Dinosaurs Are NOT Food blogger Ginger Bakos gives us some eye opening insight on yogurt as a “health food.”
Next up in healthy food confusion. Yogurt.
Health food darling, right? Not so fast.
One thing I hear a LOT is “They usually eat a little thing of light yogurt and some fruit in the morning.” Or when asking about healthy snacks their family eats, “Well, they will have a light yogurt for an afternoon snack.” Light is a favorite word that people associate with health, and I’m here to tell you, that usually it is anything but healthy.
And in yogurt, it might be far worse than you think.
First, regular yogurt is actually considered a carb on most dietary exchanges because between the sugars from the dairy and the added sugars, it doesn’t have much else going for it.
But just how sugary is yogurt? Well, light yogurt has as much or more sugar in it than a serving of nearly every one of many maligned sugary breakfast cereals (like Lucky Charms). (We’ll talk about “healthy” cereals another day.) And what’s more, a greater percentage of the calories in yogurt are from sugar, and added sugar at that. You heard me right, light yogurt has more sugar and percent of calories from sugar than your average sugary breakfast cereal. Some flavors as high as 56% of calories from sugar.
And the not light versions? In just 6 oz of yogurt, they have nearly 3/4 of an ounce of sugar, some of them almost an ounce.
What about Greek Yogurt? Well, Greek yogurt has a major protein hit going for it that does help with that sugary load and how it gets processed by little bodies. But the truth is that the flavored kinds are equally packed with added sugar, and some of them with as much sugar as a soda. So plain Greek yogurt is by far the best choice, and I already know you are thinking to yourself, “How am I going to get the littles to eat that?”
We LOVE Greek yogurt in our house. Here’s how we eat it to lessen that sugary load. A drop or two of vanilla and either a little stevia, which is amazingly sweet and incorporates really well into Greek yogurt, or a bit of honey, which is a better sweetener than sugar or HFCS. And our other favorite is all fruit spreads. They incorporate well, and while they do have sugar content, it is not added sugar and they retain a bit of their whole fruit status. You can read more about sweeteners, here and here.
So opt for Greek yogurt when reaching for yogurt, and skip those sugary breakfast cereal, altogether. There are better breakfast choices, out there!
Ginger Bakos is a Meal Planning and Food Budget Wizard who writes the blog Dinosaurs Are NOT Food. She is committed to helping moms feed their families well and within their budget, believing that everyone can, and deserves, to eat well! Her greatest passion is freeing moms and kiddos from the “kid food” cycle and guiding them to a healthful and positive relationship with real food. She converted her very own 3 year old Master of All Things Bread and Cheese to a beet and broccoli lover, and she knows you can make it happen in your house, too. You can contact her at ginger@dinosaursarenotfood.com.