What To Look For When Buying Yogurt From The Store?

1133 days ago

As you guys know, store bought yogurt comes in different shapes, sizes and even types. In our local supermarkets, we would see rows and rows of yogurts of different brands, all vying for your attention and your hard earned money. They even have Greek, Swiss or European style yogurts! Yes, it is very confusing and sometimes even intimidating. Life is like that sometimes. We complain when we don’t have much variety but shy away when we are offered tons of variety. But it does not have to be confusing. A little common sense goes a long way when choosing which yogurt to buy. Too much sugar is unhealthy, too much fat is unhealthy, too much of anything is also unhealthy.

We know that not all yogurts are created equal, some more healthier than others while others just taste better. I am not here to tell you which flavours or brands to choose.  We will leave that to the manufacturer’s marketing department. But this is more like providing you with a general guide to choose the right yogurt, even if you are just looking for some nice delicious afternoon snack. You won’t go wrong with these little tips to help you choose your yogurt. All of these requires you to read the label on the yogurt cup.

  1. Look for the expiry date. The freshest yogurt is usually the one that has the longest expiry date, which means that the yogurt has recently arrived. Of course, some yogurt comes with preservatives  to make the product last longer in the shelf. Well, although not all preservatives are bad (some are just Vitamin C), I would recommend you to avoid yogurts that come with any sort of preservatives. A fresh yogurt will usually contain more live cultures.
  2. Live & Active Cultures. Ensure that there are live & active cultures in the ingredients list. Yes, whether or not there are any live cultures in the yogurt will not affect the taste, but the health benefits it confers to the consumer is plentiful than just yogurt without live cultures. Some yogurts are heat treated to lengthen their shelf life, which kills the live cultures. Anyway, the problem in Singapore is that we have no way to know whether the cultures in the yogurt we buy is sufficient to provide any benefit to the consumer. In the US, they have this “Live & Active Cultures” seal to ensure that there are at least 100 million live & active cultures in your yogurt at the time of manufacture. Here, we just cross our fingers and hope for the best loh.
  3. Other than live cultures, you should also check what types of cultures are in the yogurt. Different cultures will provide different benefits to he consumer. The rule of thumb is the more different types of cultures, the better it is for you, health wise. Manufacturers have started to add more cultures into their yogurt as more and more people realized the great potential of eating probiotic foodstuff to their health. Some cultures help to strengthen your immune system, some helps to maintain a healthy gut while others prevent certain types of infections. You should choose the correct cultures if you are aiming for a specific health benefit.
  4. Low-fat or non-fat yogurt should be naturally runny. Store bought low-fat or non-fat yogurt are usually not runny. That means that it has added starch or gelatin or some other thickeners. They do help to mask the tartness of the yogurt but they just add to the weight. So if you purchase a 200g cup of yogurt, perhaps 30% is made up of these “stabilizers”? So natural yogurt is actually the best because they are ALL yogurt if you get my drift.
  5. Look for high calcium yogurt. The best thing about eating yogurt is that they provide you with a good amount of calcium. Some yogurt manufacturers have fortified their yogurt with added calcium which is very good for you since most of us don’t consume enough calcium in our diet. And looking at what our local supermarkets offer, high calcium and normal yogurts cost about the same. And this is true for proteins too. So check your yogurt cups for information on the calcium and protein content of the yogurt.
  6. Not all ugly looking packaging means that the product is of poor quality. A lot of “set” yogurts will tend to have some spillage due to the transfer process. So they will look sort of dirty with some yogurt on the outside of the cup. A visible check on the yogurt cup will tell you whether the yogurt is leaking or not. Most likely the yogurt is fine and you should be able to consume them without any problems. In fact, most “set” yogurts contain just milk and live cultures, making them much better than the sugar flavoured ones. Of course, most people don’t like natural plain yogurt.
  7. If you are looking for just a snack, choose fruit-filled yogurts instead of sugar-filled ones. Yes, it is very difficult to find a commercial yogurt that doesn’t come with sugar, but if there are actual fruit pieces in the yogurt, you will actually consume less sugar (since there are actually less yogurt) if there are fruit pieces in them. Furthermore, they taste great.

There you go. I hope that these little tips will help you choose the type of yogurt to buy. For me, I am not only interested in the taste but I am aiming for something healthy as well, so I would choose a yogurt that has the most types of yogurt cultures, has fruit pieces, contains no preservatives and has as little sugar content as possible. There are even yogurts (like the Marigold yogurt) that contain “prebiotics” that complements the probiotic cultures in the yogurt. It is like eating food for the probiotic cultures.

Yogurt