Yogurt

[dixiechick]

TweetI have to rant a little about the yogurt commercials. I'm tired of seeing miss leading yogurt commercials telling people (especially woman) that they can loose weight by eating yogurt. Now I'm not saying yogurt isn't healthy. There are some benefits to eating yoguart... calcium and active cultures are a good thing, BUT! If you are trying to loose weight, there is NO way you can do eating yogurt.

Yogurt contains lactose. Lactose is a natural milk sugar found in all dairy foods. When you are trying to loose weight, you need to stay away for simple sugars including milk sugars. You should get your carbs from complex slow burning carbs such as brown rice, red or sweet potatoes are the best choices... white potatoes, oatmeal are other options.

Here is a break down of the nutritional facts for yogurt.

Regular yogurt:
Total Fat - Grams 1.5

% DV Fat 3
Saturated Fat - grams 1
% DV Saturated Fat 5
Trans Fat - grams 0

Cholesterol - mg 10

% DV Cholesterol 3

Total Carbohydrate - grams 33

%DV Carbohydrate 11
Dietary Fiber - grams 0
% DV Dietary Fiber 0
Sugars - grams 27

Protein - grams 5

Light Yogurt:
Total Fat - Grams 0

% DV Fat 0
Saturated Fat - grams 0
% DV Saturated Fat 0
Trans Fat - grams 0

Cholesterol - mg - 5

% DV Cholesterol 1

Total Carbohydrate - grams 19

%DV Carbohydrate 6
Dietary Fiber - grams 0
% DV Dietary Fiber 0
Sugars - grams 14

Protein - grams 5

Regular yogurt has 33 grams of carbs and out of those 27 g are sugar. Even with the light version it still has 19 g of carbs which are 14 g of sugar. The better chose would be rice, potatoes, or oatmeal.

[dixiechick]

TweetWhat prompted me to write this post is an article I was reading on yogurt. It is one of the more truth-worthy articles I've read on about yogurt.

Is your LIGHT yogurt packed full of HFCS nastiness?
by Jessica Ashley, Shine staff, on Wed Jul 30, 2008 12:16pm

I was in an airport last week, waiting for an early morning flight and needing coffee and breakfast to pull me through the long hours on the plane, my exhaustion...and hey, just help me pull along my over-stuffed carry-on bag.

Getting the giant cup of coffee was easy. Finding a relatively healthy, filling breakfast was more of a challenge. I snagged the last whole grain bagel from the coffee stand and then found a shop where I bought a surprisingly yellow banana and yogurt.

I barely sipped on the coffee before I opened the yogurt, that's how good it sounded. While I am pretty committed to the organic brand that I love from Whole Foods, I branched out because a little plastic container of creamy, strawberry goodness would surely soothe my travel-weary soul.

The yogurt was Yoplait Light, fat free and terribly appealing to those masses of us concerned about the mass of our bodies. Even the fancy cursive "LIGHT" scrawled out across the package says, "You've made the right choice! You are a healthy eater!" I felt healthy. I felt good. I felt hungry.

And then I took a bite. The creamy, strawberry goodness made me cringe with that fake sugar taste I have worked so hard to stop liking. After more than a year of (almost completely) abstaining from aspartame, the taste of it is like a shock to my system. Or at least to my tongue and particularly, apparently, mixed in with my yogurt.

It wasn't the aspartamey-ness that made me stop eating the Yoplait Light, though. The aspartamey-ness did make me look at the ingredients, which did make me stop eating the Yoplait Light. There it was, mocking my puffed-up healthy eating pride, even laughing back at the cursive LIGHT on the front of the label: High fructose corn syrup.

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.

In the "LIGHT" yogurt. I was done. So done.

I know it is nearly impossible to avoid high fructose corn syrup completely (or, as aspartame, almost completely). I know this because I do avoid it, choosing organic ketchup and rifling through the bread at the grocery store like I am a granny in the nickel bin at a garage sale. I do this all because high fructose corn syrup does nasty things to the body, and just as frustrating, is slipped in to a disgusting number of food products many of us have stocked in our pantries, lined up in our refrigerators and use every morning when we make (or buy) our breakfasts.

But does it have to be in the supposedly healthy foods too? Does Yoplait Light have to have more high fructose corn syrup than strawberries? Really?

Clearly, I've kissed off the Yoplait Light. With the aspartamey-ness and high fructose corn syrup-ness, there's nothing lite or enticing left in the container for me. Even in a fit of breakfast desperation, even in an airport, even when that bagel probably had a healthy shot of high fructose surprise inside it, too.