Yogurt. I used to hate it. Then, I tried Kroger’s Greek-Style Blueberry, & love it.
But, all health food wacko stuff aside–is it beneficial to my health?
Aside from nutrients like protein, calcium and various vitamins and minerals (which are available in a variety of foods), yogurt also is supposed to have any of various probiotic bacteria which are supposed to be good for your gut. Different brands or kinds of yogurt apparently have different specific bacteria. I have never bothered to keep track.
Depending on the brand, it is possible for your yogurt to have a lot of sugar and/or artificial sweeteners, which make it more palatable to American tastes, and full fat yogurt (kind of hard to find these days) probably has more fat than many people should consume.
I eat around a 1.5 liters of non-fat Greek yogurt a week.
I have it with high-protein lower-carb cereal and fruit for breakfast. It’s a very low-fat way to get a lot of protein (besides which, I like it). The normal sweetened yogurt has way too much sugar, IMHO.
Most food is beneficial to your health because it keeps you alive. If you’re already eating enough or too much, adding yogurt or any food is unlikely to benefit. Are you asking about swapping it in for something else? Then it depends what you’re swapping out. Although YMMV; foods generally don’t have some inherent quantifiable healthiness metric to them. That said, you’re probably better off with the yogurt than its caloric equivalent in apple juice.
Not really: it’s the same, but they label them different things for marketing purposes. There are different types of lactobacillus, but they produce different results, different products. For yogurt it’s L. Acidophilus (no matter what the marketing says) and Streptococcus Thermophilus (which doesn’t get touted by marketing because Streptococcus is something people will associate more easily with “infection” than “health”).
It helps the gut/bowl flora to work better.
However, it doesn’t matter what brand of yogurt you are using, they all have the same benefits.
Eat the one you like.
I don’t notice any of that, other than I fart less, and when I do, it doesn’t reek quite so bad as when I haven’t been eating yogurt for a while.
Otherwise yogurt itself isn’t too different than milk in terms of nutrients, protein, fat, etc… Maybe a little less lactose/sugars, as the bacterial culture eats that.
“A little less” no, it shouldn’t have any. Lactose-intolerant people can eat yogurt.
There’s certainly yogurts with lactose in it - I know I can’t eat any old normal yogurt, I need to buy the specific low lactose versions.
Must be a difference in legal definitions, here when some brands tried to come out with those they got bitchslapped almost before they could put them on the shelves, as the lactose content was the same.
Yogurt is nutritionally similar to milk. Sweetened yogurt to milk+sugar.
Whether the bacteria are helpful probably depends on what your gut flora is before you eat it. I tend to eat yogurt when I have tummy trouble, and it seems to help. Maybe that’s just the placebo effect, but I enjoy yogurt and have to eat something, so the cost of “treating” myself this way is minimal. I do think it reduces the odor of my intestinal gas.
There have actually been a bunch of studies showing the yogurt is helpful for women with yeast infections. It’s probably more effective to apply it directly than to eat it, but just eating it is more effective than most other treatments. Hmm, I read an actual medical study years ago (in which most of the participants refused to switch off yogurt when they were supposed to) but can’t find a proper medical citation today. However, WebMD at least lists some papers:
There’s also L. bulgaricus, no? (Well, looking online, I guess it’s officially Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus.) I see that one a lot around here.
One cup of regular low-fat yogurt has the same amount of lactose as milk, according to this and a couple other cites I found.
Some lactose-intolerant people are fine with yogurt (something about the enzymes partially breaking it down) and others are not.
Under my local regulations that would not produce yogurt but kefir.
Interesting. Chobani Greek yogurt (to pick a brand) here is S. Thermophilus, L. Bulgaricus, L. Acidophilus, and L. Casei.
Here, in the US, it’s L bulgaricus and S. thermophilus that are the main bacteria (and both are required to meet the FDA definition of yogurt.)
It **helps **the digestive tract, to what degree wearies from person to person - however, it isn’t the ultimate cure for every GI problem.
Particularly in healthy people, it’s doubtful that probiotics in general have any significant health impact. Though it’s reassuring to know that Jamie Lee Curtis poops whenever she wants to.
Didja know that somewhere deep in the Caucasus, there’s a village full of 150-year-old people who owe their longevity to eating only yogurt? It’s true! I read it in Weekly World News.
Um, that study didn’t even measure health impacts, it just measured fecal microbiota. It’s fairly well documented that probiotic supplements don’t have any long-term impact on the microbiome, but that doesn’t necessarily imply they don’t have any health impact.
Here’s a link to that study BTW:
It could save your life!
Antibiotics wipe out all the good bacteria. Yogurt or probiotics will re-establish those. The “good” bacteria can keep bad bacteria at bay and the lack of any good bacteria can let bad bacteria (like e coli) take over entirely!
Think of it as a healthy green lawn which will keep out the weeds. Kill all the good grass and the weeds will take over.
I ALWAYS eat yogurt after taking antibiotics and also give it to my dogs after they take antibiotics.