The use of fermented milk products in human nutrition has been proven for a long time. Due to the special properties of fermented milk cultures, various types of products made from cow's milk using sourdough have long been an indispensable part of people's nutrition. One of the most popular products made this way is yogurt. What yogurt is the most healthy? How realistic is losing weight with sugar-free yogurt?
Yogurt as a product - what is it?
Yogurt is a fermented milk product made on the basis of cow's milk due to the work of special living organisms - lactobacili bulgaricus or lactobacili thermophilus. During fermentation, these microorganisms process milk and produce special microelements that are extremely beneficial for the human body. The body's susceptibility indicators are more than 70% of yogurt than milk.
Useful qualities of yoghurts
In addition to the presence of useful bio-bacteria in the composition, yogurt contains vitamins, as well as other trace elements necessary for the human body. Thanks to this, yogurt carries many other beneficial functions for the body:
- improving human immunity;
- reduced risk of colon cancer;
- improvement of the gastrointestinal tract;
- prevention of osteoporosis;
- improvement in blood pressure;
- hematopoietic system function support;
- beneficial effects on the genitourinary system.
The special benefits of yogurt for diabetics
For people with diabetes, the choice of food is special, since it is extremely important for them to measure the effect of food on the flow of glucose into the blood after the product has been eaten.
For diabetics, products with a glycemic index (hereinafter GI) of no more than 50 units are recommended. Acceptable for rare use products with GI from 50 PIECES to 70 PIECES. Like many other dairy products, sugar-free yogurt is a low-GI product and recommended for the patient. Of course, doctors' recommendations point to sugar-free yogurt.
The opinion of doctors about the properties of yogurt
Dietitians advise patients who wish to lose weight to avoid eating sweet fruit yoghurts. These foods, even with a low fat content, contain a lot of sugar, which immediately enters the bloodstream. The most useful option is natural yogurt without sugar and additives.
For the future, it should be noted that such dairy products are of another type. On the shelves of the store you can also find drinking yogurt without sugar.
To improve the taste before eating, you can add to the yogurt various fruits that are allowed for losing weight, as well as for diabetics. These include:
- Plums.
- Peaches.
- Apricots
- Apples
- All types of citrus.
Also a good filler for yogurt will be berries: raspberries or strawberries.
Important! High-grade protein from yogurt is absorbed much better than from milk familiar to everyone.
Fruit yogurt or fruit yogurt?
Not everyone knows that fruit fruit yogurt sometimes lacks fruit. In the best case, the manufacturer uses FYANs - special “jams” created from fruits and stuffed with a lot of chemistry to improve the taste and aroma.
The presence of fruit in this case is necessary only to create the illusion of naturalness due to the pieces. In the worst case scenario, yogurt is added with just the necessary set of colors and flavors. The manufacturer replaces the taste flaws with a large amount of sugar in the composition. Therefore, such yogurts in general can not be attributed to healthy and wholesome food.
It will be much more correct to use sugar-free yogurt and independently add fruit to it as a filler. If you opt for fruits recommended by nutritionists, eating such a meal will make your body healthier and help you lose weight.
How to choose the right yogurt
One of the criteria for choosing sugar-free yogurt is its safety. Yogurt is a “living” organism, in the preparation of which special sour-milk bacteria are the main ones.
However, if sanitary conditions of production are not observed, dangerous pathogenic microorganisms and harmful bacteria can be found in yogurt. For example, a yeast flavor in a product indicates non-compliance with the manufacturer's sanitary requirements. Such yogurt is not beneficial, but harming the consumer, up to serious intestinal infections and poisoning.
What sugar-free yogurts are worth adding to your daily diet so as not to harm your health?
The magazine Roskontrol conducted a study in which five strawberry drinking yoghurts of trademarks took part:
- "Bio Balance";
- "B. Yu. Alexandrov ";
- "Vkusnoteevo";
- Ostankino;
- Frugurt.
Safe from the point of view of the presence of pathogenic microflora and an excess of the number of yeast fungi, all of the listed yogurts were recognized, except for the yogurt produced by B. Yu. Alexandrov ”, in which the presence of yeast fungi was significantly exceeded.
Calorie Yogurt
To lose weight with sugar-free yogurt and additives, you should focus on a low-calorie product, namely the energy value of yogurt.
Calorie content is influenced by many factors that are known only to manufacturers. Obviously, the most dietary are natural yoghurts without fillers, since the energy value of sweet yoghurts is twice the calorie content of natural yoghurts.
The following is the nutritional value of the popular sugar-free yogurt names:
- "Activia natural" - 75 kilocalories;
- Greek Yogurt - 66 calories;
- "White yogurt" Prostokvashino "" - 66 calories;
- "Danone thermostatic" - 49 kilocalories;
- Yogurt "Miracle" - 99 kilocalories;
- Activia - 90 kilocalories;
- "Neo Imunele Natural" - 63 calories.
The benefits of homemade yogurt
To get a really healthy and fresh product at your disposal, you should learn how to make yogurt on your own. This is the most valuable and high-quality version of the fermented milk product. The temperature of the preparation of yogurt should not exceed 37 degrees and be maintained for a long time.
To prepare, you will need one of these devices:
- slow cooker with Yogurt mode;
- thermos;
- special household yogurt maker.
Ingredients for making homemade yogurt:
- milk with a mass fraction of fats up to 2.5%;
- sourdough (can be purchased at the pharmacy or use any natural yogurt).
Cooking:
- Boil milk and cool to a temperature of 37 degrees.
- Prepare the starter (if a pharmacy is used). To do this, dissolve the contents of the package in 1 cup of milk.
- If industrial yogurt is used as sourdough, mix it thoroughly in cooled milk.
- Pour the mixture into a thermos / slow cooker / yogurt maker. Set the mode in the device according to the manufacturer's recommendation.
- At the end of the cooking time, put the yogurt in the refrigerator for 4 hours for final ripening.
Important! If you want to make yogurt without sugar with fruits, then the necessary supplement should be mixed with yogurt only before eating. If you add fruit to the mixture in the yogurt maker, then during the preparation process the milk may curl and instead of yogurt you will get the usual yogurt.
How to enjoy unsweetened yogurt?
Yoghurts can be used both as a snack in the form of a main dish, and as an additive to a familiar product. Such a replacement makes any dish healthier and introduces new tastes. Here are some options for dishes using natural unsweetened yogurt:
- Greek (vegetable) salad;
- oatmeal with yogurt;
- fruit salad;
- Greek sauce with cucumbers (for meat dishes);
- homemade sorbet ice cream;
- cream for the cake;
- smoothie with fruits.
Sugar-free yogurt. Reviews
At first it can be difficult to navigate the variety of products in the store. You should carefully study the ingredients on yogurt. It is worth abandoning products with stabilizers, flavors and emulsifiers.
Shelf life should not be ignored - after all, the fresher the yogurt, the more beneficial microorganisms are in it. Considerable help in choosing the best product will be reviews from real consumers.
Activia. This yogurt is widely used for salad dressing. In fact, many yogurts that do not contain sugar and additives are used for such purposes, so Activia has no special advantages over its competitors.
Greek yogurt. Used as a dietary replacement for sour cream. Sour-milk sourness, delicate taste and low calorie are combined in yogurt.
"Bio-Ether Yogurt BioBalance". Serves as a snack during a hard working day. A convenient bottle as a package and a light consistency allow you to cope with hunger at an uncomfortable moment for lunch.
"White yogurt" Prostokvashino "." This is an ideal starter for making delicious homemade yogurt. The products of this brand are used by many housewives in the preparation of delicious yogurt for the whole family.
"Danone thermostatic." For many, "Danone thermostatic" was a discovery among dairy products. This yogurt is fundamentally different from competitors in that it has a delicious, not too pronounced sourness and a gentle creamy aftertaste.
Greek yogurt. It is used in salad instead of harmful and fatty mayonnaise. And getting used to the taste of this healthy product is not at all difficult. Yogurt is not sold in all stores, but it is worth looking for, because it is difficult to find a more delicious alternative to mayonnaise.
Yogurt "Miracle Classic". For lack of alternatives in the store, this yogurt is often purchased. The taste resembles ordinary natural yogurt, except that sourness is almost not felt. The consistency is surprising - the yogurt is quite thick, dense. Usually, natural yogurts are thin, dripping from a spoon. But, after reading the composition, you can make sure that the manufacturer is cunning - starch, stabilizers and even gelatin are added to the yogurt.