In 2015, researcher Cecilia Westbrook decided to make yogurt using
the bacteria from her own vagina. Westbrook swiped her nether regions
with a wooden spoon and left the utensil overnight in a bowl of milk.
The resulting yogurt tasted tangy and sour and caused her tongue to
tingle.
The whole thing sounds insane, but Westbrook realized
that there were no studies about the vast amount of bacteria that live
inside the vagina. Current research is more obsessed with gut bacteria’s
benefits to our health. However, some microbiologists are so aware of
the positive effects of vaginal bacteria that they smear their own
newborns with such fluids.
Although eating it may have been
too daring (there are bad genital bacteria, too), other researchers were
inspired to tack on with more graceful experiments. Soon, they also
proved that bacteria could be cultured from the human vagina. Future
applications for this “yogurt” are more medicinal than culinary,
especially in the field of probiotics and yeast infections.
