Yogurt
Often thought of as a healthy food for breakfast, yogurt has become yet another source of sugar rich, highly processed carbohydrate, thanks to the food industry.
Yogurt is a fermented milk product, made by adding a culture of bacteria to milk. The bacteria ferment the lactose in the milk, producing lactic acid, which in turn causes the milk to thicken and coagulate. The bacteria also produce other compounds, such as proteins and organic acids, which give yogurt its characteristic flavor.
Despite this fermentation process, yogurt is still a milk product and as such, it is a source of lactose. Lactose is a sugar and as such, it is a source of carbohydrate.
This process would lessen the effect that yogurt would have upon blood sugar levels, however as most of us are well aware, the food industry likes to add things to make their yogurt products more appealing to the consumer. And what better way to do this than to add sugar to the product, cancelling out any benefit that the fermentation process would have had.
Another benefit of so called ‘natural yogurt’ are the ‘friendly bacteria’ that persist in the product, if not further modified but yet again, these are often removed by a process called ‘heat pasteurization’ which is a process that kills off the bacteria.
What is left in my opinion is a highly processed, sugar rich, carbohydrate rich product that is not good for you and is not good for your blood sugar levels.
Yet I have consumed lakes of the stuff over the years, thinking it was good for me. I have even made my own yogurt, which was a great idea, but even then, I would have added fruit and sometimes honey, unwittingly adding my own added sugar and carbohydrate.
I could likely now tolerate unsweetened yogurt but I don’t have any desire at this time to, having worked so hard to get into remission from type 2 diabetes. I certainly have no desire to go back to eating foods that will make me fat and unhealthy again, even if some types of yogurt are ‘healthy’ in the eyes of the food industry.
If you can eat natural, unsweetened yogurt without having a detrimental effect on your blood sugar, then that is great. But if you are like me, and have suffered type 2 diabetes, then I would suggest that you avoid yogurt, or at least, avoid the sweetened, processed, highly modified versions of it.