National Nutrition Week | How to choose yogurt? No worries after reading this!

Guideline 3 of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" recommends that everyone consume dairy products equivalent to at least 300 ml of liquid milk every day. This is because dairy products are rich in high-quality protein and minerals, especially calcium in milk, which has the best absorption efficiency among all foods. Given that Chinese residents generally have insufficient dietary calcium intake and the composition of dietary protein is not ideal, it is still necessary to eat more dairy products.
However, dairy products generally contain lactose. For example, the lactose content in fresh milk is about 3.5% to 4%. In my country, 75% to 100% of adults, especially the Han population, have lactose intolerance. About 1 to 2 hours after drinking a large amount of milk at one time, they will experience symptoms such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, and bloating, which affects residents' willingness to choose dairy products.

So at this time, yogurt, a dairy product that uses lactic acid bacteria fermentation to remove lactose in milk, has become a good substitute for fresh milk.

From the perspective of the nutritional value of milk protein and calcium, pure fermented yogurt and fresh milk can be replaced in equal amounts. That is to say, the nutritional components of 300ml of fresh milk are basically the same as those of 300ml of pure fermented yogurt (except for the lactose content).

However, there are so many varieties of yogurt, how should we choose?

My advice to everyone is to read the nutrition label and the ingredient list.

On the packaging of yogurt, you can generally find a text table with a small frame like the one shown below. This is the nutrition label and ingredient list of the yogurt.

Figure 1 Ingredients list and nutrition label of a product

Figure 2 Ingredients list and nutrition label of a product

Let’s first look at the ingredient list. According to relevant regulations on food production, the ingredients in the ingredient list are arranged in order from most to least amount used. In other words, the larger the amount of an ingredient used, the higher its ranking.
As shown in the ingredient list in Figure 1, we can tell that the most important ingredient of this yogurt is raw cow's milk, which is the basis of a qualified yogurt. In addition, this yogurt is specifically marked as having a milk content of ≥80%, indicating that the amount added is relatively small, and when consumed, one can obtain nutritional components that are basically equivalent to fresh milk.

Generally speaking, when the milk content of a food is lower than 80%, we can no longer regard it as a dairy product; if the first ingredient is not milk, but something else, then we also need to look at its second ingredient. There is a kind of yogurt that is not made by fermenting fresh cow's milk, but is first made by mixing reconstituted milk with water and milk powder and then adding bacteria for fermentation. As long as this fermented yogurt is marked with a milk content ≥80%, then this product is still a relatively good yogurt, such as the yogurt shown in Figure 2; otherwise, it belongs to the category of milk-containing beverages, and such beverages cannot be regarded as dairy products. Everyone must pay attention to this.

The second thing is to pay attention to the nutrition label, which is the "Nutrition Information" in the picture.

The nutrition label shows the nutritional content of the product per unit mass. For example, the nutrition label of this yogurt shows the energy, protein, fat, carbohydrates and sodium content per 100 grams of yogurt. Some products will also add a calcium content. For example, the product in Figure 2 means that it contains 80 mg of calcium per 100 grams. This is very friendly to consumers who need calcium supplements or need to calculate calcium intake more accurately.

Figure 2 Ingredients list and nutrition label of a product

Generally speaking, the calcium content of pure milk is about 100-110 mg per 100 ml. Since commercial yogurt needs to be flavored, the milk content will decrease to a certain extent with the increase of additives, so the calcium content will be slightly reduced. This is why we have a regulation that products with a milk content below 80% cannot be called dairy products, in order to better guide everyone to supplement calcium and high-quality protein through dairy products.

So after understanding this, we also know that in the absence of calcium content labeling, the higher the milk content of the yogurt, the higher the calcium content. You can also roughly calculate the calcium content in the yogurt based on the milk content. For example, if a yogurt is labeled with a milk content of 90%, but the calcium content is not labeled, then unless there are particularly extreme or other special circumstances, we can estimate that the calcium content in every 100g of this yogurt is 100mg×90%=90mg.

There are also some friends who want to lose weight and want to eat delicious food but are afraid of getting fat. At this time, we should pay more attention to the nutrition label, because the content displayed on the nutrition label happens to be the nutrients that affect the body's energy and fat metabolism.

If you need to control your weight, you can choose yogurt with lower energy and fat content. Comparing Figure 1 and Figure 2, for the same 100g, the nutritional components of Figure 1 are energy 408kJ, fat 4.0g and carbohydrates 12.0g, while the nutritional components of Figure 2 are energy 252kJ, fat 1.4g and carbohydrates 9.0g. Compared with the two, Figure 2 with lower energy, fat and carbohydrates is more suitable for people who are losing weight.

Author: Xing Qingbin | Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Probiotics and Prebiotics and Health Branch, Chinese Nutrition Society

Reviewer: Xiang Xuesong | Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Probiotics and Prebiotics and Health Branch of Chinese Nutrition Society