How to choose the healthiest yogurt when you are in the supermarket

Do you know how to choose a healthy and healthy yogurt when you are in the supermarket? We discover what you should look for, why look at the nutritional labeling, and which is the best for your health.

If there is a food that everyone likes, it is certainly popular among the majority of consumers, and that surprises with its incredible nutritional richness and its different benefits and qualities that is yogurt.

As you surely know, it is a natural product that is obtained from the fermentation of milk by specific microorganisms. And what are those microorganisms? Generally  streptococcus, lactobacillus bulgaricus, and thermophilus. In other words, we are dealing with a dairy product that is obtained from the fermentation of milk.

In general, cow’s milk is used for its preparation, although it is true that there is no type of impediment to actually using any type of milk. In this sense, for example, we can even find vegan yogurts, which are made from vegetable cereal drinks (such as rice or oats) and dried fruits (such as hazelnuts or almonds).

Therefore, for its preparation, the fermentation of milk sugar into lactic acid is necessary, the main ‘culprit’ that will end up giving yogurt its traditional consistency and its typical slightly acidic flavor.

Although traditionally yogurt is simply a fermented dairy product to which nothing else was added, today it is easy to find a wide variety of yogurt brands in the supermarket, for all tastes and all flavors: strawberry, lemon, coconut with fruits, cereals, jam.

But we must not fool ourselves, in reality flavored yogurts do not contain ingredients directly related to their name in their composition. This is, for example, in a coconut flavored yogurt you will never find coconut as one of its main ingredients on the ingredient label. In any case, you will only distinguish food additives that effectively give that yogurt a coconut flavor.

The real problem: the high amount of sugar

If you are a person who worries about what you eat every day, and you tend to analyze the nutritional labeling of many of the foods that you buy in the supermarket and that you consume every day, it is quite likely that you have already noticed that one of the biggest problems in the food industry are found in the excessive use of sugar.

Or, well, the food industry doesn’t have the problem; the problem rather is the consumers, who buy an apparently healthy product in whose composition there is nevertheless a large amount of sugar.

The same goes for yogurt. Surely you would be surprised to know that, on average, a sweetened yogurt of any flavor has around 2 or 3 sugars inside. Or, in other words, it is as if with each yogurt you put 2 or 3 small squares of sugar in your mouth, chew them and swallow them without further ado.

But let’s go by parts with a very clear example:

As we can see, most of the yogurts that we find in the supermarket, without being the option of natural yogurt or 0% natural yogurt, not only contain a higher caloric intake than would be adequate, but also have a high amount of sugars, that ultimately end up jeopardizing the nutritional quality that yogurt actually possesses.

In the opinion of many nutritionists, a natural yogurt should have between 55 to 65 Kcal per 100 grams of product. And what happens to the amount provided in the form of sugar? In these cases, the carbohydrates in the form of sugars provided by the yogurt should always be natural; that is, the sugars naturally present in yogurt, which usually range from 3 to 6 grams of sugar.

Therefore, far from looking at the type of yogurt we buy and its flavor, the conclusion is clear: we must always opt for natural yogurts or the 0% version, which do not contain flavors, sweeteners, cereals or pieces of fruits … why? Very simple, because this type of yogurt will contain a high amount of sugar.

And is it not more appropriate to buy a quality natural yogurt, and put homemade fruit jam at home, or even pieces of fruit and cereals? It may take a little more time and effort than opening the yogurt directly and eating it, but without any doubt our health will thank us for it.