There are some stories so good to tell that one hesitates to check their accuracy. Like the one about King Francis I of France (1494-1547) being cured of his digestive problems by eating yogurt.

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Suleiman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire with whom Francis had forged an alliance, heard about the king’s ailment and dispatched one of his court physicians to help. At the time, yogurt was already established in the Ottoman world as a “health food” and the physician prepared a special batch from ewe’s milk for the royal stomach. It cured Francis’s gastrointestinal discomfort, and ever since then yogurt has been soothing French digestive tracts and pleasing French palates.

Of course, if you are scientifically minded you should not hesitate to check sources for reliability. So, I checked. While at the time yogurt did indeed have a reputation as a medicinal preparation in the Islamic world, there is no documented evidence of Suleiman sending a physician to France.

Actually, this alluring story did not surface until the 19th century when it appeared in some popular French articles. Yogurt only become popular in France after 1904 when future Nobel laureate Élie Metchnikoff, then at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, presented a public........

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