#26: Recipe for controversial yogurt (with Cecilia Westbrook)

In 2015, while in grad school, Cecilia Westbrook made yogurt out of her vaginal flora, as an experimental side-project. A journalist friend of hers wrote about it, and the article got published on Vice. It immediately went viral, spawning a number of copy-cat publications that re-edited the original text but never added more content, let alone created space for dialogue or reflection.

This situation caused problems with her academic institution, since at the moment she was undergoing PhD studies, and triggered a landslide of misogynistic remarks towards her, many of which can still be found online. For these reasons, she had to refuse to comment on the harmless, yet (for some people) controversial yogurt.

Now, 7 years after, Ferment Radio has the great pleasure to learn more about that particular yogurt,  and the avalanche it caused, directly from Cecilia Westbrook.