For centuries, red yeast rice has been taken by millions of individuals as a natural dietary supplement, although more recent there has been a protracted legal battle over whether to call this form of yeast a drug or a supplement, the Mayo Clinic reports.

In either case, the extract taken from this variety of yeast offers a window into the evolutionary history of the fungi that break down food products to produce ethyl alcohol.

A recent study published in the journal Nature Communications related the experiments done by a group of Swedish scientists on two species of yeast bacteria, Dekkera bruxellensis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. If that latter name looks familiar, it may be because it comes from the Latin words for sugar and beer. S. cerevisiae is the main variety of yeast used to make many alcohols today.

Researchers at Lund University sequenced the genomes of these two strains and found that each was exposed to changes in diet millions of years ago, which encouraged the bacteria to consume sugars and excrete alcohol.

In addition to providing this service, yeast can enhance a diet that does not contain enough vitamins and minerals.