Qurt – a good help to protect your teeth

Qurt is a popular dairy product in Central Asia. But not everyone likes it but do you know that it is actually very healthy?

Today we tried to make homemade Qurt in different shapes. It’s not easy to make this dairy product yourself in Europe. We looked for the right ingredients for a long time. But after some experimentation with different types of yogurt and cheese, we found the right ingredient in a Turkish store to make Qurt at home: we used the Gazi Tulum Nomadic Cheese. We formed this creamy, soft cheese into various spherical shapes. We then dried the nomad cheese balls in our oven with circulating hot air at 50 degrees Celsius until they turned dry and yellow in color. Then we put the fresh dried dairy product on a towel and let it rest for a day. Afterwards there was of course great excitement and we tried our homemade Qurt: it was very tasty and it tasted just as good as in the bazaars in Kazakhstan.

But not everyone likes it. Especially our friends in Europe want to try the cheese balls first, but after tasting they often don’t want to try any more qurt. But maybe they just don’t know that it’s actually very healthy to eat this dairy product regularly?

The first researchers from Europe to travel to Central Asia were often surprised by the very white, well-preserved teeth of the locals and wondered what this could be attributed to. Because in Europe at that time, dental care was not yet a priority. But even now in Central Asia – especially in the countryside – you can find people with a white, shiny smile well into their old age, while in Europe they struggle with tooth decay and tooth wear.

In the summer of 2003, an international research team conducted a dental examination of 151 Mongolian children in Ulaanbaatar to examine their dental health in relation to eating habits and nutritional status.

They noticed that rural children had very good teeth, while city children struggled with tooth decay and tooth decay. So they questioned their eating habits more deeply. They noticed that the rural children were eating a lot more dairy products and regularly eating Aruul – the Mongolian equivalent of the Kazakh Qurt. The city children, however, often gave up the traditional Aruul and instead ate Western products loaded with sugar.

Researchers also noted that with regular use of Qurt, teeth remineralize better and faster – and so the teeth are less weakened in everyday life.

Therefore, we can recommend you to try Qurt again and enjoy it with the health of your teeth in mind. Bon Appétit!