Shopping tips: How to choose a good yoghurt!

Humans have been eating yoghurt for centuries, but it’s never been as hard to choose as it is at the moment. With a million different options, which do you put in your trolley?

Like milk, yoghurt is a rich source of calcium and protein. It also contains other nutrients like iodine, vitamins D, B2 and B12, and zinc. But yoghurt is actually more nutritious than milk because the fermentation process makes it easier to digest and the nutrients more easily absorbed. For all of these reasons, yoghurt is a great addition to your diet after a sleeve.

When you’re standing in the supermarket, the most important things to look for on the label if you have a sleeve are the following:

• The highest protein (more than 5g per 100g is ideal)
• The highest calcium (120mg per 100g or more is best)
• The lowest sugar content (try to keep it under 10g per 100g)
• Any special features like lactose free if you can’t tolerate dairy or probiotics to help with gut health.

Notice I didn’t mention fat content in that list? Here’s why you don’t necessarily need to choose low fat.   I will put a caveat on that though… Often light yoghurts will have more protein (take out the fat and you have more room for the protein bit of the milk) so light yoghurts can still be the best choice.

So what should you choose?

No surprises here really that plain or natural yoghurts tend to be the best choice, particularly Greek or pot set yoghurt which tend to be higher in protein and calcium. When you go for a plain or natural yoghurt, you know you’re not getting any added sugar which is great.

Flavoured yoghurts are okay too, but you need to be wary of which one you choose and to try to go for the lowest in added sugar. Compare a few you are interested in by looking at the sugar per 100g and aim for one with less than 10g.

A note on trendy yoghurts…

There are a lot of trendy yoghurts on the market know with coconut and almond being two that seem to be growing quickly. Be careful though, most almond and coconut yoghurts contain no calcium whatsoever and tend to be high in saturated fat and calories and lower in protein than their cow’s milk counterpart.

In fact, when I did a comparison of everything in the supermarket, I found that the almond and coconut yoghurts only had up to 2g protein per 100g (compared to up to 11g for cows milk), no calcium, and from 7.5g-22.4g saturated fat per 100g (this is 1/3 to almost all the daily limit for sat fat!).

So, if you can’t have cow’s milk, go for a soy yoghurt and if you are lactose intolerant go for a lactose free cow’s milk yoghurt. These varieties still have good amounts of calcium and protein and aren’t loaded with saturated fat.

If you’re interested to see which yoghurts I think are the picks of the bunch, check out our LWAS Community membership. You’ll get access to shopping tips, recipes and resources galore including product recommendations.