10 Yogurts That Have A Surprising Amount Of Sugar In Them
Whether grabbing one on your way out the door in the morning for a quick and easy daily breakfast or tossing one into your lunchbox to keep your midday, dining on light and simple yogurt is an easy food to deal with. But as probiotic- and calcium-rich as this dairy favorite is, some yogurt options also contain a considerable amount of sugar. It isn't entirely unexpected, since the base ingredient in yogurt is lactose-loaded milk. Unless you're opting for a reduced-sugar or sugar-free option that helps keep the sugar content under control, you might be taking in a whopping amount of sugar along with the good bacteria, vitamins, and minerals. Sugar also adds to the calorie count, which can be counterproductive to a mindful eater's health goals.
We wondered which yogurts might have the highest concentration of sugar in a serving-sized carton. It turned out to be enough to make the most thoughtful consumers inadvertently derail their efforts to eat well without realizing it. Using a 2000-calorie-per-day diet, a recommended daily allowance of sugar is 36 grams for men and 25 grams for women, according to the American Heart Association. You may be taken aback to find out that even the simplest options like vanilla and plain yogurt have enough sugar to make you think twice about what you're eating. We certainly were. Read on to discover which yogurts fail when it comes to keeping the lid on the sugar content.
Read more: 16 Little-Known Facts About Salt
1. Dannon Low-Fat Vanilla
Vanilla is one of the most straightforward flavors in the spectrum. Who would ever expect Dannon yogurt includes a colossal 22 grams of sugar per serving of its low-fat vanilla yogurt? It would be less surprising to find this much sugar in kid-friendly Danimals, where sweetness is the point, even if it's ill-advised to tempt young eaters. But finding it in yogurt intended for adults is stunning, especially in a selection that's more of a non-flavor. There's no fruit at the bottom, no tangy swirl spun through the center, and no extra blast of palate-smacking essence to complement the core taste. With nothing but yogurt in the cup, having almost a full day's sugar in a single serving seems excessive.
What non-yogurt foods deliver 22 grams of sugar in a single serving? Five Oreos will net you nearly 23 grams, which isn't necessarily a fair comparison, since the other nutrients offered in yogurt aren't present in these dunkable delights. But if watching your sugar intake is a necessity, Dannon Low-Fat Vanilla yogurt isn't going to help.
2. Yoplait Raspberry Mousse Whips
Yoplait provides one of the more luxurious yogurt experiences on the market, shaking up the formula to include enticing dessert flavors and lighter-than-usual textures. After all, marketing yogurt as dessert-level dining is sure to attract a broader audience. If you favor a flavor Yoplait Whips! Raspberry Mousse, you get a fluffy cup that's comparable to whipped cream. Unfortunately, it also means you get about as much sugar as you'd find in an actual dessert. With 22 grams in a single carton, you're taking in more than half a day's serving before you even get through your lunch hour. If you were downing candy by the handful, you might be prepared for such a sugar shock. But from a presumably healthy yogurt? Wow.
To get a similar sugar in your non-yogurt consumption, you could drink a full 8-ounce cup of orange juice, which presents between 20 and 26 grams. It's not preferable in either form, but the known sugar content in the juice has been called out as an issue by nutrition experts even with the other nutrients found in the beverage. So, if this much sugar is surprising when found in juice, it's mind-blowing to be discovered in yogurt.
3. Silk Vanilla Soymilk Yogurt Alternative
Simply removing the lactose-laden dairy like Silk does with its plant-based yogurts doesn't necessarily mean the sugar content drops. Silk Vanilla Soymilk yogurt is a prime example. This dairy alternative may eliminate animal-based ingredients, but it includes 18 grams of sugar, around half of the daily recommended allowance for men and more than half for women. While vegans will appreciate the use of soymilk, anyone diving into a serving should understand how much sugar is involved with shifting over to this cruelty-free substitute, even with a flavor as unadorned as vanilla.
To get 18 grams of sugar, you can eat one serving of Silk Vanilla Soymilk yogurt, or you can one Little Debbie Nutty Buddy; in fact, you'll only be getting 16 grams in one of those. Of course, you won't be getting the calcium or vitamins that come with the yogurt. But you can also find a yogurt that gives you all of that without clobbering you with more sugar than a snack cake.
4. Oui Honey
Yoplait takes a more natural direction with its Oui collection, presented as French-style yogurt sold in glass jars. But a yogurt with both sugar and honey is bound to load up on the sweetness factor. And while it's logical to think that would facilitate a reduction of sugar, the reality is that Oui packs its serving with 19 grams of sugar, a combination of lactose, cane sugar, and organic honey. That's enough to take your taste buds on a trip to Paris and back again by the time you get to the bottom of the jar.
To visualize what 19 grams of sugar actually is, picture yourself eating one and a half servings, or 1.5 cups, of Lucky Charms cereal. Can you see it happening? With those, you'll be getting 18 grams of sugar, one less than what Oui Honey yogurt gives you. It's strange to think that a notoriously sugary breakfast cereal could have considerably less sugar than a single serving of yogurt. But when it comes to keeping the sugar to a sensible quantity, Oui is actually a "no."
5. Noosa Lemon
Sure, lemon is a tart taste that's probably going to need some sweetener in order to make it more palatable. But it couldn't possibly take 37 grams of sugar to accomplish that ... could it? Noosa Lemon yogurt seems to consider it necessary. This is the highest sugar content we found in a yogurt, and it's a whopper of a number — more than a full day's sugar allowance for both men and women. It doesn't matter if the product under the lid tastes like lemon chiffon pie filling; adding this much sugar to a supposedly healthful dairy dish is problematic for yogurt fans.
What else in the grocery store shares 37 grams of sugar, maybe something you'd expect to be sugar-loaded? A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola carries 39 grams of sugar into your system, which is close enough to draw the comparison: Eating a tub of Noosa Lemon yogurt is more of a sugar bomb than a can of Coke. We knew there'd be a high-sugar competitor in the round-up, but we weren't expecting it to be on a par with soda. What a revelation.
6. Mountain High Strawberry
Mountain High Strawberry yogurt is a great example of how fruit-sweetened yogurt also adds straight-up sugar to ensure a sweet flavor profile. While the ingredient list for this brand does include strawberries, they come in after milk and cane sugar, which means the first three elements include sugar in various forms. Knowing this, it doesn't come as much of a surprise that a serving totals out to 24 grams of sugar. Maybe the name Mountain High is a reference to the size of the pile made by the sugar before it's added to the mixture.
It's interesting to note that a Heath bar also contains 24 grams of sugar. Having as much sugar as chocolate-coated toffee probably isn't the most advisable way to start your day, considering the crash that comes after your blood sugar spikes. But you run the risk of experiencing the same energy-depleting effect after eating a serving of Mountain High Strawberry yogurt. That's enough to make you reconsider including this yogurt in your early morning meal. Or any meal, for that matter.
7. Lucerne Vanilla
If you're going to indulge in a food containing almost a day's worth of sugar, wouldn't you expect it to be something along the lines of a slice of chocolate cake or a salted caramel cookie? Those aren't the healthiest choices, but they are where the sugar content isn't surprising. But if you aren't careful, you could get the same amount in a serving of Lucerne Vanilla yogurt. This Albertsons brand offers 27 grams of sugar, extreme for a single food purported to be nutritious. Think about adding granola or fruit to complete the meal or even using it as a base for yogurt bark, and you're looking at a full day's sugar allowance — or possibly more.
To find another food that includes 27 grams of sugar but in non-yogurt form, look no further than the Starbucks bakery case, the maple pecan muffin in particular. There's an equal amount of sugar in this cupcake-adjacent baked treat as in a serving of Lucerne Vanilla yogurt. The calories, fat grams, and cholesterol are much higher in the muffin, but we're talking sugar here, and the math on that ingredient makes these two products equal (but not Equal).
8. Kroger Vanilla
Picking up a carton of Kroger Vanilla yogurt will save you cash over buying a better-named brand. But it won't necessarily save you when it comes to sugar content. A serving of this subtly flavored yogurt rings up at 22 grams of sugar, an oddly high number for a selection that doesn't have anything to offer but vanilla. You may eat it all on its own and keep your sugar intake at an already too-high number for a single meal, but you'll likely want to doctor it up with a little jam or maybe some natural maple syrup to turn up the flavor, which will only compound the sugar component.
Another dairy product that has around 21 grams of sugar is Breyers Cookies and Creme Ice Cream. In fact, you can shave off a gram and keep the calculation at 21 grams for a serving of that sweet stuff. And though you aren't likely to have ice cream for breakfast, you'll be impacting your body sugar-wise in the same way with a dish of Kroger Vanilla yogurt. Breakfast shouldn't be this difficult.
9. Great Value Strawberry Banana
Doubling up the fruit seems to keep the sugar content riding high in a cup of Great Value Strawberry Banana yogurt — 22 grams, to be exact. On the ingredient list, low-fat milk is followed by sugar, strawberries, and fructose, imbuing this silky swirl with four forms of sugar right off the bat. There's a little more coming in the banana purée found further down the list. So, yes, Great Value does fill the recipe with sugar upon sugar upon sugar, and even though some of it is fruit-based, the label calls out 16 grams as added sugar, which isn't a great ratio.
Consider this: If you added a whole banana and a strawberry to plain yogurt, the additional fruit would total 15 grams of sugar or so, depending on the size of the fruit. For yogurt lovers hoping to trim the unnecessary added sweetener in their eating lift, adding some fresh fruit to low-fat plain yogurt could be worth the trouble.
10. The Greek Gods Maple With Honey
The popularity of Greek yogurt has singled it out as a more healthful form of the food, with extra protein for fitness fanatics who love keeping their macros in check. But The Greek Gods Maple with Honey yogurt comes up shockingly far behind in the sugar race, fitting a supernatural 23 grams into a serving. The ingredient run-down displays cane sugar, brown cane sugar, sugar syrup, and molasses, which is more sugar than you can shake a (candy) stick at.
To take in 23 grams of sugar, you could also eat both cookies in a Twix bar, but that would be a nutritional compromise that you wouldn't mistake for a healthy move. Unfortunately, you'd be making the same choice sugar-wise by scooping up The Greek Gods yogurt into your breakfast or lunch bowl, even with the natural-sounding combination of maple and honey in the name. Remember: Just because the gods have spoken, doesn't mean you have to listen.
How We Chose Our Yogurts
We checked the most familiar yogurt brands found in the dairy case and looked for the options with the most sugar. Some flavors within the brands have less sugar than others, which helped us understand that simply thinking of Yoplait as either a high or low-sugar yogurt assumes that all Yoplait yogurt is equal. We also made comparisons between the sugar content of each yogurt and items like desserts, juices, and treats. This helped us illustrate the quantity of sugar each yogurt contains in relation to familiar high-sugar foods that aren't considered healthy by nature.
Finding fruit- and dessert-flavored yogurts to be higher in sugar was fully expected. The milk used to make yogurt contains lactose, a dairy-based sugar that can be removed in favor of alternative sweeteners to create sugar-free yogurts. What surprised us most was finding a high sugar content in so many vanilla yogurts. Is the reasoning that vanilla is too plain to delight eaters on its own and needs extra sugar to become palatable? Maybe so. Whatever the reason, our belief that a plainer flavor would include less sugar was easily dispelled by our research.
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