Hahaha, it is yet another yogurt review. Bet you are eagerly waiting for this right? Or not. But anyway, you are stuck with me doing little reviews on yogurt. So you guys might know by know, I am a very big fan of yogurt. I have been consuming yogurt regularly for about 9 months now - since the time when I fell seriously sick with very high fever. I feel that by consuming yogurt, my body seems to be reacting better against germs and bacteria and I definitely feel better in terms of my health. Of course, consuming Kefir might also have helped some what. I am sure that you guys should know that yogurt and Kefir comes with good bacteria (probiotics) which helps to maintain a healthy digestive system in your body. If you have a good digestive system, it means that all the nutrients in the food you eat will be more effectively absorbed by your body. I mean what is the point of eating a lot of healthy food if your body doesn’t absorb the nutrients and vitamins right? Furthermore, up to 80% of your body’s immunity against germs and bacteria depends on your digestive system!

Anyway, I purchased the Dutch Lady Low Fat Apple Yogurt from Shop N Save. As usual, they were on offer. I seldom buy stuff which are not on offer anymore since I am currently broke and penniless. And with the fact that the prices of essentials is raising like nobody’s business (even during economic slowdown), what can I afford? Not much. I have to go for the “value for money” scheme now.

Okay, here we have the photo of the Dutch Lady Low Fat Yogurt Apple flavour. Yes, those are apples in what appears to be greenish milk!

Yes, comes with live culture and fortified with vitamins A, C & E! However, the though of apples in greenish milk is kind of digusting if you ask me. Oh, I forgot to mention, this is low fat yogurt (yoghurt), so you ladies out there should have no problems/guilt consuming this.

So little! Only 140g of yogurt. Barely enough for anyone to have a real taste of the yogurt. If you want more, well, you got to pay more loh. Simple as that.

Check out the nutrition table for this yogurt.

It’s smooth and creamy, it has real fruit pieces and it’s so delicious! Sound like what I am about to say. Oh, enjoy this tasty snack, Dutch Lady Yoghurt, that contains live culture and Vitamins A, C & E.  The ingredients are - apples, milk solid non fat, surcorse, milk fat, Vitamins (A, C & E) and mixed live cultures like l.bulgaricus and s.thermophilus. It also contains permitted stabilizer, flavouring and colouring. Too bad, it comes with just 2 types of the more common yogurt live cultures. I was hoping for something like l.acidophilus culture which would be very helpful to our gut. But alas, this yogurt doesn’t come with it.

Manufactured in Malaysia by Dutch Lady Milk Industries Bhd. Hopefully, they are not using China milk to make the yogurt. I am not surprised to see milk from China which might be green in colour.

Comes with a spoon! Good especially for those who buys the yogurt for immediate consumption. No need to go around hunting for a spoon to eat nor is there a need to use your hands to scoop out the yogurt.  Actually if you ask me, I think that it very digusting to use your hands to dig out the yogurt.

Yes, a bit greenish but it is okay, it is the apple pieces and the colouring that is making the yogurt greenish. Overall, I feel that this is a very decent yogurt. Of course, we can’t compare it to those Diary Farmers or whatever Australian brand of yogurt, but let’s be honest, those yogurt are pretty expensive. It is rather creamy and smooth as stated on the label and there are good amounts of apple pieces in the yogurt.

Life is great. I mean, what is better than coming home from work and having a nice cup of delicious yogurt to relax and watch some TV? Nothing. Of course, this is not completely true. In Singapore, most of us suffer from too much stress and this has certainly affected our diet choices and in turn our health. Most of us think of fried stuff like those greasy fried chicken as comfort food. Yes, what better comfort food than that huge juicy Carl’s Jr burger eh? It taste great (to Singaporeans) and in the end, you feel comfortable. But then, it is not healthy. I am sure most of us know that most fried stuff we find in the shops in Singapore are terribly unhealthy. It is like eating a whole bucket-full of used disgusting grease. So what other comfort foods out there is healthy? Well…we have yogurt!

All of us know that yogurt is good for us. The live cultures in the yogurt helps to maintain a healthy digestive system in our gut and the nutrients and vitamins in the yogurt is excellent. Furthermore, the yogurt itself looks quite appealing to the younger crowd. The main problem is that most commercial yogurts are loaded with sugar and other sweeteners, which if consumed in large quantities is NOT good for us. So how? Most people will go for “lite” varieties of yogurts which have less sugar in them. A lot of consumers also go for the “low fat” or “no fat” varieties in the vain attempt to cut down on “fat” consumption which I find is ironic. A lot of people don’t know that it isn’t “fat” in their foods that is making them “fat”, it is the calories! If you eat too much, you will get fat, whether or not the food you consume contains “fat” in them.

The Yoplait No Fat Strawberry Yogurt. All the green is actually making me giddy. This will definitely appeal to the tree huggers we see crowding at the MacRitchie reservoir every day.

Oh right, no fat yogurt! Again, this will appeal to the health conscious crowd, which in my opinion is flawed. I repeat, the fat in your food don’t make you fat, it is the calories you take! And oh, lookie here, less than 1% added sugar! Of course, they forgot to mention that they have added other artificial sweeteners to the yogurt which are not defined under the label “sugar”.

Yes, Skim milk yogurt with fruit. Actually the taste of this yogurt is quite nice. Only 48 calories per tub. Now I don’t feel that guilty about my weight when I eat this.

Check out the ingredients - Skim Milk, Milk Solids non fat, strawberries, thickeners, fructose, halal gelatine, acidity regulators, stabiliser, flavours, natural colour, sweeteners, preservatives and live yogurt cultures like s.thermophilus, l.acidophilus and bifidobacterium. Yes, those are good bacteria and you should consume more of them.

Made in Australia!

Contains Phenylalanine. So if you are suffering from PKU, you will need to avoid this food.

The cover of the Yoplait “Forme” No Fat Strawberry yogurt. Open this cover and you will be able to see the delicious yogurt underneath. And if you were to dig your spoon into this yogurt and scoop a spoonful of yogurt into your mouth, you will have to agree with me, this is indeed comfort food. Best of health to you guys!

Yes, I know, Anlene is the same company that manufactures the ancient lady’s milk formula. Ya, the one especially made for the bone which old ladies tend to break when they fall or walk or something. Well, they are supposed to be the expert in bone nutrition, so whatever they say, we should pay attention, even when we are not at that age. In no time, you might find yourself in the same shoes as those old ladies needing hip replacement or something. And who says you can’t take care of your bones when you are young? In fact, taking care of your bones is important now because they will help when you get old. So please, sit back and enjoy reading this little review and don’t worry about being laughed at when you buy Anlene stuff. Those people don’t know what is good for them.

For those who are in the dark, other than just milk formulas and milk drinks, Anlene do have a line of yogurt, especially made from the same milk in their other milk products. So, this will mean that whatever health benefits they do to their milk, the effects will also be felt if you consume their yogurt. Well, that is what I hope anyway. But the truth is, if their milk is good for you, then the yogurt made from those milk will definitely be even better for you, especially when it comes to calcium adsorption.

Here we have the Anlene yogurt. Comes in a 2-pack which is kind of weird. Don’t be fooled by our picture, it is still rather small and consuming two of the tubs is barely enough to provide you with the health benefits yogurt confers. That is just 240ml of yogurt! And for so little a yogurt, it is still rather expensive. If I remember correctly, I bought this from Shop N Save for S$2.20.

Check it out - Hi Calcium Low Fat Yogurt! They have a formula for strong bones. Yes, it is some sort of Nano-calcium which is more than 100x smaller than the regular calcium. Cool. Oh, I forgot to mention, this is the mixed berries flavour.  In my opinion, the mixed berries flavour in this yogurt is just a bit weak. Yes, you will find bits and pieces of the fruits in the yogurt, but that’s about it. I think a little more flavour will do this yogurt justice.

Yes, Anlene - expert in bone nutirition!

The nutrition table for this yogurt.

Okay, the ingredients are water, milk solids, sugar, mixed berries, minerals like tri-calcium phosphate, nano-calcium carbonate and magnesium phosphate, vitamin  D3, live cultures like s.thermophilus and l.bularicus. It also contains permitted stabilizers, flavourings and colouring. Too bad, they don’t have other live cultures like l.acidophilus, just the basic yogurt cultures. I think it could even be better if it included other types of live cultures (probiotics) since we know that those are good for our digestive systems.

Made in Malaysia.

The weird thing is that the wordings on the yogurt tubs themselves are all in Bahasa Melayu. I guess this way, they solve all the problems with selling in Malaysia and in Singapore. Just use an English cover for those sold in Singapore and a Malay cover for those sold in Malaysia. Save quite a lot of money when it comes to packaging as well.

Hohoho, we are back reviewing yogurts again. After a short break, we are back with a vengeance! I am sure that we have a lot of readers awaiting for more yogurt reviews from me, so here I am, reviewing yet another brand. First of all, this Yoplait No Fat Yogurt (Forme) is different from the low fat variety (Yogurt Lite) I reviewed before. Check out the the colour of the packaging is different - Yoplait No Fat is green while the low fat variety is blue, so you guys will know the difference easily. If you are scared of fat, you will need to choose the green Yoplait because it is supposed to have no fat milk or skim milk. I don’t know about you, but I perfer my yogurt to have a little more body, so I am more for the low fat variety. And as I have mentioned before, full cream milk is much more healthier than low fat or non fat milk. Most of the nutrients are in the milkfat. If you are consuming skim milk, might as well drink white water.

Anyway, this Yoplait from Australia is very common in our local supermarket shelves. You should easily find them at NTUC, Giant or Shop N Save. And pricing is quite reasonable as well. Sometimes you do get good offers as well. As for the taste, it is nothing special but at the very least it is slightly better than the Marigold tubs. And it is indeed creamier than most brands. The flavours they offer seems a bit limited in  my opinion and it comes it just those regular normal flavours. But we are talking about Singaporeans here, so we usually don’t like to experiment with exotic flavours.

Yes, the greenish Yoplait Forme no fat yogurt. This is the mango flavour.

Net weight of this yogurt is 125g. I know, not much but what to do? Hey, it has less than 1% added sugar. But it is surprisingly not sour at all. Must be all those other artificial sugars which made the yogurt palatable to the masses. That is one thing I am afraid of when it comes to all these “no fat” health freak-appealing yogurt, they usually come with all sorts of artificial sweeteners which might be worst than regular old table sugar (sucrose). Not sure why a lot of people think that artificial sweeteners are better than table sugar.

Skim milk yogurt with fruit! And contains only 50 calories per tub! Wow! That is exactly what you get when you drink white water with just a little sugar in it. Not really good.

Okay, here we have the ingredients list - skim milk, milk solids non fat, mango, thickeners, halal gelatine, acidity regulators, fructose, flavours, stabilisers, sweeteners, preservative, natural colour, live yogurt cultures like s.thermophilus, l.acidophilus and bifidobacterium. In my opinion, the small amount of yogurt you consume per tub, those live cultures from the yogurt will not be effective. You should be consuming about 250-400g of yogurt per day.

Ya, contains artifical sweetener acesulphame potassium! Again, I don’t think it is good to consume artificial sweeteners. Oh, I forgot to tell you, this brand of yogurt is manufactured in Australia!

See another one of those fancy names! Here we have Phenylalanine, whatever that is.

Yup, they have 3 active cultures and (as mentioned previously) is made in Australia!  The best before date is 19th of July. Not bad. That means that this is quite fresh.

Ahhh…..yet another of those wonderful yogurt reviews. As you guys should know by now, I love yogurt. I love yogurt so much that I normally would consume about 300-400g of yogurt every day. I am guessing that this is more than what the usual Singaporean would normally consume per week. However, regularly consuming yogurt is good. Yogurt has good bacteria (probiotics) which can help improve or maintain your digestive system. A healthy colon means better immunity against diseases. However, the probiotics in regular yogurt is not strong enough to colonize your colon, so you will need to replenish the probiotics regularly for it to be effective. I would recommend eating a 250g cup of yogurt every day. Or just drink Kefir - the probiotic powerhouse!

As with most of my purchases, I bought this on offer. About S$2.85 or so from Cold Storage. You won’t find this brand in other supermarkets in Singapore. Remember, this Yoplait brand is from the United States, not the Australian one which is more commonly available.

Sorry about the darken picture. I took this photo in the evening, so lack of light. Key Lime Pie!

Yoplait Light Fat Free - Key Lime Pie Flavoured.

Wow, no fat yogurt - with aspartame & other sweetener. Vitamins A & D added. 1/3 fewer calories than regular lowfat yogurts. Now, that is something to be worried about - those artificial sweeteners. Anyone looking for a healthy snack might believe that this yogurt is good for them, but this is further from the truth. Those artificial sweeteners might make such a health snack by yogurt into someone extremely unhealthy. I would not recommend any forms of artificial sweeteners to anyone. Oh, this comes with Live & Active Cultures. You should always buy yogurt that comes with live and active cultures. Without these live cultures, you are losing a lot of health benefits from consuming yogurt.

Cool - 20% daily value of calcium and vitamin D. I think a lot of Singaporeans do not consume enough calcium in their daily diet, so yogurt is a good way to supplement your daily diet with calcium. This cup contains about 170g of yogurt.

Here we have the ingredients list -cultured pasteurised grade A nonfat milk, high fructose corn syrup, modified corn starch, nonfat milk, kosher gelatin, lime juice concentrate, critic acid, tricalcium phosphate, aspartame, potassium sorbate, natural colour, yellow #5, vitamin A acetate, blue #1 and Vitamin D3. And they mention that this is high in calcium with active live cultures including l.acidophilus.

Check it out - no fat! You are consuming a supposedly dairy product which has no fat!

Ya, it meets the national yogurt association criteria for live and active yogurt cultures. This means that they guarantee that there are a certain amount of live yogurt cultures present in the yogurt at time of consumption.

The top of the Yoplait Light Key Lime Pie flavoured yogurt! Yes, imported by Cold Storage Singapore. “It is so good”!

Well, this is the end of the review.  If you are interested in eating some unique flavoured yogurt, you should check out Cold Storage. They do have a number of exotic varieties which you can choose from.

Man, I just love this Caspian Sea Yogurt (Matsoni). It not only taste great, the yogurt is easy to make as well. Even easier than making Kefir. You don’t need to do any straining at all. You just add some of the previous batch of Caspian Sea Yogurt into milk, cover the container with a piece of cloth and let it ferment for like 8 hours or so. In Singapore’s weather, I guess about 8 hours should be more than enough. In countries with a colder climate, longer fermentation is required. After the fermentation is complete (you can observe that the yogurt is stable when tilted), you can start eating this delicious yogurt. Of course, you will need to keep some yogurt in a very clean container to innoculate the next batch. It is just so simple that I am surprised that not many people are making their own yogurt using this strains of bacteria.

For those who are interested in the taste, well, I have to say that it definitely taste better than regular yogurt. Regular yogurt have this tart taste, which a lot of people find off-putting. They add tons of sugar, flavouring and other additives to make it palatable. For this Caspian Sea Yogurt, it taste bland not sour. And in fact, there is a slight sweetness to it. Adding fruits or honey would make it very agreeable with most consumers. You don’t need sugar. The Japanese love it, and you know that the Japanese are very fussy when it comes to the taste of their food. Health-wise, I am not very sure. Well, we know that there are probiotics in the Caspian Sea Yogurt since it is made from the Caspian Sea Yogurt cultures but other than that, I cannot find much information about it. Anyway, most of the information on the CSY is in Japanese, as the Japanese did a lot of research on it. Hopefully, someone can translate those information into English for us. I am very keen to see what kinds of vitamins, minerals and nutrients the CSY has. I also wonder what the CSY bacteria is doing in my gut when I consume it.

And if you are worried about any risk, I have to inform you that this CSY has been consumed by generations of Georgians and they supposedly live very long lives.  Yes,of course, I am not saying that CSY is the only reason why their health is so good, but I am sure that it is part of it. So don’t worry, if your equipment and handling is clean and proper, the CSY will turn out fine. I heard that this strain is very hardy and should not have any problems. Make sure you use pasteurised milk for making CSY. It seems that UHT milk will turn your CSY lumpy.

Creamy Caspian Sea Yogurt! Just check out how thick it is! By the way, I am using full cream milk here. If you are using low fat milk or skim milk, you might find that your yogurt is a bit on the watery side. I always encourage my readers to use full cream milk instead of low fat milk to make yogurt. Also note that how white it is. Most regular yogurt will have this slightly yellowish tint to it, but CSY results in very white yogurt! Yes, very appealing!

Yes, feels like honey.

Another photo showing how “sticky” this yogurt is.  I doubt that you will be able to get this kind of creaminess and stickness with the regular yogurt. Most of the end results I have with making regular yogurt is lumpy and slightly runny yogurt. Even with the Easiyo Yogurt Base, I don’t get this kind of texture. That is why I am sticking to CSY for my yogurt fix!

Final picture of the CSY. Yummy!

I hope that these pictures are enough to convince you to try out Caspian Sea Yogurt. Leave the boring old regular yogurt behind and start enjoying extremely delicious yogurt. It is cheaper (hey, economy now no good), delicious and easy to do. I bought my yogurt culture from eBay. Not very expensive - about US$10. And because it is a very hardy strain, you can continue to use a small amount of the previous batch to make your next batch of yogurt. Lasts forever if properly handled.

I really cannot get enough of yogurt. Every day when I pass by those supermarkets, my mind would be wondering whether the supermarket brought in any new stock of yogurt and whether there is any special offers for yogurt.  It is like somehow yogurt is connected to supermarkets and my brain. When I pass any supermarkets, the yogurt will send signals to my brain telling it to go in and purchase them. Luckily, I am not rich. That is why my fridge is not stock full of yogurt. And I love trying out new brands of yogurt. You can find a number of those unknown brands in Cold Storage and of course, as all Cold Storage stuff, they cost dearly. If I am not wrong, Cold Storage caters to the more affluent group of Singaporeans and foreigners. Poor people like me will be stuck with eating the runny Marigold yogurt all our life. Kind of sad if you think about it.

However, at times, there will be offers. This is when I come in. Those reduced prices could go as low as 50%! Just like this Yoplait Yogurt I purchased about 2 weeks back, the price has halved. The original price for this 170g of Yogurt was actually S$5 something but I got it for S$2.85 or so. If I am not wrong, the yogurt was about to expire, so they had to clear stock. Hey, again, beggars cannot be choosers. And I have to tell you, Yoplait yogurt does taste very very delicious. However, one thing I realize about American yogurt is that they are very sweet, the Yoplait brand is no exception. Even the Australian yogurt are not as sweet. Guess Americans do have a sweet tooth. Anyway, it is not like I am able to afford to eat this brand every day, so it should be alright.

The Yoplait Original 99% Fat Free Harvest Peach Yogurt. What is the difference between Harvest Peach and the normal peach? The peaches are fresher? No idea, but the most important is that the yogurt does taste very nice. And don’t you love the Yoplait logo? That cute little 5 petals flower standing all straight? No? Well, it is your loss then. LOL!

A more detailed picture of the Yogurt cup. Do notice that it is inverted. The thinner portion is on the top while the wider portion is on the bottom. This is significant because although the Yogurt cup looks big, it is actually not. On the bottom with its wider portion has a empty space about a few centimeters. Yes, I said empty space. Well, what can I say except that that’s business for you.

Hoot! 20% daily value of calcium and Vitamin D! Very nice indeed.  Hope that these are easily absorbed by the body.

Low-fat Yogurt. 1% milkfat vitamins A & D added. And yes, check out the Live & Active Cultures logo on the bottom. That means that this yogurt is suppose to contain a certain amount of live & active cultures when you consume it within the best before date. You know that live & active cultures in yogurt is good for your intestines and your overall digestive system?

Here we have the ingredients - cultured pasteurized grade a low fat milk, sugar, peaches, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, nonfat milk, kosher gelatin, natural flavour, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, pectin, coloured with annatto extract, vitamin a actate and vitamin d3. Those live culutres include l.acidophilus - just like those in Vitagen. Remember, these cultures are important for you. Make sure that all the yogurt you consume comes with such live and active cultures.

Ya, no trans fat! This yogurt is not a significant source of dietary fiber, vitamin c & iron. So you will need to consume other food products to get those nutrients. Remember always to eat all foods moderately. When I encourage my readers to eat yogurt, I don’t mean like 1 kg of yogurt per day while ignoring other foodstuff. I would say about 250g or 300g of good quality yogurt per day is good. When I say good quality yogurt, I don’t mean the Yoplait sugar yogurt, but fresh, plain yogurt. Plain yogurt do not contain sugars.

Found this at Cold Storage. It is a very popular brand in the United States but I am pretty sure most Singaporeans never heard of it. We only know of Marigold and Magnolia, which is kind of sad. Although we can find different varieties of yogurt in Singapore, these brands will usually have a premium price tag since they are considered to be “high end” yogurt. In actual fact, they are not. These are just plain regular yogurt, nothing special about that. Neither do they have super cool ingredients in them. Just plain old flavoured yogurt made in the United States. But the Yoplait Original Yogurt cost over S$5 per 170g of yogurt! Surprised!? This means that for a 1kg of Yoplait Original Yogurt in Singapore, you will need to pay S$35! Truly amazing how expensive such a simple thing is in Singapore, right? If you think that living in Singapore is easy, you will be deeply mistaken. By the way, I got this on offer. The price was halved to about S$2.80 when I bought it as it was going to expire soon. And I don’t go around buying such expensive stuff every day either. I am merely just one of the mortals trying to survive in Singapore.

Anyway, I have to tell you, this Yoplait Original Yogurt is one of the best yogurt I ever tasted. Yes, it is a bit too sweet but the flavour is just perfect. Even with it’s sweetness, you won’t have this sticky aftertaste after you have consumed the yogurt, which is usually the problem with eating sticky stuff like yogurt. And the texture is quite creamy (not as creamy as the Dairy Farmer’s yogurt) and even after stirring the yogurt for a while, it doesn’t get runny. I am quite impressed. Now I know why the Americans love this brand of yogurt.

A bit weird looking right, this Yoplait Original Yogurt. The bottom is wider than the top. Actually it is a brilliant idea. You see, the yogurt doesn’t fill all the way to the bottom. There is a empty space at the bottom and even if it looks sizable from here, most consumers don’t know that, in fact, there is less yogurt than it appears. Smart marketing but tells you a lot about big businesses, doesn’t it? What else can I say?

99% fat free. This means that the milk has about 1% butterfat in it. Sorry about the blurred picture. My camera don’t seem to work very well in the evenings or that I just suck at photography. Either way, I apologize.

Cool, 20% of the daily value of calcium and vitamin D. I think what they meant is that one serving contains about 20% of the daily recommended intake of Calcium and Vitamin D.

What is Grade A K D?  This is a low fat yogurt (like all commercial yogurts out there) with 1% milkfat and vitamins A& D added. If you can find a commercial yogurt made from full cream or whole milk, tell me. I would like to have a taste. Oh, check out the Live & Active Cultures Seal at the bottom. I am liking it!

Ya, one serving contains about 15% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin A, 20% of Vitamin D, 20% of Calcium and 15% of Phosphorus.  Healthy stuff?

Wow, what a list of ingredients - Cultured pasteurised Grade A Low fat milk sugar, strawberries, modified corn starch, high fructose corn syrup, nonfat milk, kosher gelatin, citric acid, tricalcium phosphate, natural flavour, pectin, coloured with carmine, vitamin a acetate and vitamin d3. Yes, that is why I choose to make my own yogurt - commerical yogurt contains just too much additives and sugars. Sure, it taste very nice, but if I am eating yogurt for my health, then what’s the point of consuming so much sugars? And what the hell is Grade A milk? Is there a Grade AA milk as well?

Oh, this yogurt contains active yogurt cultures including l.acidophilus. Great for your intestines!

Slimmer top widder bottom. Looks sizable but contains much less than it appears. Isn’t understanding the dirty tricks of businesses very fun? And “it is so good”! LOL.

Actually, this Yoplait Yogurt is very good for introducing young children or those who hates yogurt to world of yogurt. It is very sweet, so children will love them and adults who dislike the taste of yogurt will find that it taste just like pudding, just creamier. Although looking at the tons of sugars in the yogurt is enough to give you a heart attack, I think that we have to be practical. Not everyone like the tanginess and the tartness of plain home made yogurt. So what better way to get them eating yogurt then this sweet Yoplait Yogurt, right? Once they are used to the taste of yogurt (or something like yogurt), you can start to slowly introduce yogurts with less sugar in them.

So finally the Caspian Sea Yogurt dried culture has arrived and I am so excited. I am giddy like a little schoolboy who has just received his first Playstation 3. Well, not really. Hardly get excited about something these days. Probably because I am getting old and things get boring and monotonous to me very fast.

As you guys should know by way, I have been making yogurt for some time. Yes, regular yogurt. The kind that taste tangy and tart. No, unlike those you find in our local supermarkets, plain home made yogurt is kind of sour because there is no additional sweetener or cream. But unlike those you find in the supermarkets, home made yogurt are usually free from additives, preservatives or other nonsense. What you get is pure yogurt (unless of course you add them yourself). What I am saying is that if you are looking for pure yogurt, you have no other choice but to make them yourself. And what plain home made yogurt lacks in the taste department, it more than makes up for the freshness and the health benefits it confer to its host. Just think of all those good bacteria helping to maintain a healthy digestive system for you.

However, I have found a solution for the sourness and tartness of the regular yogurt - we call it the Caspian Sea Yogurt or Matsoni to be exact. It hails from the republic of Georgia. It doesn’t taste tart (well, a bit but it taste more bland than tart, you can even feel some sweetness as well) and is very easy to make. More so than regular yogurt where you need to maintain a relatively high temperature in order for the yogurt cultures to do its work of converting milk sugars (lactose) to lactic acid and lactase which forms curds. Caspian Sea Yogurt cultures does it at room temperature. So you don’t need any additional equipment (like a heating pad or a yogurt maker) to make this Caspian Sea Yogurt! Just do it on your tabletop.

The Caspian Sea Yogurt dried culture in a cotton ball. I bought this from eBay. The eBay store is Nick’s Natural Nooks. You can access their eBay listing here. Doesn’t look appealing does it? However, we must understand that this is a dried culture, which means that the yogurt on the cotton ball has been fan dried. If you have seen dried yogurt, you would not be surprised to see the colour has changed significantly. Caspian Sea Yogurt is white in colour!

Another view of the Caspian Sea Yogurt dried culture.

Here, I have placed the dried culture into my yogurt container. Yes, I am using the Easiyo Yogurt maker jar but you can use any wide mouth container - best to have a glass container. But food grade plastic will do fine. You will not leave it for months anyway, just about 16-24 hours for it to ferment. Oh, ensure that the container is very very clean. Make sure you use soap and scrub off all particles and dirt from the container. You don’t want other bacteria to come in and contaminate your yogurt. For me, I use sanitizer like Iodophor to sanitize my container. If you don’t have Iodophor (which is basically food grade stabilized Iodine), you can use a little bleach with water and let it stand for a few minutes. Remember to thoroughly rinse off any bleach after sanitizing your container - you do not want to kill off the Caspian Sea Yogurt cultures.

I add fresh milk. The instruction from the seller tells me to use a small amount first but I sort of ignored it. In Singapore, our temperature is warmer than what the US faced, so the yogurt culture should have enough heat to ferment this (nearly) 1 litre of milk in 24 hours.

As you can see from the above picture, I have placed the yogurt container in a bucket of water. This is to prevent any insects from reaching the milk/yogurt. That would be horrible. The reason is that we will not be closing the cover tight because for this Caspian Sea Yogurt Culture, they need oxygen in order to do their work, unlike regular yogurt which requires little or no oxygen.

I loosely cover the container. We don’t want any nasties to fall into our milk. Again, that would be horrible. After that, best to place the bucket and yogurt container some place where it is cool and undisturbed. I ferment this yogurt for 24hours. I would like a firmer yogurt.

After 24 hours, I open the cover and yes, we have yogurt! Hooray! Isn’t life great? You can see a little whey at the sides which is okay. The whey is a normal “byproduct” of the yogurt making. And if you take a spoon and scoop a little of the yogurt out, you will find that it has a very different texture from regular yogurt. Sort of creamy and a bit more sticky than regular yogurt. Some say it feels like honey. The amount of whey is significantly less than what you find in regular yogurt so don’t worry. And the taste? Well, it taste just wonderful. Very little tang and hardly any tartness. But seriously very bland. Not to worry, just add a little honey or some fruits and you would have made yourself a fine dessert. No wonder the Japanese love this stuff so much.

Well, I hope that you guys would experiment with other types of yogurt other than those normal s.thermophilus and l.bulgaricus yogurt. In fact, there are like Piima Yogurt, Viili Yogurt, Fil Mjolk Yogurt, Buttermilk and Greek Yogurt cultures available online! Don’t worry, it should be safe, people have been consuming these yogurts for centuries and they are actually living very healthy and long lives. Ciao!

I went ahead and bought the Caspian Sea Yogurt yesterday - dried one of course. If I had purchased the fresh Caspian Sea Yogurt, it have probably have expired on the way to Singapore from the United States. It is surprising that you cannot find anyone online selling this Caspian Sea Yogurt from Japan but rather from the United States. It is supposed to be one of the most popular health food in Japan! Maybe because all the sites that do are in Japanese and I don’t know a single word of their language.If I am not wrong, it should take about 10 days to arrive from the United States by normal mail. So I guess I have 10 days to read up on how to make the Caspian Sea Yogurt.

Anyway, I bought this yogurt starter from eBay. The seller is brinick12 and you can asscess their page here. With 100% positive feedback, I think it should be safe to assume that this is a very reliable seller. Unless of course eBay’s raing system is crap and easily abused but I find that highly unlikely. This seller does sell a lot of different yogurt starters, you can find the Viili Culture, Buttermilk Culture, Fil Mjolk Culture, Piima Culture and the Greek Yogurt Culture and all of them organic! They also sells loose tea, vanilla extract as well as Kombucha Cultures (SCOBY) and Kefir grains. In other words - health freak people! Na, being one myself, I would be prefered to be called health conscious.  And the truth is, nowadays with our food supply contaiminated with preservatives, stenoids, pollution, genetically modified thingies, bad industrial practices, it is getting important to start paying attention to our food and start choosing the right foods. Although I am only like 30 over, I think it is about time to really eat right. If yogurt and Kefir helps, I am going to start eating them, for my health sake.

The thing about commerical yogurts is that they have a lot of additives which I don’t like. Yogurt should not come with too much additives. Well, a little sugar and fruit pieces and flavours is okay, but if you really look at the ingredient list you will be surprised to see much more than that. Usually they come with cream, thickeners or other fillers, tons of sugar, colouring and flavouring. That is definitely not what healthy yogurt should be. Yogurt should have at the very least some tanginess to it and if you don’t like it tart, perhaps some sugar or honey to sweeten it up. Fruits will definitely help, making it even more delicious. I like my yogurt slightly tart but truthfully, yogurt can be very very sour in it’s plain form, that is why I chose this Caspian Sea Yogurt. It is supposed to be a little sweeter and creamier than regular yogurt.Furthermore, it is very easy to make. Unlike regular yogurt which requires a higher than room temperature to ferment, Caspian Sea Yogurt cultures can ferment in room temperatures. So basically it is just add mix to the cultures and you get a nice container of yogurt the next day. Cool isn’t it?

Oh, I forgot to mention, the seller of the yogurt culture does provide some detailed information on how to make the yogurt. If you have bought the cultures, it would be wise to read up on those information and see how the experts do it. Not much to it anyway.