Think of your favorite market: the place where you chilled with your friends, bought all your stationery supplies from and where your first date also took place. But the question I want to ask is whether this nostalgia-filled market is home to a frozen yogurt store? I bet, yes.
According to a report from 2016, the frozen yogurt industry was predicted to $1bn by 2021 in India. One takeaway from this is that we all love eating frozen yogurt.
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Frozen yogurt popularly referred to as ‘Froyo’ is quite the rage for a variety of reasons.
It’s naturally non-fat or low-fat. Some people believe it to be a healthy alternative to ice-cream. Some love the fact that unlimited toppings and delicious flavors can be customised to suit almost every single person’s taste.
Oh, and probably the most important one: if done well, it’s a frozen treat most people love to show-off. Proof? The ever trending #FroYo on Instagram has 1.2 million posts!
But is frozen yogurt actually good for you like it claims to be? Let’s find out.
Let’s cover the basics first. Frozen yogurt is mainly made from a combination of yogurt, milk, sugar and cream. To make frozen yogurt, manufacturers mix together milk and sugar. They pasteurize the mixture, heating it to a high temperature to kill any harmful bacteria. The yogurt is then added and the mixture is allowed to sit for up to four hours before it’s frozen and served.
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The process for making frozen flavored yogurt requires an extra step and that is adding artificial sweeteners, because your strawberry froyo won’t taste like strawberry if not for the sweetener.
The adding of artificial sweeteners is why most diet experts are cutting out frozen yogurt from their patient’s diets.
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While most frozen yogurt is non-fat, the calories do add up.
The ‘plain’ or ‘original’ flavour of frozen yogurt has 35 calories per 20 grams. This means a medium size cup that can serve 350 grams actually has 350+ calories without toppings alone. If you go ahead and add toppings like chocolate chips, cookie dough or cotton candy you are looking at consuming a bowl of froyo with over 500 calories.
So if you were actually cutting back on calories from ice-cream by indulging in frozen yogurt, you really need to reconsider things.
Further, frozen yogurt is believed to be low in calories because the manufacturers are removing fat, which is not the case with ice-cream.
But who said fat is bad? Fat is an essential nutrient that you can’t stay without but the focus should be on choosing the healthiest fats available; think avocados. So just because something is fat-free doesn’t mean it’s healthy and froyo fits the bill.
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Our recommendation?
First, if you are one of those people who replace a meal by binge-eating ‘fat-free’ frozen yogurt, you need to stop. If you are someone who absolutely loves frozen yogurt then you should opt for a smaller serving and replace sugary toppings with fruit.
If you are someone who loves ice-cream but gave it up in favour of frozen yogurt, then you can get back to eating a small amount of the real stuff. Ice-cream in moderate amounts did nobody bad, ever.
Moderate consumption of frozen yogurt is ideal and recommended. Over-indulgence of anything including ‘fat-free’ frozen yogurt could certainly come back to haunt you so choose wisely.
Sources:
https://www.dairyreporter.com/Article/2016/05/25/Yogurt-market-can-hit-1bn-by-2021-in-India-Report