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Sure, I know yogurt is good for you, and you can get it in convenient little single-serving containers, and the taste is not unpleasant, but is anyone else starting to find yogurt just a little bit... annoying?
Okay, maybe it's just me. I do eat yogurt, even if it sometimes pisses me off. So I'll make sure to say some good things about it before I put on my crankypants and go all whiny and negative.
Four Reasons To Love Yogurt!
1. If you can do dairy, it's really healthy
If you can tolerate milk products, it's hard not to notice that plain lowfat or nonfat yogurt is absurdly good for you. And many people who are otherwise lactose intolerant seem to handle fermented dairy, like yogurt and kefir, better than they can tolerate regular milk.
Yogurt has lots of calcium and protein, and a bunch of other helpful nutrients like potassium and B vitamins. (Greek yogurt has a LOT of protein; but regular yogurt is better on calcium). And yogurt has something called lactoferrin, which is supposed to make it even better than regular milk at helping you build strong bones.
At the "World's Healthiest Foods" they've compiled a bunch of the studies showing yogurt's potential health benefits. And while the jury may still be out on some of these benefits (not enough studies yet), there are still enough encouraging reports so that you can feel pretty darn smug about eating it. Medical issues yogurt might be helpful for include the usual digestive stuff, but also arthritis, ulcers, cholesterol levels, colon cancer, and weight loss, as well as just generally boosting the immune system and increasing longevity.
One of coolest health aspects about yogurt? If you buy a "good" kind with lots of active cultures, then you get the magical benefits of probiotics. Probiotics are bacteria, but they're the "good" kind of bacteria. They won't go around giving you plague or eating up your flesh or otherwise behaving rudely like bad bacteria do.
Some of the health benefits of probiotics, even according to the fairly conservative Mayo Clinic folks are: treating diarrhea, yeast infections, urinary tract infections, irritable bowel syndrome; as well as reducing bladder cancer recurrence, preventing eczema and boosting the immune system.
(And Melting Mama notes that for folks who've had gastric bypass surgery, research indicates probiotics can help with quicker weight loss, as well as with avoiding Vitamin B deficiencies).
But all strains of probiotics are not created equal. If you want to know a lot more about probiotics, check out Probiotics--Love That Bug, where you can get the details about which strains are best for your particular health concern, whether it's irritable bowel or hay fever or ulcers or whatever.
2. It Tastes Good
We tend to think of yogurt as a sweet fruity treat, and it does make a nutritious substitute for more decadent indulgences like pudding or ice cream. But yogurt can also shine as part of a creamy condiment (like Kayln's "World's Best Tzatziki Sauce,") or as a main dish ingredient, like in Simply Recipe's Spicy Turkey Soup With Yogurt, Chickpeas and Mint or in The Perfect Pantry's Chicken Tikka Recipe.
3. It's Convenient
Well, it's not convenient if you want to get all fancy like the folks at Chocolate and Zucchini and you decide to make gourmet Frozen Sheep's Milk Yogurt. But yogurt is not exactly hard to find, and it comes in all sizes of containers, and you can get any flavor you can imagine. It's a quick way to get a snack with both carbs and protein, and it requires no preparation other than rounding up some sort of spoon. And even the spoon is optional if you're really hungry.
4. It's Relatively Cheap
Of course you can spend a fortune for some brands, particularly if you like to patronize trendy frozen yogurt emporiums in upscale neighborhoods. But your basic grocery store brand is usually pretty cheap. (My personal favorite brand, Fage, is on the pricey end, especially if I'm nowhere near a Trader Joe's, but I'm awfully fond of it).
However, the cool thing about yogurt is that you can also make your own, and people swear it's not even hard. There's A Year of Slow Cooking's crockpot yogurt recipe, and Charlotte at the The Great Fitness Experiment makes her own with no special equipment at all.
So, with all these wonderful virtues, what is it about yogurt that gets
