of a better phrase) probiotic products:

· Bio pure probiotic household cleaning concentrate

· Probiotic colour care shampoo

A supplement containing live bacteria should not even be swallowed with a hot drink, so it’s fairly obvious why the idea of a ‘probiotic’ cleaning product or shampoo is somewhat farfetched.

There’s just one more oddball product left for us to reveal, and this one has to be our favorite:

The ‘Probiotic Mattress’.

We don’t know about you, but this had us conjuring up images of animated live bacterium making a home for themselves amongst our bed sheets.