Yogurt

I'm not an expert on anything. I studied English and I only ever read 1 full book in Uni. I do, however, have a pretty keen sense of whats good and whats not good.

I went to the grocery store here on Sunday and I was a little surprised at what I found. Its no surprise that things like soda, ice cream, and other sweet snacks had loads of sugar. But would you expect loads in your.... yogurt?

I try to keep myself at or under the recommended value:: for women, try not to exceed 25 grams of ADDED sugar daily. BUT.... what the heck does that mean? Look at the labels of any food near you right now.... how much sugar is in it? Oh, zero? Yeah, unless its a packet of air... the nutrition labels could be lying to you. Sugar (or rather, added sweeteners) can be marketed under several different names- so be aware!

So I picked up my usual plain yogurt and looked at the label. It had a whopping 18g of sugar! Whoa. I never realized there was so much sugar in yogurt. I quickly moved through the yogurt section, looking at all the labels. I was appalled. I was so angry that there was so much added sugar in such a small quantity of yogurt. I was also so wrong.

I decided to buy the yogurt with the least amount of sugar (which turned out to be the plain Activia) because I needed it. My mind was put at ease when I did a little research about sugars in yogurt. As it turns out, there are about 12 grams of natural sugars per cup of milk. So as long as there is around or less than 12g per about 230ml (or 1 cup), then its all natural. Also, the amount of sugar can be played with if it is a fruit yogurt since fruits have natural sugars.

Moral of the story: don't be fooled by the labels... ESPECIALLY when it comes to sugars. Fruits and dairy products contain natural sugars, as well as... and this is pretty obvious: honey.

ALSO, something really interesting I learned!! If you're not sure whether or not a product contains added sugars look at the ingredient list. Ingredients are listed by weight, with the heaviest first. If you see sugar (or one of its aliases) within the first FIVE ingredients, its probably a safe bet that you shouldn't be eating it. If its on the list but not towards the beginning, its likely to be a safer bet!

I'm going to find all the different names for sugar and post those soon!