Yogurt: 4 Things to Love (and 5 Things to Hate)

What's your problem, Crabby? Everyone Loves Yogurt!
[Photo: rikhei]

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.

So what's so impressive about the health benefits of yogurt?

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 brand 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 me cranky? Well, enough weird things that I had to resort to making up my own words.

Five Irritating Things About Yogurt

1. Dessertification

Have you perused the yogurt section at the grocery store aisle lately? You can barely find any plain yogurt because there are 7,000 "flavors" of yogurt, all passing themselves off gourmet desserts. Even regular fruit flavors aren't "desserty" enough for most buyers; who wants lemon or lime yogurt when you could be eating "Lemon Cheesecake" or "Key Lime Pie?"

And it's not just the absurd proliferation of exotic flavors, it's that most of the stuff tastes unnecessarily oversweetened. Why do they need to add SO MUCH sugar and/or artificial sweeteners? It seems impractical to use up so much of your daily allotment on one little serving of dairy product, when you might as well be eating a big fat slice of chocolate cake. In my mind, yogurt ceases to be a health food when it's got more sugar than an ice cream sundae or is pumped up with enough aspartame to kill several large lab rats.

I've learned to just buy plain yogurt and flavor it myself.

2. Pharmification

While live active cultures are a good thing, the relentless health promotion around yogurt as "medicine" is getting irritating. Especially when big corporate yogurts start throwing in "healthy" additives, like extra vitamins and fiber, that don't occur in there naturally.

3. Feminization

My all-time favorite Sarah Haskins video explores this weird phenomenon: what's with the single-sex marketing of yogurt?

Are guys simply not allowed to eat yogurt? Are women required to eat yogurt? Have you ever seen a bunch of men in a commercial talking about yogurt?

Hmm... Maybe it's some sort of a conspiracy. Because doesn't it seem suspicious that it's nearly the same thing with Yoga? It's also marketed as "healthy" and targeted strongly at women. Yoga and Yogurt: For Women Only! Oh wait, but Yogi Bear was a boy, and not known for healthy habits, so I'm not sure the conspiracy is very well organized yet.

4. Packagification

Long ago, back in the olden days, you used to have a couple of sizes of yogurt. There was the Big-Ass economy sized yogurt, if you were willing to eat a lot of the same flavor, or a smaller size if you wanted variety. But I swear the small size was more like 10 or 12 ounces. Then that went down to 8, then many yogurts shrunk even further to 6, and now you see these itty bitty containers that have maybe two tablespoons of yogurt in them, they come welded to other itty bitty micro-yogurt containers. So you still have to spend a bunch of money, but instead of getting a whole massive amount of yogurt you get a little bit of yogurt and a whole heck of a lot of packaging.

Progress... ain't it great?

5. Proliferation

Yogurt is immensely popular, and so the major brands are taking more and more space in the coveted refrigerator section of your grocery store. And because it's so important to stock all those pre-sweetened yogurt varieties the public demands, your average chain spares little room for other healthy products that could be sitting there. The more natural yogurts made by the little guys? The non-dairy options? You often have to go to a health food or other specialty store to find them.

My own personal grudge: I like kefir. It's another cultured dairy product that tastes a lot like liquid yogurt, and has even more probiotic strains in it. From what I can tell, it might be even more awesome for you than yogurt is, but it's not as popular so there are even fewer studies on it. I love to add it to smoothies. Yet the chain grocery store nearest me doesn't stock kefir because they apparently need room for each and every one of those 7,000 yogurt flavors. (I'm thinking of trying to round up some kefir grains and start making my own. It's supposed to be fairly easy. However, the problem is the hippie-era distribution system, which seems to rely on knowing someone who knows someone who has extra. But enough about my Kefir Madness.)

So do you eat yogurt? Do you love everything about it or do you have any gripes?

Note: this post also appears at Blogher's 10X Club, where you can find terrifying daily health challenges that leave you spent and weeping, but grateful. Well, not really, most of them are pretty reasonable, but join us there anyway!

Evil Non-Dairy People

Okay, so I might sound a bit cranky today, but only because it's over 100 degrees out today and I had to work on the third floor of a stuffy office because the air conditioning broke down and the windows don't open and nobody loves me and everybody hates me and ... well, look, I'm just cranky.

It is completely unreasonable to expect a hot, cranky female to write a cheerful post. Forget Merry Sunshine, this is her evil twin cousin Merry Fix-the-friggin'-air-conditioning-NOW-psycho-beotch.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, People Who Don't Do Dairy (PWDDD).

You can't spot a non-dairy person on the street. Oddly enough, they look like everyone else, only more so.

And no, I don't care what your mother told you, you cannot catch non-dairy-itis by swimming in a community pool.

And yes, trust me, PWDDD have heard all the arguments about how dairy will take care of all your calcium needs as well as prove you're a red-blooded American/Canadian/Mesopotamian.

Some facts about PWDDD that you might not know:

- they do not have horns, a forked tail, and scales underneath their clothing
- they very rarely sacrifice live babies in arcane and mystic rituals
- they can and frequently do get adequate calcium from other sources

Honestly, you'd think it was an actual crime punishable by scorn, the way some people react. PWDDD are treated as if they were putting on airs or something.

Yes, I'll say it: dairy-airs.
(No, I have no shame. Too cranky.)

When confronted with a non-dairy person, some people get annoyed on a fundamental level. Especially if you're not eating cheese every 34.5 seconds. You'd think I'd smeared brie across the American flag and threatened to stomp on it. It's a fermented milk product, people! Not an icon! The Dairy marketing people have brain washed y'all. Sheesh.


Oh come on now. Be honest. You going to look me in the monitor and say, with a straight face and a clear conscience, that you've never looked askance at someone who embraces an alternative cow lifestyle?



Photo Credits:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/66164549@N00/2419063192/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sailorganymede/ / CC BY-ND 2.0

Random Friday

[Posted by Crabby]

Image courtesy of nataliedee.com

So remember we were recently complaining about how conflicting health research was messing with our heads and making us confused about what the heck we were supposed to do? Well, here are some more studies to make you nuts.

Calcium and Older Women:
So yep, you guessed it, after years of research urging women, including older women, to take calcium supplements, guess what they're now discovering? That calcium supplements might increase heart attack and stroke risk in postmenopausal women. The researchers warned that the findings weren't conclusive and needed to be confirmed by other studies. But if true, they wrote, "this effect could outweigh any beneficial effects of calcium on bone."

Revenge of the Acrylamides:
It's as though the scientists have a dark sense of humor, because I had barely finished posting "whatever happened to acrylamide?" when I saw this news: "Acrylamide in Food May Increase Breast Cancer Risk."

(However, true to form, right next to that study was one from a few months ago saying "Acrylamide Not Linked to Breast Cancer." I like that one better.)

So what is acrylamide and how do you avoid it, if we're supposed to be avoiding it again? It sounds nasty, doesn't it, with that icky synthetic "acrylic" prefix?

Well, it's a carcinogenic chemical formed when carb-heavy food is cooked at high temperatures, and you find acrylamides in a lot of processed foods you should be going easy on anyway. French fries and potato chips are the usual example. However, they can also be found in innocent foods too, like toast (even healthy whole wheat toast), and (gulp)in coffee. (Here's a Big List of acrylamide-containing foods if you want to get really depressed.) Smoking will increase your levels a lot too.

Too Depressing to Publish?
Turns out there may be some selective publication of drug studies going on: according to the article, "nearly a third of antidepressant drug studies are never published in the medical literature, and nearly all happen to show that the drug being tested did not work." The result: the drugs look more effective than they actually are.

Now, On the Brighter Side...
If you're female and over 40, a recent Swedish study seemed to suggest that, oddly enough, daily consumption of high-fat dairy products might help with weight control. But don't break out the Ben & Jerry's just yet. Despite a more optimistic report about this in Health, looking at the actual study made the conclusion seem a bit tentative. This study also contradicts another recent study that looked at high fat diary consumption in American men. (And researchers noted that the effect observed in these women differed according to the type of dairy product and the subject's body weight--cheese was good. Ben & Jerry's, alas, was not specifically mentioned).

Confused About All This?
Here's one theory that may explain the conflicting data.

Can you tell we're getting to the silly stuff now?

The Perfect Social Networking Site for a Crab:
Cheerful folks, however, may not appreciate bugroff. (And I believe "bugroff" is properly pronounced with three syllables, not two.)

Advances in Feminine Protection!
Okay, so it may not be an actual product you can buy at Walgreens, but check out the tampon stun gun. I love the concept. Wielding the tampon alone will mostly likely scare off the attacker, and if not: ZZZZZap!

When You Can't Understand The Lyrics:
So do you ever download songs in a foreign language for your workouts, then find yourself hearing English lyrics in them that aren't really there? A mostly hilarious example of this phenomenon can be found here. (Sometimes they stretch a bit too hard looking for dirty interpretations, but often they're spot on. Made me giggle most of the way through).

Health and fitness? Oh well, um... there's dancing in the video too!

Have a great Friday everyone.

Calcium and other Fascinating Dairy-Related Items

"Fascinating?"

Really?

Of course not. It's just a post about milk.

But it seemed about time to say something about Milk and Calcium and Dairy, because it's one of those subjects that tends to be in the health news quite a bit. Studies fly around saying contradictory things. One day milk is a Miracle Beverage that builds strong bones and cures diseases and makes you skinny, and the next day it's like, "meh, maybe not so much, never mind." Then a few weeks later it's back to "well hooray, maybe it's pretty damn good for you after all," then someone else says "no it's not, that's a lie!" You get the idea.

Cranky Fitness does not intend to resolve the debate over milk. To the extent that a blog can drink a beverage, Cranky Fitness drinks milk and likes it.

So instead, let's throw a couple recent studies out there, and we can all continue to believe what we already did, and continue to do what we were already doing. Because that's pretty much how it works with health reporting, isn't it?

But who knows, perhaps the odd reader or two may see a study here and have a change of heart about milk. (And by odd, Crabby means random, not strange--oh well, never mind. If you find yourself here at Cranky fitness with Crabby, "odd" may indeed be the right word).

And yes, Crabby knows a lot of you may be vegans or can't do dairy for health reasons. She hopes that those of you who know better than Crabby about non-dairy alternatives can pipe up in the comments and offer advice. Crabby is more lactose-enthusiastic than lactose-intolerant, so she's never had to familiarize herself with what-all is out there.

So, to review: there was earlier research that seemed to suggest that eating and drinking lots of dairy products helped you lose weight. But more recently, thinking on this seems to have changed. The FTC and even made the Milk People stop using this claim in their ads. For more on this aspect, Diet Blog has a summary.

But what about calcium? Don't you need it for bone health? And isn't it better to get it from food than from supplements?

Well, yes, apparently. A recent study of calcium intake and bone health compared 3 groups of women:

Women who got 70% or more of their daily calcium from supplements;

Women who got 70% or more of their calcium from dairy products and other foods; and

Women who got their calcium more equally from both sources.

The researchers (from Washington University School of Medicine) found that women who got most of their calcium from food had healthier bones than women who got it mostly from supplements. And this was true even though the supplement takers had a higher average calcium intake.

But before you toss those supplements--the group that got their calcium from both sources had the highest intake and the healthiest bones.

And another recent study, of dairy consumption and health (this time looking at men, 2400 of the British variety) found that those who regularly consumed milk, cheese and yogurt were less likely to develop risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.

There is probably a lot more research about milk out there, but it's already getting pretty tedious and that feels like enough for today. Crabby promises she won't be this boring very often, but every now and then she reminds herself she has a Health blog and might want to do some occasional actual Health News reporting. Don't worry, it won't last long!

For much more entertaining health and fitness news, you're much better off visiting Sister Skinny or Fitness Fixation. Crabby knows she's mentioned both these blogs before, but hell, they're really great. And today is a Special Day over at Fitness Fixation, because fierce but adorable Kelly has been reduced to parading around in a leotard. She'll tell you why, in her usual demure and polite way.

And those of you who often comment? Do not feel like you have to say anything about the freakin' milk. Crabby's feelings will not be hurt if you find yourselves on other subjects, or without much to Moo about at all.