Yogurt nutrition info
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From: morris on 18 Jan 2006 15:28 A while back, in a discussion of how accurate the nutrition info on store-bought yogurt is, I disagreed with the general consensus here that the labels routinely overstate carb content, and I promised to ask the yogurt companies. Finally a third company responded today, so here is most of that discussion. I'd be interested to hear what you all think. My query to 4 yogurt makers was worded as follows: "I am writing you as a yogurt "authority" hoping thereby to settle an issue. As a person with diabetes, I am of course concerned about the amount of carbohydrates in various foods. On at least two diabetic bulletin boards I have visited it is common wisdom that the carb count listed on yogut labels is always and must be always inaccurate. The reasoning behind this argument is that the carbs in yogurt come from the milk used as an ingredient, but that the action of acidopholous cultures breaks down the sugars in the milk resulting in yogurt., and that this process continues even after the product has been put in containers and purchased. Hence there will always be fewer carbs in yogurt than is stated on the label. The people making this argument are quite well educated oin numerous other health and nutrition issues. My contention is that the chemical reactions that produce yogurt require a temperature of around 105 degrees or near there to continue. My only experience making yogurt years ago required temperature to propel the process. Therefore I surmise that refrigeration stops the action once the yogurt has been packaged. If not, wouldn't the taste of the yogurt be very different if you were to eat it the first day it was put in the supermarket versus a week later, or a week after that in your house? I also find it hard to believe that every reputable manufacturer of yogurt would be disseminating nutiritional information that they knew to be at best only sometimes accurate. Please let me know what the turth is on this issue. I will gladly post that information on said bulleting boards so that others will be able to see what the facts in this case are." My first response was from the makers of Nancy's Yogurt, avaialable in health food stores and some US supermarkets for at least 30 years: "Hello Morris. Thank you for your thoughtful and challenging question. While we feel that we are authorities on making great yogurt, and that we have a basic understanding of the nutrition of our products, the microbiology is a bit more complicated. This is our understanding of the "sugars and "carbs" in our product. When we fully culture our yogurt, about 60% of the lactose is predigested by the bacteria cultures. It is converted to glucose, galactose and lactic acid (the latter contributes to the tartness of yogurt.) In the human body lactic acid is converted to pyruvic acid and then to glucose for use of the body. So, you see, although the lactose is made more digestible in the process, the sugars don't really go away. The lactose is converted to other sugars. Your understanding of the culturing process and temperature is correct; cooling stops the culturing. The cultures we use, both the yogurt making cultures and the probiotic cultures, will only reproduce a finite number of generations in yogurt making, and while there are live bacteria in refrigerated yogurt, they are not multiplying. In fact, they are slowly dying off. Any change in flavor is a freshness issue. Thank you for your interest!" That seemed to confirm my position. Then I got another response , from the makers of Mountain High yogurt: "Thank you for contacting us about Mountain High® Yoghurt. An 8 oz serving of Mountain High yoghurt (227g), contains more than 22 billion cultures at time of manufacture. With time, the cultures will diminish and cause a slight change in the taste of the yoghurt. We hope this information will be helpful. Please contact us again if we can be of further assistance." Not very helpful, so I did contact them again, at which point they responded further: "The label states what the cultures are at time of packaging. A small amount of lactose breaks down but it is not a significant loss. The carbohydate count would decrease by a very small amount." I tried to pose the same question to Yoplait, but on 4 occasions over 3 months, theri dserver was unable to accept email from customers, or at least the ones I submittted. However, on my second try I got a response from Dannon yesterday: "Depending on the variety, Dannon yogurt contains different amounts of naturally occurring and added sugar and sweeteners to please a wide variety of consumer preferences. There are four main sources of sugar in our products: lactose, which is naturally occurring sugar in milk; fructose, which is the naturally occurring sugar in fruit; sucrose, also known as table sugar, which is added to some of our products to enhance the sweetness; and high fructose corn syrup which is also used as a sweetener in some products. At Dannon, we start our production of yogurt with raw milk, which is pasteurized, and then live and active cultures are added after pasteurization. This ensures that the cultures in the cup are live and active when you consume the yogurt. The yogurt is incubated for several hours. During this time, the yogurt cultures, Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, convert the lactose into lactic acid, which changes the liquid milk into the solid custard-like yogurt. The yogurt is then cooled, which does slow the culture activity. The lactose content of the milk will vary, depending on the season and the sourcing of the milk. Some lactose will still remain after the fermentation process, depending on how much was present to begin with in the milk. Throughout the shelf life of the yogurt, the cultures will still utilize lactose, but how much they will utilize is not something that can be determined. Since controlling your carbohydrate intake is important to you, our recommendation would be to use the information that we include on the nutritional facts panel that is required by the FDA." Which sort of debunks my position, though not entirely. I will add that he people from Mountain High sent me coupons for 3 free quarts of their plain yogurt, and a bunch of smaller flavored ones, so that's what I am bringing home of late. I see these responses as kind of in the middle of the question as I posed it. butI wonder whether anything in these responses has changed the minds of anyone who was so sure that I was wrong previously... Please let me know what you think. Morris
From: Susan on 18 Jan 2006 15:42 x-no-archive: yes morris wrote: > A while back, in a discussion of how accurate the nutrition info on > store-bought yogurt is, I disagreed with the general consensus here > that the labels routinely overstate carb content, and I promised to ask > the yogurt companies. Finally a third company responded today, so here > is most of that discussion. I'd be interested to hear what you all > think. > > My query to 4 yogurt makers was worded as follows: > > "I am writing you as a yogurt "authority" hoping thereby to settle an > issue. As a person with diabetes, I am of course concerned about the > amount of carbohydrates in various foods. On at least two diabetic > bulletin boards I have visited it is common wisdom that the carb count > listed on yogut labels is always and must be always inaccurate. The > reasoning behind this argument is that the carbs in yogurt come from > the milk used as an ingredient, but that the action of acidopholous > cultures breaks down the sugars in the milk resulting in yogurt., and > that this process continues even after the product has been put in > containers and purchased. Hence there will always be fewer carbs in > yogurt than is stated on the label. The people making this argument > are quite well educated oin numerous other health and nutrition issues. > > My contention is that the chemical reactions that produce yogurt > require a temperature of around 105 degrees or near there to continue. > My only experience making yogurt years ago required temperature to > propel the process. Therefore I surmise that refrigeration stops the > action once the yogurt has been packaged. If not, wouldn't the taste of > the yogurt be very different if you were to eat it the first day it was > put in the supermarket versus a week later, or a week after that in > your house? I also find it hard to believe that every reputable > manufacturer of yogurt would be disseminating nutiritional information > that they knew to be at best only sometimes accurate. > > Please let me know what the turth is on this issue. I will gladly post > that information on said bulleting boards so that others will be able > to see what the facts in this case are." > > My first response was from the makers of Nancy's Yogurt, avaialable in > health food stores and some US supermarkets for at least 30 years: > > "Hello Morris. Thank you for your thoughtful and challenging question. > While we feel that we are authorities on making great yogurt, and that > we have a basic understanding of the nutrition of our products, the > microbiology is a bit more complicated. This is our understanding of > the "sugars and "carbs" in our product. When we fully culture > our yogurt, about 60% of the lactose is predigested by the bacteria > cultures. It is converted to glucose, galactose and lactic acid (the > latter contributes to the tartness of yogurt.) In the human body > lactic acid is converted to pyruvic acid and then to glucose for use of > the body. So, you see, although the lactose is made more digestible in > the process, the sugars don't really go away. The lactose is > converted to other sugars. Your understanding of the culturing process > and temperature is correct; cooling stops the culturing. The cultures > we use, both the yogurt making cultures and the probiotic cultures, > will only reproduce a finite number of generations in yogurt making, > and while there are live bacteria in refrigerated yogurt, they are not > multiplying. In fact, they are slowly dying off. Any change in flavor > is a freshness issue. Thank you for your interest!" > > That seemed to confirm my position. Then I got another response , from > the makers of Mountain High yogurt: > > "Thank you for contacting us about Mountain High? Yoghurt. An 8 oz > serving of Mountain High yoghurt (227g), contains more than 22 billion > cultures at time of manufacture. With time, the cultures will diminish > and cause a slight change in the taste of the yoghurt. > > We hope this information will be helpful. Please contact us again if we > can be of further assistance." > > Not very helpful, so I did contact them again, at which point they > responded further: > > "The label states what the cultures are at time of packaging. A small > amount of lactose breaks down but it is not a significant loss. The > carbohydate count would decrease by a very small amount." > > I tried to pose the same question to Yoplait, but on 4 occasions over 3 > months, theri dserver was unable to accept email from customers, or at > least the ones I submittted. However, on my second try I got a response > from Dannon yesterday: > > "Depending on the variety, Dannon yogurt contains different amounts of > naturally occurring and added sugar and sweeteners to please a wide > variety of consumer preferences. There are four main sources of sugar > in our products: lactose, which is naturally occurring sugar in milk; > fructose, which is the naturally occurring sugar in fruit; sucrose, > also known as table sugar, which is added to some of our products to > enhance the sweetness; and high fructose corn syrup which is also used > as a sweetener in some products. > > At Dannon, we start our production of yogurt with raw milk, which is > pasteurized, and then live and active cultures are added after > pasteurization. This ensures that the cultures in the cup are live and > active when you consume the yogurt. The yogurt is incubated for several > hours. During this time, the yogurt cultures, Streptococcus > thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricus, convert the lactose into > lactic acid, which changes the liquid milk into the solid custard-like > yogurt. The yogurt is then cooled, which does slow the culture > activity. > > The lactose content of the milk will vary, depending on the season and > the sourcing of the milk. Some lactose will still remain after the > fermentation process, depending on how much was present to begin with > in the milk. Throughout the shelf life of the yogurt, the cultures > will still utilize > lactose, but how much they will utilize is not something that can be > determined. Since controlling your carbohydrate intake is important to > you, our recommendation would be to use the information that we include > on the nutritional facts panel that is required by the FDA." > > Which sort of debunks my position, though not entirely. > > I will add that he people from Mountain High sent me coupons for 3 free > quarts of their plain yogurt, and a bunch of smaller flavored ones, so > that's what I am bringing home of late. > > I see these responses as kind of in the middle of the question as I > posed it. butI wonder whether anything in these responses has changed > the minds of anyone who was so sure that I was wrong > previously... Please let me know what you think. > > Morris > Morris, there was a PhD with a specialty in fermentation processes who posted about this in a another group long ago. He said that after 12 hours of fermentation, about 80% of lactose is consumed, and 100% by 24 hours. I can tell you that the plain whole milk yogurt I buy has a small amount of lactose in it if I buy it long before the sell date, but if I keep it long enough, all the lactose is consumed by cultures. I know this because I have an immediately, painful and violent reaction to any lactose if I don't take a supplement. Susan
From: Loretta Eisenberg on 18 Jan 2006 15:42 Morris , if the carbs are lower in the container than stated, how much lower could they be, two , three four carbs. i dont really see why you want to find this information out so badly. Do you want to consume more yogurt than you are now. Seems like a bit too much work for me to save a few carbs. but you must have your reasons morris. Loretta -- In tribute to the United States of America and the State of Israel, two bastions of strength in a world filled with strife and terrorism.
From: Quentin Grady on 18 Jan 2006 17:14 This post not CC'd by email On 18 Jan 2006 12:28:24 -0800, "morris" <morrisolder(a)earthlink.net> wrote: >A while back, in a discussion of how accurate the nutrition info on >store-bought yogurt is, I disagreed with the general consensus here >that the labels routinely overstate carb content, and I promised to ask >the yogurt companies. [Details snipped] >Morris G'day G'day Morris, I must say, the internet breeds a whole new set of language paradigms. Debunking, positions, right and wrong. Must confess I wasn't paying too much attention the thread. What little I took in seemed to centre around food labeling regulations. My understanding is that in some countries food producers are obliged to label according to the ingredients. Seems a bit daft but apparently it happens. Jam manufacturers don't analyze the jam, the nutritional content is calculated from the ingredients. Perhaps the regulations depend on the product. Clearly if one of those firms you consulted are adhering to the regulations current in the country of manufacture, then something different is happening. They were assessing the nutrient contents of their product at point of packaging. As you have rightly surmised the difference there could be significant. The composition would have changed from the time the ingredients were mixed and the time it fermentation effectively came to halt as it was packaged and rapidly cooled. As you have said, the flavour doesn't change much except by spoilage with time in a refrigerator so its composition is largely fixed. Do I buy into the sugar content not changing thanks to lactose becoming lactic acid, becoming pyruvic acid becoming glucose. Nah. Not so sure about that one. It looks wonderful but there is this wonderful thing called Gibb's Free energy. The energy content of the glucose finally formed in the blood is going to be less than started out in the lactose. Glucose doesn't strike me as a low energy molecule compared to lactose so my guess is that the conversion leads to CO2 being produced somewhere along the chain. Lose some carbon to carbon dioxide and ipso facto less glucose appears at the end of the chain. Hey, I might be wrong. That is actually unimportant in terms of my desired outcome here. To me the essence of good communication is that it gets us all checking our assumptions and you certainly did that more than most, who most mistake assumptions for slumber wear. Best wishes, -- Quentin Grady ^ ^ / New Zealand, >#,#< [ / \ /\ "... and the blind dog was leading." http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/quentin
From: morris on 18 Jan 2006 17:31
It is more curiosity than anything. Plus I like yogurt, do not eat artifical sweeteners, and if it really doesn't have as many carbs as it says on the package, then I can eat more of it. I'd love o believe what the others are saying, but I have had yogurt spikes on occasion. Morris |