Thursday, February 4, 2010

Yogurt

Today, I went to the doctor for the first time in 2 years (I think). I've had a sore throat for a week, so I thought I should get it checked out. I was tested negative for strep and mono, but it was a good thing I went because the doctor prescribed some antibiotics for the ear infection I happened to develop this morning just before my appointment. While telling my mom about this, she recommended I eat lots of yogurt while on these antibiotics, and that got me thinking about yogurt.

Apparently, my mother has had quite an influence on me. Now, whenever I buy food, I make sure it has sugar. Either that or no sweeteners at all. None of this corn syrup stuff and especially no artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose. I was quite disappointed the day I discovered that my favorite yogurt has corn syrup, and even more disappointed when that special flavor I wanted to try only came in nonfat yogurt which has aspartame.

I've since become a huge fan of Trader Joe's Organic Strawberry Yogurt which I buy in the big container, and it usually lasts about a week. I also really like Archer Farms yogurt (from Target) which has my new favorite flavor, white cranberry strawberry. Not that you have to buy the low fat kind rather than the nonfat kind to avoid the fake sugar.

Still, I wonder about the amount of sugar in that yogurt. Are the benefits really outweighing the amount of sugar I eat? Maybe I should be eating the better Greek yogurt. However, I don't really care because I'm of the opinion that my body likes extra sugar, and I figure by eating yogurt, I'll crave less of mostly unhealthy foods like candy, cake, and ice-cream.

Stonyfield Farms also makes good, healthy yogurt, but it's too expensive for me. And just to spare you all the pain---I don't recommend yogurt flavors such as chocolate, pumpkin pie, and cinnamon roll.