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"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food," the age-old adage by Hippocrates, is certainly not an obscure and loose dogma of early antiquity but the tenet of today. The new generation's relationship with food is a mess, with many youngsters accustomed to a processed, unbalanced diet. We have become reliant on ready-to-cook meals, takeaways and off-the-shelf snacks. With poor nutrition comes poor health, often debilitating at a personal level and the cause of enormous social and economic expense. Although we know benefits of eating good food, many of us just don't do enough to make fundamental changes to our diet. Rather than eat more fruit and vegetables and a good balance of complex carbohydrate and protein-foods, we are increasingly turning to foods and drinks fortified with specific nutrients or 'good' bacteria -as a 'magic fix' for our unbalanced lives. The healthy, human gut contains millions of beneficial bacteria. It's a symbiotic relationship: Our intestines make a good habitat for the bacteria, and in return they help us digest our food, crowd out harmful bacteria (such as food-borne pathogens), strengthen the gut's immune response, and even manufacture certain nutrients, such as vitamins B12 and K. Antibiotics, chronic illness, or a diet high in sugar or processed foods can disrupt the natural flora of the intestinal tract and create health problems such as indigestion, constipation, yeast overgrowth, and lowered immune function. With the growing interest in self-care and integrative medicine, recognition of the link between diet and health has never been stronger. As a result, the market for functional foods, or foods that promote health beyond providing basic nutrition, is flourishing. Within the functional foods movement is the small but rapidly expanding arena of probiotics - live microorganisms, which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host. Probiotics beneficially affect an individual by improving intestinal microbial balance. Use of probiotic has been since time immemorial: from sauerkraut in Russia to cheese in Baghdad and vegetables buried in earthen pots by Native Americans, these foods have been prized since ancient times. However, we've lost our connection with these foods in modern days, so they often seem so foreign. After growing up with refrigeration and the fear of "germs", it seems "wrong" to leave things on the counter to sour. The smell and taste is different from what we're used to having. The traditional sources for beneficial bacteria are fermented foods, which are made by culturing fresh foods like milk or vegetables with live bacteria (usually a lactobacillus). Almost every food culture features some sort of fermented food, such as miso, yogurt, kefir, fresh cheese, sauerkraut, etc. Traditionally, these foods would be eaten daily, in part, to keep the gut wellstocked with beneficial bacteria. In these foods and in probiotics supplements, the bacteria may have been present originally or added during preparation. Most often, they come from two groups of bacteria, Lactobacillus or Bifidobacterium. Within each group, there are different species (for