As I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day, I noticed an older lady in front of me had an entire cart loaded with commercial yogurt. I immediately felt very empathetic as she obviously was placing high importance on store yogurt in her diet – perhaps to help some sort of chronic digestive issue.
What is really sad is that it is virtually certain that she was experiencing little to no benefit for her efforts.
This is because standard store yogurt including those squeezable yogurt tubes for kids are not the probiotic filled food that the television commercials and other advertising would lead you to believe.
The problem is that commercial yogurt is fermented for very short periods of time. This includes highly popular Greek yogurt alternatives. Is Greek yogurt better for you than regular? Not if the inoculation time for the probiotics to grow is insufficient!
The length of time for fermentation of commercial yogurt (both regular and Greek) is so short (one person in the dairy industry told me that it is an hour or even less) that thickening agents are sometimes even added to commercial yogurt to give it the look and feel of yogurt that has been fermented for much longer such as would happen with yogurt made on a small dairy farm or in your kitchen.
This is why Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride MD, author of Gut and Psychology Syndrome, recommends avoiding store yogurt and eating yogurt only that you’ve made yourself and fermented for a full 24 hours. This is to ensure that the majority of the lactose (milk sugar) is used up and sufficient strength of the probiotic cultures.
The Specific Carbohydrate (SCD) Diet also recommends yogurt that is cultured for a full 24 hours.
Of course, making yogurt at home yourself also permits the selection of high-quality milk and avoidance of all the additives and sugar added to most commercial store yogurt as well. Homemade kefir is even better with dozens more probiotic strains.
Yogurt fermented for 24 hours will most definitely assist your gut and help rebalance your digestive flora with the help of beneficial though transient cultures that good quality yogurt is loaded with.
It is also helpful to note that yogurt made with raw milk will be naturally more drinkable style like kefir than yogurt made with heated or pasteurized milk.
So if someone you know eats a lot of commercial yogurt brands and is doing this primarily to assist with their digestive health and to boost immune function, tip them off that they would be better off making it themselves or buying it from a small farm!
Commercial Yogurt Sweetened with GMO Sugar
Another problem with commercial yogurt is that it is usually sweetened with genetically modified (GMO) sweeteners. Â Many consumers know that corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup are GMO. Â However, even health-savvy shoppers typically don’t realize that even if the label on commercial yogurt says “sugar” instead of corn syrup, it is virtually certain that sugar is also from a GMO source. Only if the label says “cane sugar” or “organic sugar” does this guarantee that the sugar is GMO-free.
The best policy is to make yogurt yourself or buy it from a small farm that uses quality grass-fed milk.
If you must buy commercial for whatever reason, seek out a brand of 24 hour yogurt if at all possible (there are only a few that exist at this time).
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What about store bought Greek yogurt?
My son is addicted to go-gurts and packs one in his lunch everyday. I know it’s not as good as homemade yogurt (which he loathes and refuses to eat), but I tell myself “it’s better than nothing.” :-/
Kati ~
I don’t think it’s better than nothing. Nothing won’t kill you and he’ll eventually eat something else
.
You could take some whole fat, plain yogurt like Cabot’s Greek Yogurt, or the Brown Cow’s Cream Top yogurt and put it into single serve tubs with some honey and dried fruit or fresh fruit, or jelly/jam sweetened with fruit juice if you can find that. Or maybe freezing it though I’m not sure if that kills any enzymes or other parts of the benefit of yogurt. Feeding your child a low fat, sugared, food dye ridden snack is definitely not better than nothing. I know your heart is in the right place, you’re surely concerned for your child’s health and love him. Do some extra research on nutrition through the Weston A. Price Foundation or other sites that offer tips on traditional, whole, real foods and nutrition. It’ll change your life, I promise!
This may be an option, you did say he doesn’t like homemade, but I am looking into a silicone reusable squeeze tube that you could fill with yogurt at least in bulk and maybe find a better kind that he would tolerate. Just a thought.
Here is one of the options I’m looking into…
Store food won’t do squat for your health 🙂
I love to make my yogurt from my homemade kefir. I don’t need to subject the raw milk to any heat (which destroys all those great enzymes) and it’s loaded with great probiotics. It’s funny, because there are times that I let my kefir ferment for too long and it begins to separate the milk fat from the whey. So I just let it sit out longer to fully separate. I then strain it until the “curd” is a yogurt consistency and then I have the whey leftover to use for homemade beet kvass, sauerkraut or to use when I soak grains or legumes. It’s a win-win situation!
Oh, and Sarah, I love to talk to people in the grocery line. I’ve told people about lots of good things they should try. Sometimes I’ll even ask someone about a unique item they have in their cart that I haven’t tried yet. I’ve even shared phone numbers with one lady so I could share with her my kefir grains.
We all hate that sometimes long wait in the grocery line, so why not make it fun?
Shari
This is the same way I make my homemade yogurt, which I stumbled upon quite by accident several years ago. I wanted to make yogurt without heating my raw milk AT ALL, so I kept experimenting until I got what I was looking for in taste and texture. Heating the milk and killing off even a few of they beneficial enzymes just didn’t make sense to me. Glad to hear of someone else who managed to make it work, too!
D or Shari, could you please elaborate on your process of making yogurt from homemade kefir? 🙂
Oh, this sounds like a great option since we make tons of kefir and often need whey!
Do you have any problems with your yogurt getting too separated with long yogurt-making times? My yogurt maker recommends 8 hours; when I’ve gone much longer than that, the yogurt separates into curds and whey.
Your yogurt probably got too hot. Some yogurt makers build up heat and if you go too long they will kill the culture and curdle the milk.
I have a yogourmet that I make my yogurt in. Does the 24 hours START once it goes in there??
His,
Shari
24 hours once you add the culture.
What about goat milk yogurt? I think Redwood Hill Farm yogurt is made in small batches. Have you ever eaten goat’s milk yogurt?
If you are not sure … call the farm and ask directly. How long do they let the yogurt ferment?
I am not sure on that, but my friend did visit their farm and their vanilla flavor is made from pressing the vanilla beans until liquid is all pressed out. My corn-allergic son does very well on it. It is *very* expensive though!
Kristina, I realize I’m commenting a year later, but I have met very few people who share my corn allergy! I have never had trouble with Stoney Field Farms, Brown Cow, or Aussie yogurts. To be fair, however, I’ve had to avoid dairy for the last year and I haven’t paid attention to those brands since then.
Perfect timing with this post! I am almost finised with my first batch of homemade yogurt right now….but I am wondering if it didn’t sit long enough either. 3 hrs cooking milk, 3 hours for it to stand, and then 12 hours with the yogurt culture in it.
I too, was shocked, when I finally woke up and read the ingredient label on the store bought yogurt – YUK!
Store Yogurt Won’t Do Squat for Your Health http://t.co/ow0eqdcs http://bc.vc/TpGmY
Great post! I’m going to share this with my clients. Did you enlighten the woman?
No I didn’t say anything. The grocery store checkout line is not a great place place to start a conversation about the dirty secrets of the food processing industry! LOL