Yogurt is a milk product obtained by adding beneficial bacteria to milk and then fermenting. The British scientific and technological journal Nature once wrote that "an analysis of ceramic fragments shows that North Africans may have served yogurt on their dinner table about 7,000 years ago." Yogurt can be said to have a very long history.
Although yogurt often appears in our daily diet, everyone is not unfamiliar. But in the matter of choosing yogurt, it is particularly easy to make people pick on the eye. If you don't believe it, you can go to the yogurt area of the supermarket for a walk, different brands, different names, as well as yogurt, fermented milk, restored milk, Greek yogurt, flavored yogurt, etc., often confusing.
So today, Lazy Meow will talk to you about the topic of choosing yogurt, let's take a look, what is the difference between these different names and different types of yogurt? After figuring out the differences between them, people will have a good idea of "which yogurt is more worth buying".
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When choosing yogurt, if you pay attention to the yogurt box, you will find that the front of the box will be marked with the type of yogurt, one of the most common, is "yogurt" (or labeled "yogurt", "kefir"). Let's first look at the definition of "yogurt":
Products made from raw bovine (sheep) milk or milk powder, fermented by sterilization and inoculation of Streptococcus thermophilus and Bulgarian bacillus (Bulgarian subspecies of Lactobacillus dei).
From this definition, we can see two key places, one is that only two fermented strains of Streptococcus thermophilus and Bulgarian bacillus are used in the production of yogurt, and the other is that the finished product must contain a large number of active microorganisms.
According to the different tissue states of the ingredients, yogurt can also be divided into coagulated yogurt and stirred yogurt, the former is the "old yogurt" we often see, which is first filled and then fermented, the state is close to curd; while the latter is first fermented and then filled, which looks more viscous, but not close to the state of coagulation.
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In addition to "yogurt", some yogurt boxes are marked with the words "fermented milk". Among the yogurt sold in supermarkets, yogurt and fermented milk account for more than half of the country. Let's look at the definition of "fermented milk":
Products with reduced PH value made of raw cattle (sheep) milk or milk powder, sterilized and fermented.
As can be seen from the definition, the biggest difference between fermented milk and yogurt is in the fermentation strains used. In the fermentation process, yogurt must and only use Streptococcus thermophilus and Bulgarian bacillus. In the fermentation process, there are no specific requirements for the inoculated bacteria, and generally 3 or more kinds of probiotics will be inoculated.
Some friends will fall into a misunderstanding, thinking that the more bacteria contained in yogurt, the better, but this is not the case, in fact, yogurt only needs to add Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus two things are enough. Different strains of bacteria will form different tastes of yogurt. The more strains, the more difficult it is to unify the fermentation conditions, and the fermentation effect is not necessarily good. Moreover, most probiotics die before they reach the stomach and intestines.
If you compare yogurt with fermented milk, in fact, you can choose simple yogurt, after all, it already contains two important probiotics. Of course, fermented milk is also possible. Which of these two choices is good mainly depends on everyone's personal preferences. Under the same circumstances, from the perspective of nutritional value, there is no significant difference between the two.
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From the yogurt packaging in the picture below, we can see that this is a bottle of "fermented milk". However, if you look closely, you will find that the right side is also printed with three shallow words, "restorative milk". What exactly is a restorative milk?
In the process of producing yogurt, a very important raw material is used, milk. In the milk used, some yogurts use fresh milk (raw cow's milk), and some yogurts use milk powder. Among them, yogurt made from milk powder is called "reconstituted milk" yogurt.
In other words, add water to the milk powder and make milk with a similar proportion of raw milk. However, in this process, it will undergo high temperature treatment, resulting in the loss of some nutrients. Therefore, from the perspective of nutritional value, reconstituted milk yogurt will be slightly inferior to non-restored milk yogurt.
Therefore, in the case of the same milk source and other conditions, if you encounter yogurt marked with the words "restored milk" and yogurt without "restored milk", it is recommended that you choose the latter. Of course, no matter what kind, you can drink it with confidence, but it is just the best of the best.
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The name "Greek yogurt" sounds very emotional at first glance, and the price is much higher than ordinary yogurt, but in fact, it is not so special, just a yogurt made in a special way, also called "whey yogurt".
There are two main proteins in milk, casein and whey protein. Caseins, under certain conditions, can be agglutinated together to form a solid cheese. The remaining pool of yellowish liquid is called "whey". When we usually eat yogurt, we can occasionally see this transparent yellow liquid.
In the process of making Greek yogurt, an additional process is added to the ordinary yogurt, and the whey in the yogurt is removed. Because whey will make the taste of yogurt become thinner, the taste of yogurt will be thicker after removal. Therefore, when we drink Greek yogurt, the biggest feeling is that the taste is very thick.
However, whey contains protein, lactose and other nutrients, and after removing it, it will naturally cause a certain loss of nutrients. Therefore, if it is not the pursuit of a strong taste, but only from the nutritional value, there is no need to deliberately buy Greek yogurt.
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Earlier we mentioned "yogurt" and "fermented milk", which are the most popular types of yogurt we see in supermarkets. However, some "yogurt" or "fermented milk" will be preceded by the word "flavor", which is what we often call flavored yogurt. How are they different from regular yogurt?
Whether it is flavored yogurt or flavored fermented milk, they are based on yogurt or fermented milk, adding some additional food additives, nutritional enhancers, fruits and vegetables or cereals, so the taste is relatively richer. We can refer to the ingredient list of this flavored yogurt in the following figure:
From this ingredient list, we can see that in addition to raw milk and beneficial strains, cream, jam, flavor and other ingredients are also added. In other words, the word "flavor" in the name of yogurt means that a lot of other things have been added to the yogurt, so the ingredient list of flavored yogurt is usually very long.
Therefore, when choosing yogurt, if you start from the perspective of nutritional value, it is certain that the purer the raw material ingredients, the better, and the fewer additives, the better. Of course, if you start from the perspective of "delicious", the flavored yogurt after seasoning may be more delicious to drink.
【Lazy Meow Experience】
For most of our friends, simple yogurt or fermented milk is actually a more cost-effective and more worthwhile yogurt. After all, the ingredients inside are relatively simple, and there is no excessive addition of other things.
The yogurt marked with the words "restored milk" is yogurt made of milk powder, and greek yogurt is yogurt made after removing whey, in the same case, the nutritional value of these two yogurts will be slightly inferior. The yogurt is preceded by the word "flavor", which usually adds a lot of other things, and the nutritional value is naturally not as good as pure yogurt or fermented milk.
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