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Healthiest Yogurt for Weight Loss

Yogurt 101: The Healthiest Options Available

By Clarissa Padua | July 8, 2022

Have you ever stood in the dairy aisle looking at the variety of yogurt and wondered which one  you should get? I always tell patients to read the nutrition label first to see the sugar content. 

While yogurt is a great high-protein, portable snack, some yogurts, both dairy and non-dairy, can be full of artificial sweeteners. Certain flavors can contain as much sugar as a candy bar or sometimes more. For example, the yogurt brand Fage has a Total 2% Honey flavor that contains 28 grams of sugar per serving. When compared to a Crunch Bar candy bar, which contains 24 grams of sugar, the yogurt has more sugar than the candy bar. This outweighs any other health benefits such as protein. 

Dairy vs Non-Dairy

Choosing dairy yogurt or non-dairy yogurt would ultimately depend on your tolerance and preference. If you are able to tolerate non-dairy yogurts better, stick with plant based yogurts such as coconut, soy, oat or almond milk. Some of the plant-based yogurt options are lower in protein when compared with dairy yogurt. For these brands, I recommend adding a scoop of your favorite protein powder.

Plain yogurt is always a good choice because it is lower in sugar but for other healthy options, you want to look for yogurt with 15 grams of sugar or less per serving.

Below I’ve listed some of the healthiest yogurt brand options that meet this criteria.

For more questions, give us a call at 908-481-1270.

Clarissa Padua, RD, is a registered dietitian at New Jersey Bariatric Center, a medical & surgical weight loss center with offices in Springfield, Somerville, Hoboken, East Brunswick, Sparta and Totowa, New Jersey. She provides pre-operative and post-operative nutritional counseling to New Jersey Bariatric Center’s Gastric Bypass, Gastric Sleeve, LAP-BAND (gastric band) and revision patients, in addition to dietary counseling for patients in our Medical Weight Loss program.
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