Is it a dessert? Is it healthy food? People usually have lots of questions about yogurt and which brand to buy. Which yogurt is right for you? We tell you exactly what you need to look for in a yogurt pack.
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Yogurt has always been a healthy and probiotic food item. Earlier, yogurt was available in simple packs and containers; there were no added flavors or special ingredients. Today, you can find different flavors and different brands of yogurts.
There are complete aisles filled with them in the supermarkets. There is a downside to so many options, people often end up being confused.
Many people are also confused about whether yogurt falls under a food item or whether it falls under the category of a dessert. This article will try to end this confusion by giving you the facts about yogurt.
Impact Of Yogurt On Your Health
Yogurt is a food item that is rich in a variety of nutrients. You will find traces of protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamin B12, and other fatty acids in yogurt. Your body needs these nutrients in abundance to stay healthy and fit.
Eating yogurt is a part of a healthy diet. Yogurt is suitable for consumption by people that are overweight or obese as yogurt is light but a filling source of food.
Yogurt is high in protein, due to which the body feels fuller, and you don’t feel hungry. If you feel less hungry, you will consume less food. This significantly reduces your chances of gaining extra weight as well.
It will help you to lose weight and become thinner. Many people in America fall in the category of being overweight or obese. The prevalence of obesity in America is 42.4% in all adults. People who consume yogurt are fitter because they have good overall eating habits.
You might like to read: How to Read Food Labels Without Getting Confused
Benefits Of Probiotics In Yogurt
Yogurt is rich in probiotics, probiotics have live organisms, and they are present in our gut. Our body has two types of bacteria: good bacteria and bad bacteria.
Probiotics form the major part of good bacteria in our body. Good bacteria are responsible for forming and building the bulk of our immune systems—probiotics found in yogurt help fight against digestive conditions and irregularities. People suffering from irritable bowel syndrome have to consume probiotics in more quantities.
How To Select The Best Yogurt For Yourself?
You will see that yogurt is marketed as a healthier product all over the market. The manufacturers are not wrong, but yogurt with added sugar and flavors is considerably less healthy than other types of yogurt. That’s why choosing between these different brands can be confusing.
The type of yogurt you are buying depends on your needs. If you are purchasing the yogurt for flavor, you will have different preferences, and if you are buying yogurt for health reasons, you will have to go for another type of yogurt.
These things will help you decide on the perfect yogurt pack for yourself.
You must read the label on the yogurt pack
Reading the label on the yogurt pack is the first and most essential step. Reading the label will give you details about the ingredients present. Instead of reading labels of all the brands, go in with an idea of what you want to buy.
All yogurts are initially just plain yogurt. There are some preservatives and other added ingredients to keep the yogurt refrigerated. These added ingredients can be sugar, dyes, stabilizers, artificial flavors, and preservatives.
If given a choice, it is always best to go for fresh yogurt with fewer added ingredients. If something refrigerated has fewer ingredients, they are more likely to be fresher. On a label, the ingredients are generally listed by their weight. Sugar is present in yogurt in higher quality, so it is listed near the top of the label.
Note: Sugar can be listed by other names on the label, such as sucrose, fruit juice, cane sugar, agave nectar, and high fructose corn syrup.
You might like to read: 6 Reasons Why You Should Consume Fiber Daily
Know about the nutrition facts
You are going to gauge essential data about the nutritional facts of the yogurt. Be sure to remember that the nutritional facts given on the yogurt pack are based on the serving sizes and calories per serving. You can learn about the number of carbohydrates, fats, proteins, or sugar in the serving you are about to consume.
What Type Of Yogurt Is Best For You?
Here, we will compare the three most popular types of yogurt. These three yogurts are Greek yogurt, non-dairy yogurt, and regular yogurt.
Greek Yogurt
Currently, you will find that Greek yogurt is a big trend among people. The major difference between traditional yogurt and Greek yogurt is that the latter is strained many times. This extra straining results in less lactose and whey quantity in the yogurt.
As a result, Greek yogurt has twice the protein as traditional yogurt and half the carbohydrates. People that are lactose intolerant should be able to consume Greek comfortably. There are about 30 million adults in America that are lactose intolerant.
Greek yogurt has higher amounts of calories and fats as well as it also has less calcium than standard yogurt.
Non Dairy Yogurt
Dairy-free yogurt is generally made from soy or coconut yogurt. Non-dairy or plant-based yogurt is an ideal choice for vegan people. If you consume yogurt for the calcium content, you must not go for non-dairy yogurt. This is why you will find added Vitamin D and added calcium in such yogurts.
Whether To Go For Organic Yogurt Or Not?
You may be confused about whether to go for organic yogurt or whether to go for inorganic yogurt. Yogurt made from the milk coming from cows, goats, and other animals is considered organic yogurt.
According to studies, organic milk has a higher quantity of fatty acids. You will find more vitamin E, iron content, and beta carotene than conventional milk.
Conventional milk has lower amounts of selenium and iodine. You may find differences in the vitamins of the milk because of the difference in diets among the cows.
The Ideal Yogurt Checklist
You can concentrate on choosing the best yogurt for yourself. You can focus on the following aspects for considering the best yogurt:-
- Sugar: Ideally, you should go for yogurt that does not have much sugar. You should choose plain yogurt or yogurt with zero added sugar. You can eat other types of yogurt as they are also very tasty, but they are not entirely healthy, so you must eat them in moderation.
- Protein: Yogurts that are higher in protein induce the feeling of having your stomach full. Due to this, you may also eat fewer carbs and food items that have fat in them. Women undergoing menopause can eat yogurt rich in protein to deal with mood swings. For people looking to manage and maintain their weight, yogurt is an ideal food item for them. You can look for yogurt with at least 5 grams or more of protein.
- Other ingredients: It is suitable for your health if you go for yogurts with fewer ingredients. The lesser the number of ingredients, the more microbes and live culture in them.
- Taste: You must also give preference to your taste and your health.
You might like to read: Impact Of Too Much Sugar On The Heart
Low Fat Vs. Full-Fat Yogurt
Dairy fat offers you significant health benefits, such as yogurt fat can decrease the risk of heart diseases, reduce inflammation of the guts, etc. Dairy-based yogurt is high in fat as it is made from high-quality milk. The yogurt that is low in fat content can be made from plant-based dairy.
You should look for live culture in the yogurt before buying. Live culture is responsible for lowering the cholesterol levels in your blood, ultimately lowering your vulnerability to heart diseases.
You can learn about the effect of live culture on your blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol here.
Is Frozen Yogurt A Dessert Or A Healthy Food Item?
Frozen yogurt is not similar to traditional yogurt. There is a major difference between these two types of yogurts, so frozen yogurt doesn’t require following government standards. There are some brands of frozen yogurt that add live and active cultures.
Freezing the yogurt does not kill all the microbes, but they may be asleep because of all the cold. These microbes remain in a dormant state. They wake up once they get inside your body, thaw, and get active.
Other types of frozen yogurt do not include any live, active cultures at all. Frozen yogurt that does not contain live culture is similar to regular yogurt. If you treat yogurt with heat, then all the live cultures or the microbes in the yogurt are killed.
Wrap Up
Yogurt is a tricky food item to purchase, and you may not be fully aware of whether it is a dessert or a main course food item. Yogurt is ultimately a healthy food item full of probiotics that are essential for our body as they tend to build our immune system.
Probiotics are among the good bacteria in our body that you can find in your gut. If your gut has more good bacteria than bad bacteria then you will have a healthy digestive system. Due to this healthy digestive system, you will not fall ill or have any digestive problems.
We hope the information provided above will help you understand the differences between types of yogurt and which ones are beneficial for you and which ones are probably just good for taste.
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