Introduction
Our early yogurt-making efforts were disappointing; it took a few tries before we got it right. (The reflector oven concentrated the heat way too much, for starters.) But that black pot, with its black lid and a nice, big towel, created a fine incubator of ideal temperature when set in a sunny spot out on the ledge in front of our house.
After that, we made yogurt all the time. Sweetened with sugar or with honey or served plain as a coolant to the spicy Eritrean stews we were just learning to make ourselves, we always had a batch working, ready to go. And we promised ourselves, and each other, that when our Peace Corps service ended, we’d continue making yogurt forever.
We didn’t, of course. Not for fifteen years.
But I’ve started again. And now I can’t stop.
A VERSATILE SUPERSTAR
Yogurt isn’t new. Not even a little. In fact, it has been around since Neolithic times, when the people of Central Asia discovered, most likely by happy accident, that fermenting milk made life easier by increasing fresh milk’s longevity.[1] Most trace this discovery to nomads who transported milk in goatskin sacks, which served as warm incubators in which the fermentation process first occurred.
Sure, in the past few years, a near maniacal Greek yogurt craze has swept the United States, reigniting the industry, but this is not a modern food. It’s ancient, historical, widespread, mythical,[2] healthful, versatile, and—perhaps above all—delicious. No longer is yogurt a fuddy-duddy, hippie-dippy half-solid relegated to 1970s commune culture; it’s an economic superstar, a craveable commodity whose newly chic appeal has won over celebrities, power lifters, professionals, parents, kids, and shoppers of all stripes and all backgrounds. This sky-high interest has forever changed the look of the dairy aisle.
Yogurt has legs now; it’s standing up tall and marching far, further than the breakfast table, further than the lunchbox, further than the gym bag. But it has further to go still, and that’s where this book comes in. In the pages that follow, I strip yogurt of its premixed accessories and bring it back to what it used to be: a tart, creamy ingredient, beautifully pure in its own right, one that can be paired not just with fruit but with meat, not just with sugar but with salt, not just alone but in combination with hearty grains, crunchy vegetables, protein-rich legumes, intense chocolate, fresh-squeezed juices, endless herbs, and exotic spices whose provenance spans the globe.
Herein, I offer you a look back, a look ahead, and a look across world cultures, all with the goal of broadening your understanding of what yogurt is at its most naked and how you can dress it up and customize it at home, in your kitchen. You’ll learn to take advantage of the hidden potential that plain yogurt—the kind you make yourself or the blank-canvas kind you’ll find in larger tubs in any grocery store—has to offer and start to wean yourself from the little fruity containers that have but a single use. (Eat, toss.)
Let’s begin at the beginning.
A GLOBAL YOGURT CULTURE
Yogurt’s precise temporal and geographic origins remain hazy, but sources agree that cultured milk products have been around for thousands of years. In the warm climates of Central Asia and the Middle East, thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria in the environment would ferment the natural sugar (lactose) in the standing milk of domestic mammals, chiefly cows, camels, and goats, but also sheep, buffalo, yaks, and more. This fermentation process metabolizes milk’s lactose and produces lactic acid as an end product. In so doing, it coagulates the milk’s proteins, drops its pH, sours its taste, preserves its longevity, and increases its digestibility.
Early documentary evidence points to nomadic medieval Turks as especially early yogurt eaters, and in fact, the etymology of the word yogurt itself harkens back to the Turkish language. Fast-forward to the sixteenth century, when yogurt spread to France. Legend has it that when the French monarch Francis I fell ill with intestinal distress, an Ottoman sultan named Suleiman the Magnificent dispatched a physician to cure the king with yogurt. Apparently, it worked.[3]
Despite its presence in French lore and its widespread propagation and consumption as a dietary staple in countless home kitchens throughout Turkey, Greece, Syria, and the Near East as a whole, yogurt didn’t really catch on in Western Europe as a consumer food until the early 1900s. In 1907 the Russian-born scientist Élie Metchnikoff, who was working in Paris, discovered that rural Bulgarians enjoyed unusually long life expectancies. He credited their longevity to avid yogurt consumption and put forth the exciting theory that yogurt’s bacterial cultures could combat the natural effects of aging.
Yogurt took on fresh life at this point. Newly valued as a health tonic, the ancient food, not yet produced at scale or marketed in any way in Europe, received a major boost. Then, in 1917 or 1918, Greek-born Isaac Carasso, who’d learned the art of yogurt making in Switzerland, immigrated to Barcelona to reconnect with his family’s Spanish roots. While there, he encountered children who suffered from digestive problems due to poor diet and the unhygienic conditions endemic during the rough economic years of World War I. Motivated, he saw an opportunity to make yogurt commercially, in part to help combat these scourges, but also (presumably) to make some money as a businessman. In 1919, he founded Danone, a company he christened after his son Daniel.[4] (Danone is the Spanish diminutive of the name Daniel.) To read a more complete account of Danone and its later American incarnation, Dannon.
To provide a more intimate snapshot of how yogurt is consumed around the world, I’ve interviewed yogurt-lovers from vastly different backgrounds. You’ll learn from home cooks and culinary pros with roots in Afghanistan, Eritrea, Greece, India, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Mongolia, Pakistan, Serbia, and Turkey.
I hope these small windows into other cultures will bridge the still-wide gap between how myopically many of us view yogurt—presweetened in disposable, single-serving cups, bottles, pouches, or tubes—and the versatility with which plain yogurt is enjoyed globally in countless incarnations and preparations, both savory and sweet, across every meal.
YOGURT TODAY—A DAIRY-AISLE COUP
We glanced at the past; now let’s look to the present and the future. What does the yogurt market look like here in the United States? And is what you’ve noticed in your local dairy aisle—that yogurt occupies a greater proportion of shelf space than ever before—borne out by the numbers?
On July 17, 2012, the blog of Fortune Magazine/CNN Money reported that “Yogurt’s growth has outpaced the rest of the U.S. food industry.”[5] The April 2013 issue of Dairy Foods includes a graph showing that yogurt production in 2012 topped 4.4 billion pounds.[6]
So let’s break it down. At the time of this writing, according to the market research firm Mintel: Yogurt sales have grown for five consecutive years from 2009 to 2013; in 2013, sales topped $7 billion; by 2018, sales are anticipated to top $9 billion; and yogurt sales are driven primarily by “exceedingly strong demand for Greek yogurt varieties.”[7]
Ah, Greek yogurt. Two magic words that lit a fuse.
In 2005, when Turkish-born businessman Hamdi Ulukaya took out a loan to buy a 90-year-old Kraft Foods factory in New Berlin, New York, he took the first step toward upending an industry dominated to that point by corporate giants Dannon and Yoplait (now part of General Mills). Greek yogurt wasn’t unheard of when Ulukaya entered the game, but the primary player at the time—Athens-based Fage (FA-yeh), which had started importing its yogurt from Greece—had failed to transform the industry the way Ulukaya came to do at breathtaking speed. Ulukaya, who’d spent a few years selling feta through his company Euphrates, branded his new Greek yogurt business after the Turkish word for shepherd (çoban), calling it Chobani.[8] As further evidence of Chobani’s impact on the economy, Ulukaya was invited to ring the closing bell of the NASDAQ in January 2014.[9]
Soon Greek yogurt was red-hot. It wasn’t long before both larger players with more infrastructure and name recognition, and smaller, independent upstarts, caught wind of the public’s rabid interest in higher-protein yogurts with an ultracreamy mouthfeel and an appealing health profile. The number of producers swelled, and sales boomed. Mintel’s report shows that for the year ending May 19, 2013, Dannon’s Oikos brand of Greek yogurt led the market in terms of sales, enjoying a single-year increase of 164.7%.
The media, for its part, loves covering the “yogurt wars” (as more than one major news source dubbed it),[10] which creates great buzz when things go well and new product lines launch but stings hard when companies falter, as Chobani did when it issued a large recall in September 2013.
Yogurt appears almost daily in food news. Whole Foods Market created a firestorm in December 2013 when it announced it would no longer carry Chobani “to make room for more product choices not readily in the market,” according to a 2013 tweet on the company’s Twitter account. The 2014 Super Bowl featured ads for both Chobani and Dannon’s Oikos brand. And celebrities—from Bobby Flay (Fage) to Michael Symon, John Stamos, and Reba McEntire (various Dannon subbrands) to Hugh Acheson (Liberté)—have partnered with major brands, all of which keeps yogurt in the spotlight.
What drives yogurt manufacturers’ sales and marketing? How do they come up with their flavors? How do their factories actually work to make yogurt day in and day out? What makes them tick, makes them special, makes them distinct from their competitors? In 2013 I visited the New York headquarters of Dannon, the Vermont home of Commonwealth Dairy, and the California hub of Straus Family Creamery. These first-hand accounts, as well as recaps of my interviews with representatives of Smári Organics, goat yogurt maker Redwood Hill Farm, and New York–based Blue Hill Yogurt (which makes vegetable-flavored yogurts), provide insight into the sheer diversity of players driving demand and innovation in the yogurt category. Individually and collectively, they’re all contributing to today’s yogurt zeitgeist.
And that’s just fresh yogurt. What about the frozen stuff? As the refrigerated yogurt market thrives, frozen yogurt keeps pace beside it, with shops popping up at breakneck speed. (Sales increased from $279 million in 2011 to $486 million in 2013.)[11] From self-service kiosks on college campuses to proliferating frozen yogurt chains offering endless toppings—think Fruity Pebbles, sour gummi worms, and “cheesecake bites”—fresh and frozen yogurt have both blossomed and veered off in sometimes outlandish directions.
I’m not just talking about hypersweetened yogurt tubes in head-scratching flavors like melonberry and cotton candy (produced by the pizza giant Chuck E. Cheese’s), but the debut of a frozen yogurt chain called Cups that immediately drew comparisons to Hooters for what the Huffington Post called its “boobs-as-ambiance business model”;[12] the launch of products like Post’s Honey Bunches of Oats Greek Honey Crunch cereal with an ingredients list that includes Greek yogurt powder and “Greek yogurt style coated granola” (whatever that is);[13] frozen yogurt treats for dogs (made with vegan carob chips and bourbon vanilla extract);[14] and organic freeze-dried fruit and yogurt drops for babies.[15]
For all its popularity, yogurt risks jumping the shark (if it hasn’t already). In straying so far from its roots, something crucial may be lost forever. I do support product innovation, but I also fear that the wholesome essence of this ancient and remarkably simple food may soon vanish under an avalanche of coatings, candies, powders, and pellets.
WHAT IS YOGURT, ANYWAY?
At heart, yogurt is milk that has been inoculated with bacterial strains and left to culture at warm temperatures until it thickens. Of course, things are somewhat more complex, so let’s get technical for just a bit.
The live bacterial cultures that create yogurt—specifically Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus delbrueckii bulgaricus—are thermophilic, meaning they propagate in a warm environment. That’s why you can’t simply stir a spoonful of yogurt into milk cold from the fridge, wait a few hours, and voilà: yogurt. Certain temperature protocols must first be met. (Keep in mind that the protocols vary slightly for commercial yogurt factories versus home yogurt making. I’ll be addressing home yogurt making below, but the broader concepts apply in both realms.) You can find a complete homemade yogurt recipe later in this book, but here’s the basic science.
FIRST, THE MILK IS BROUGHT TO 180°F.
This heating process kills any harmful—and potentially competing—microorganisms that may already be present in your milk, thereby providing a blank slate in which new cultures can grow. (This is also why experts advise against making yogurt from raw milk.) Heating the milk also denatures the whey proteins and allows them to absorb water, ensuring a more stable end product. There are different schools of thought regarding how long the milk should stay at this temperature before cooling, but it’s really a matter of preference. “Holding” the milk before cooling tends to improve gelation (the gelling process), creating a thicker and firmer texture.
SECOND, THE MILK IS COOLED DOWN TO ABOUT 115°F (108°F in factories).
This is the temperature range at which your starter cultures, once introduced, will thrive. You can cool milk by pulling your saucepan from the heat and waiting, or you can plunge it into an ice bath. If the milk cools too far, it must be rewarmed.
THIRD, THE MILK IS INOCULATED WITH A STARTER CULTURE.
You can use either a powdered (generally freeze-dried) yogurt culture containing live bacteria, or—easier and more practical—a small portion of yogurt from a prior homemade batch or store-bought container. The starter should be fresh—used within a few days of opening, in other words—and must have “live, active” cultures in order to propagate, so look for these words on store-bought cups.
FOURTH, FERMENTATION BEGINS.
By maintaining a temperature close to 110°F throughout incubation, the cultures you’ve introduced begin to convert lactose into lactic acid, thereby lowering the pH of the milk and causing it to gel, or thicken, and to take on the sour tang characteristic of plain yogurt. This process takes several hours. Once the pH dips below 4.6 (evidenced by the thick consistency and tangy flavor), transfer the yogurt to the refrigerator. Chill for several hours before eating.
Now you have yogurt.
HEALTH AND PROBIOTICS
Yogurt is packed with a wide range of nutrients. Not just calcium, which shouldn’t surprise you. And not just protein, of which Greek yogurt is an especially rich source. But yogurt also contains B vitamins, vitamin D, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc.
What really sets yogurt apart from other foods, though, is one word: probiotics. In Microbiology and Technology of Fermented Foods, Robert W. Hutkins defines probiotics as “organisms that confer a health benefit to the host.” He further explains that two especially common probiotics, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium, are among those most often added to yogurt to supplement the cultures needed for fermentation. So long as they’re “live” and “active,” these bacterial strains may help support immune function; inhibit and control the growth of problematic yeasts and flora, especially in women; improve digestion and the general well-being of those with intestinal disorders, inflammatory diseases, and abdominal discomfort; and even possibly improve mood.[16]
Some scientists, like Justin L. Sonnenburg, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, say that research into probiotics and other so-called “functional foods” occupies a gray area that has led to confusion for consumers. Yes, he says, some concrete data have shown that probiotics can help treat certain forms of viral intestinal distress, but many of the other data are less clear-cut. “There are very few probiotic bacteria that have been studied really in depth by multiple labs with reproducible findings concerning human health,” he told me. He nevertheless sees a legitimate evolutionary argument for eating fermented foods like yogurt. “The state of our mucosal immune system is constantly being fine-tuned by exposure to bacteria—things like fermented foods, any dirt we may eat, and probiotics.” This fine-tuning may help our immune system fight invaders or prevent it from spiraling out of control in the form of allergies or autoimmune diseases. So while eating yogurt isn’t a lock against future illness, exposure to diverse microbes is a generally wise and health-promoting dietary strategy.
In fact, more and more research is beginning to emerge connecting overall gut health to the body’s ability to ward off disease. Michael Pollan has written extensively about what he calls the microbiome,[17] the trillions of microbial organisms that reside in the human body whose health influences our own. Both he and Sonnenburg have advanced theories that the more diverse the array of good bacteria in our guts, the better.
Don’t be misled into thinking that the yogurts with the largest number of bacterial strains listed on their labels are necessarily the “best.” Each probiotic has a different function, some have been studied more widely than others, and more is not always “better.” When I interviewed Joseph F. Frank, PhD, a professor of food science and technology at the University of Georgia, he told me: “You have to consume a sufficient number of probiotics for them to have an effect, and you have to consume them on a daily basis. Otherwise, they don’t maintain themselves in your gut.” Furthermore, he added: “The probiotic bugs need good food to grow on in your gut or they don’t stick around.”
So where does one find this “good food” to which he refers? That’s where prebiotics come in. Dr. Frank says prebiotics—found in foods like artichokes, beans, leeks, asparagus, onions, and more—serve as food for the probiotic organisms. Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and dietary fiber is a good way to ensure you’re creating a naturally prebiotic-rich environment in which the probiotics you consume will thrive.
My take? Enjoy yogurt primarily for its taste, versatility, and nutrients, not as a response to marketing claims that it will cure the sniffles or prevent medical problems.
SHOPPING FOR YOGURT
Now that you know what yogurt is, how can you know you’re getting the real thing when shopping at the store? In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) uses something called the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) to determine which food products are legally permitted to carry a particular name. In the case of yogurt, the CFR provides a two-page description of the acceptable bacterial strains, the range of milk fat, and the list of optional ingredients (flavorings, colorants, and stabilizers) that may be present for a product to be labeled “yogurt.”[18] If a manufacturer deviates from this standard, the word yogurt cannot appear without qualification on the label. Examples include “cultured dairy blends” or cultured nondairy products that look like yogurt and may be sold next to yogurt—and may, in fact, contain the same live, active bacterial cultures as yogurt—but that do not meet the overall yogurt criteria. Because these products are not currently governed by the CFR, they’re not standardized or regulated in the same way. If you want yogurt, look for the word on the label.
HOW TO READ A YOGURT LABEL
FLAVOR:
Yogurt can be enhanced not only with real fruit and fruit juices but also with different sugars and sweeteners, such as plain sugar, fructose (fruit sugar), dextrose (a form of glucose), sucralose (like Splenda), acesulfame potassium or Ace-K, aspartame, sodium citrate (made from the fruit acid called citric acid), cane juice, and the always vague and thoroughly nondescript “natural flavors” and “artificial flavors,” among others.
TEXTURES:
Yogurt can be thickened, stabilized, and/or emulsified with pectin, gelatin (which may be derived from meat bones or cattle hide) or kosher gelatin (which may be derived from fish bones), cornstarch or modified cornstarch, tapioca starch, modified food starch, carrageenan, and gums like locust bean gum and guar gum, among others.
COLORANTS:
Yogurt’s appearance can be changed by spices like turmeric (a common rhizome), extracts like annatto (derived from the seeds of achiote trees), food dyes like carmine (derived from ground insects), and artificial (and controversial) dyes like red 40, yellow 5, and blue 1 (which are synthesized from petroleum).[19]
PRESERVATIVES
Can enhance yogurt’s shelf life, inhibit mold growth, and maintain freshness and may include potassium sorbate and natamycin (an antifungal), among others.
Of course, not every manufacturer uses all, or even any, of these additives, but if they do, they must be labeled. Furthermore, not all of these ingredients are “bad,” however broadly you choose to define that term. Some are naturally derived, and all have been approved for use by the FDA. It comes down to this: You have the authority to decide what you want in your yogurt. Reading labels is the best way for you to exercise this authority wisely.
My philosophy? I often choose to make yogurt from scratch and add any supplemental ingredients myself, at home. When I do buy commercial yogurt, I go organic and always buy plain yogurt made without additives, colorants, or stabilizers.
MOO, NEIGH, BAA, OR . . . WHAT SOUND DOES SOY MAKE?
Different livestock, and their attendant milks, dominate in different regions of the world, so yogurts made from these milks vary accordingly. In her comprehensive book, Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages, Anne Mendelson refers to sheep, goats, and cows as “the big three” milk-providing domesticated animals. This is not to say that other mammals don’t also give milk that makes great yogurt. They do. In Mongolia and Tibet, for example, yak milk predominates. In India, buffalo milk is common. In The Complete Yogurt Cookbook, Karen Cross Whyte writes that reindeer and mare milk are used to make yogurt in Lapland (Finland). She adds, “Ass’s milk produces a fine curd and is easily digested by infants.” Perhaps it’s time to get a donkey.
In the United States, of course, the vast majority of yogurt is made from cow’s milk. In Milk, Mendelson posits: “The comparative blandness of cow’s-milk products emerged as the way many people thought dairy foods ought to taste.” I have developed all of my recipes using cow’s milk yogurt, save for the Goat Cheese Cheesecake, for purely practical reasons: Sourcing both cow’s milk and cow’s milk yogurt is easier than finding other varieties.
That doesn’t mean goat’s milk and sheep’s milk yogurt aren’t worth eating. Quite the contrary. I’ve enjoyed both kinds at home and abroad.
To learn more about goat’s milk yogurt and its properties, I spoke by phone with Jennifer Bice, owner and CEO of Redwood Hill Farm in Sebastopol, California. I asked her to explain the major differences between goat’s and cow’s milk yogurt. She noted that the butterfat particles in goat’s milk are smaller and more delicate than those in cow’s milk. Correspondingly, goat’s milk yogurt has a softer, more pourable consistency. In addition, many people find goat’s milk yogurt easier to digest because its lactose has a different composition from that of cow’s milk. Finally, the milk protein, called casein, differs as well, she said. Goat’s milk casein more closely resembles that of human milk and is therefore less likely to be allergenic than cow’s milk casein. Some traditionally “milk-allergic” people can thus tolerate goat’s milk without incident.
Furthermore, goats are less conducive to factory farming and are therefore less likely to be raised under those crowded and controversial conditions. She adds that there is no parallel in goat farming to the artificial growth hormone rBGH used in some cows. It should be noted that goat’s milk costs about twice as much as cow’s milk. Consequently, goat’s milk yogurts tend to cost more as well.
Yogurt made from sheep’s milk exclusively, or sheep’s and goat’s milk combined, is common throughout Greece and Turkey. When I visited the home of the noted Greek cooking authority Aglaia Kremezi and her husband, Costas Moraitis, they served a trio of yogurts—one cow’s milk, one goat’s milk, and one sheep’s milk—so we could enjoy a comparative tasting. At 6.6 percent fat, the sheep’s milk yogurt was by far the richest and most luxurious of the lot, with a deeper, tangier profile that contrasted beautifully with the fruit “spoon sweets” they served alongside. (Two spoon sweets recipes appear later—Candied Kumquat Spoon Sweets and Fig Spoon Sweets in Red Wine Syrup.) “The Greeks like sheep’s milk yogurt,” Costas said, passing the little clay pot of yogurt back my way. Though the goat’s and cow’s milk yogurt were both good, the sheep’s milk yogurt was extraspecial.
For vegans, there are even yogurt products without any dairy whatsoever. Those made from soy, tree nuts, rice, and coconut milk are becoming increasingly popular and easy to find. Specialty Food Magazine notes that Turtle Mountain, a maker of almond- and coconut-based yogurts under the So Delicious brand name, enjoyed a 46 percent sales increase between 2009 and 2011 to $5.3 million.[21] WholeSoy, a San Francisco–based company, recently hit the big time after a setback in 2013 forced the company to halt production; Whole Foods Market announced in January 2014 that it would award WholeSoy a $400,000 loan and within a few months, the brand was back on the market in a newly constructed, all-dairy-free production facility.
“Cultured blends” generally contain live cultures (often the same kind found in actual yogurt), but in general they have a different sweetness level, taste profile, and, occasionally, texture from dairy yogurt, and they have not been tested for success in the recipes in this book.
A BRIEF NOTE ON LACTOSE INTOLERANCE
According to the National Institutes of Health, between 30 million and 50 million U.S. adults are lactose intolerant, meaning they lack sufficient lactase (an enzyme) to digest the sugars (lactose) in milk.[22] As mentioned earlier, yogurt’s fermentation process converts a good part of the milk’s lactose into lactic acid, thereby reducing the amount of lactose in yogurt. As a result, many people who suffer from lactose intolerance find that they can tolerate yogurt well, especially Greek yogurt, since when the whey is drained out, a good part of the lactose is lost as well. In fact, Greek yogurt can be a terrific way for the lactose intolerant to get calcium. (If you’re lactose intolerant, be aware that some dishes in this book contain dairy products in addition to yogurt, so read the recipes carefully.)
ORGANICS, GMOS, AND GRASS-FED DAIRY
Yogurt, like milk, may be conventional or organic. If you make your own yogurt with conventional milk and a conventional starter, you’ll produce conventional yogurt. If you start with organic milk and an organic starter, your yogurt will be organic. Similarly, if you want your yogurt to be free of rBST and GMOs, look for these indicators on the milk and yogurt labels, where in many cases it is included as a selling point (where applicable) even when not required by law. (Some states—at the time of this writing, Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut—have passed laws requiring GMO labeling, though the laws have not yet taken effect. Legislation in this area is evolving.)
Organic dairy recently enjoyed a boost in popularity after an eighteen-month research study concluded that organic dairy production produces a better and more healthful ratio of helpful to harmful fatty acids in milk. This benefit can be traced to the natural grasses and pastured diet that cows on organic dairy farms graze on, making grass-fed milk an especially appealing option for those who can afford it.
LET’S TALK ABOUT FAT
Because of my personal views and evolving research in this area, I choose to make yogurt from whole milk or buy whole-milk yogurt at the store. I find it superior in taste, texture, mouthfeel, and culinary versatility.
From a health standpoint, the fat in milk and yogurt helps increase feelings of satiety, or fullness, which means you need less of it to feel satisfied and stave off cravings. Some recent articles, like a September 2013 JAMA Pediatrics article by David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD, and Walter C. Willett, MD, DrPhD, both renowned physicians and researchers at Harvard Medical School, underscore this point, suggesting that recommendations to consume reduced-fat dairy instead of full-fat dairy to promote weight loss and curb obesity may be misguided, especially when carbohydrates are consumed in place of fat. Reduced-fat dairy, therefore, isn’t solving the problems many consumers think it solves. It may, in fact, lead to overeating and unhealthy food swaps. I agree with the Greek cookbook author Aglaia Kremezi, who notes, “It’s extremely strange that Americans want to eat all this bacon and all this butter, and then they don’t want to eat 3.5 percent fat yogurt.”
YOGURT—OR CANDY?
On the yogurt section of its website, Maple Hill Creamery of Stuyvesant, New York, sports a boldly lettered banner with several phrases: “100% GRASS-FED,” “REAL FOOD, MADE WITH LOVE,” “NO CORN, NO GRAIN JUST GRASS,” and “THIS IS NOT CANDY.”[23]
This is not candy? Why on earth would a yogurt maker have to be explicit that its product is not candy? Because candy and yogurt have become so firmly connected in the marketplace that a company that doesn’t further this trend with its yogurt feels compelled to call it out boldly, in all caps.
Sugar, in all its forms, is everywhere in U.S. yogurt. Not just in the toppings in frozen yogurt shops and the stir-ins in those little plastic kids’ yogurt cups (I’m looking at you, YoCrunch), but even in some of the most innocent-sounding fruit-flavored yogurts. Case in point: BuzzFeed’s January 13, 2014, rundown, “16 Supposedly Healthy Foods with More Sugar than a Snickers Bar,” included entries for yogurt products from Chobani, Stonyfield, and Starbucks.
In a 2013 opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, UCSF pediatric endocrinologist Robert H. Lustig, author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease, writes: “The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990 requires the disclosure of total sugars on the nutrition facts label for processed food. That includes the strawberries in your strawberry ice cream, the lactose in the milk (neither of which is a problem), and the added sugar. Yet how much of that sugar is lactose, and how much is added sugar? The label doesn’t say, but you can figure it out.” Lustig then turns his attention to yogurt:
“Consider a 6-ounce carton of pomegranate yogurt, which has 19 grams of sugar. A plain yogurt has 7 grams of sugar, all lactose. Thus, each pomegranate yogurt has 12 grams of added sugar, the same as a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. . . . Not so healthy after all.”[24]
Keep in mind when reading labels that some of the “sugar” in your 6-ounce yogurt is (natural, unproblematic) lactose rather than added sugar. Now pick up your favorite brand of sweetened yogurt. How much sugar does it have? 21 grams? 23 grams? 26 grams? In most cases, you can get this number way down by sweetening plain yogurt yourself, topping it with fresh fruit (or a few scant spoonfuls of homemade fruit puree), or by going completely rogue and discovering all the savory flavors that pair beautifully with plain, tart yogurt.
To be clear: I am not antisugar. I regularly sweeten my yogurt, drizzling it with local honey or floating a glossy pool of real maple syrup on top. I bake with yogurt and sugar together, and add modest amounts of sugar to many (but not all) of my frozen yogurt bases and fruit purees.
But I believe you should choose your sweeteners mindfully and use them sparingly. Add them yourself, using as much as you need to get a flavor you love—and then stop. Taste as you go, and enjoy every spoonful. When you take charge of the sugar bowl, the honey jar, the maple syrup bottle, you’ll likely use far less sweetener than you’ll find in many of the mass-produced products designed to please the average, sweet-loving American palate. (Some companies, like Dannon, have reduced their sugar content proactively,[25] but you still need to read labels carefully.) When you flavor yogurt yourself or make chilled desserts or make frozen yogurts, you’re better off when you’re fully in charge of the amount of sweetener.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR OWN YOGURT
Fantastic! Turn to Make, where I offer recipes for making both traditional (loose-style) and strained (Greek-style) yogurt, from both cow’s and goat’s milk. I also show you how to make labneh, that smooth and thick yogurt cheese common throughout the Middle East.
That said, if you’ve become enamored with a particular yogurt brand available near you and don’t want to dive deep into yogurt making, we can still be friends. Every single recipe in this book will work with either homemade or commercially sourced plain yogurt. The choice to buy or make is yours.
My goal is simple: to encourage you to play with plain yogurt. To embellish it, sure, but also to appreciate what it brings to the table, namely flavor, creaminess, nutrition, and a global sense of possibility.
Shall we begin?
NOTES
[1] www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq2.html#yogurt
[2] Microbiology and Technology of Fermented Foods by Robert W. Hutkins (p. 107) notes that “cultured dairy products have evolved on every continent” and that yogurt in particular was mentioned “in Hindu sacred texts and mythology.”
[3] Development and Manufacture of Yogurt and Other Functional Dairy Products, Fatih Yildiz, ed.
[4] May 13, 2013, phone interview with Michael Neuwirth, director of public relations at Dannon.
[5] “Modern Culture: Yogurt’s Unstoppable Rise,” by Beth Kowitt, http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/17/yogurt-united-states/
[6] “Yogurt’s domination goes beyond the dairy aisle.” Dairy Foods, April 2013.
[7] Yogurt and Yogurt Drinks: US: August 2013 report provided directly to me by Mintel.
[8] “Just Add Sugar: How an immigrant from Turkey turned Greek yogurt into an American snack food,” by Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, November 4, 2013
[9] www.nasdaq.com/press-release/chobani-to-ring-the-nasdaq-stock-market-closing-bell-20140107-00732
[10] www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2013/04/13/the-yogurt-wars/ and www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/business/pepsico-with-muller-by-quaker-yogurt-aims-at-a-surging-market.html
[11] foodproductdesign.com/news/2013/09/frozen-yogurt-sales-grow-74-to-486-million-in-201.aspx
[12] www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/30/cups-froyo-hooters-of-frozen-yogurt_n_3361397.html
[13] postfoods.com/our-brands/honey-bunches-of-oats/greek-honey-crunch/
[14] www.yappytreatscart.com/
[15] happyfamilybrands.com/product_lines/happy-yogis/
[16] A study reported in the October 8, 2012, edition of the journal Gastroenterology found that a four-week intake of fermented milk products with probiotics “affected activity of brain regions that control central processing of emotion and sensation.” At www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085(13)00292-8/abstract
[17] Michael Pollan has written about the microbiome both in his 2013 book Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Penguin) and in an article in the May 19, 2013, New York Times Magazine called “Some of My Best Friends Are Germs,” available at www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html
[18] www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=131.200
[19] Food Dyes: A Rainbow of Risks. Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2010. Available at cspinet.org/new/pdf/food-dyes-rainbow-of-risks.pdf
[20] Yoplait’s pink lids were introduced in the late 1990s. Consumers were encouraged to collect and return lids, and in exchange, Yoplait would donate funds toward breast cancer research. The initiative came under fire at times, however, for promoting “pinkwashing.” In 2009 watchdog Breast Cancer Action successfully campaigned to have Yoplait remove rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) from its yogurt, citing the hormone’s implication in the development of certain tumors. Online here: bcaction.org/2009/02/09/breast-cancer-action-victorious-in-yoplait-“pinkwashing”-campaign
[21] “The New Yogurt Culture” by Denise Shoukas. Specialty Food Magazine, May/June 2013, at www.specialtyfood.com/news-trends/featured-articles/article/new-yogurt-culture/
[22] “Lactose Intolerance: Information for Healthcare Providers.” National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, online at www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/Documents/NICHD_MM_Lactose_FS_rev.pdf
[23] maplehillcreamery.com/products.html
[24] “Defusing the Health Care Time Bomb” by Robert H. Lustig in the San Francisco Chronicle, January 4, 2013.
[25] “The Trek to a Yogurt Less Sweet,” New York Times, May 10, 2013, at www.nytimes.com/2013/05/11/business/dannon-cuts-sugar-carefully-in-childrens-yogurt.html
Written by Cheryl Sternman Rule in "Yogurt Culture -A Global Look at How to Make, Bake, Sip, and Chill the World’s Creamiest, Healthiest Food", Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, New York, USA, 2015. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.
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