Junk food of the week: Fermented milk soda

The complete home office: Computer? Check. Cellphone? Check.
Fermented milk soda? Check.

Mmmm! Fizzy sweetened fermented milk! It didn't sound good to me either, but now I'm hooked on the stuff. It's mostly sweet, with a hint of yogurty sourness, and like Yakult and yogurt, it has those useful little Lactobacillus digestive bacteria. This is the plain version, but it also comes in flavors like guava, orange and grape.

A quick Google search reveals all sorts of alleged benefits to fermented milk, such as lower blood pressure and reduced allergies. Nonetheless, I suspect this stuff has enough sugar to qualify for the 'junk food' designation.

Calpico is from Japan, where it's called Calpis. They changed the name for the export version so it wouldn't sound like "cow piss" (true story!).