Question about yogurt

MsWoggy

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  1. Vegan newbie
Hi everyone, I eat vegan food 75% of the time and I'm working towards higher. The reason is that I am 62 and worry about heart attacks and strokes so low saturated fat is important to me. My question is wouldn't it be better to eat non fat organic greek yogurt vs non dairy yogurts that have saturated fat?
 
my suggestion is to stick with vegan products. Sure, sat fat is something to be avoided. but so is cholesterol, which is not found in vegan foods.

Also, I don't think there is much benefit to either kind of yogurt. My sister and I have been trying to figure out the benefits of probiotics and for a while, it was making us crazy.

there are a lot of unsubstantiated claims about probiotics. but there is almost no medical evidence that they are important.

It is even questionable that the live bacteria in yogurt even makes it to your large intestine. the stomach acid is pretty hard on them.

And our guts have lots of different types (species) of bacteria. Recent studies estimate the number of species to be in the thousands. When you look at a container of yogurt it usually has just one (lactobacillus). Even the fancy kinds never have more than 15.

If you have taken antibiotics it probably is a good idea to jump-start the bacteria in your gut. but I would use one of those "timed release" probiotic formulas. They have around a dozen species and there is a better chance they survive the journey to the large intestine.

And MAYBE it is a good idea to add some bacteria on a regular basis. I like sauerkraut anyway so that is my main "supplement"

but here is a list of some more


IMHO, the best way to keep the good bacteria in your gut happy is to feed them. Not with sugar and fat which is what yogurt contains, but with fiber that is only found in plant foods.
 
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Thanks so much for your reply. I basically eat yogurt with fruit as a substitute for ice cream which I gave up. I just tried the coconut yogurt and it was good. There's probably vegan ice cream isn't there? I haven't looked.
 
Thanks so much for your reply. I basically eat yogurt with fruit as a substitute for ice cream which I gave up. I just tried the coconut yogurt and it was good. There's probably vegan ice cream isn't there? I haven't looked.
There is lots of vegan ice cream, but IMO it falls inline with vegan 'junk food.' Almost all are high in some kind of oil - usually coconut oil - and also high in sugar, as are vegan yogurts. I would suggest making your own "nice cream" from frozen bananas. It's super easy and really good!
I usually keep a few banana chunks in the freezer for when I'm feeling like something sweet and cold. Just google "banana nice cream" and you'll find a ton of recipes, but you really don't need to add much. I also snack on dates and walnuts to cure any 'sweet tooth' I might have. IMO, there's nothing health-promoting about yogurt - frozen or otherwise, if that is your concern. If you want to take a probiotic, I'd just buy a good one from a health food store.

And no, I do not believe yogurt (Greek, vegan, or otherwise) is better than ice cream, from a health perspective (it's certainly not better for the cows).
 
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TR is right. making your own ice cream from frozen bananas is the best sub/alternative. You don't even have to use a frozen banana if you don't have one.

Those little rocket blenders are a good investment. way easy to prepare and wash.


Hey check out some of these ideas


Haggen Daz, So Delicious, and Ben and Jerry's, all have really good flavors of vegan ice cream. But try to have them for special treats. They are not particularly healthy either.
 
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Normally I make my frozen banana "ice cream" in my one-speed rocket blender. Last night I made it in my food processor with 10 speeds. Started slow and worked my way up to high. Stopped once half way and used a spatula to get the stuff off the sides and back down.

Anyway, I was shocked by the difference. I mean it tasted the same but now it really looked like soft serve. Gonna try some of those flavors mentioned in the article next.
 
Research is showing that saturated fat is not as bad for people as we once thought and is, in fact, necessary for myelination of nerve fibers. The myths about coconut oil being bad for us have been debunked.
 
Research is showing that saturated fat is not as bad for people as we once thought and is, in fact, necessary for myelination of nerve fibers. The myths about coconut oil being bad for us have been debunked.

Yeah. nutrition science can be confusing. I just read another article on this recently. I'll have to check my browser history and see if I can post a link to it.
But one of the many issues is that studying nutrition is almost always hard. And then there is just the fake science. The "sugar people" will fund studies and only publish the ones that blame fat. or vice-versa.
You can almost always look at the hard science to get a better idea of the truth. And the truth is that we don't need ANY saturated fat in our diets. Our bodies can produce all the sat fat we need all on its own. And most of us (including me) get more than the mRDA of all the other kinds of fat without even trying. Or while still trying to minimize fat intake.

 
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I've gone back to making "banana ice cream" in my rocket blender. It's just a little easier. (the blender lives on the counter, the food processor in a cabinet. and has more parts to clean). But adding a little water and a pinch of salt improves its texture a lot.
 
I suppose it all depends on who you ask. So much of the stuff we read is just opinions repeated over and over until they become gospel truth. All "scientific" research can be skewed one way or the other. I actually worked in a research lab in college.....I learned that big pharmaceutical companies will cut off funding to scientists who report research results that don't enhance their bottom line. The results of the research so often depend on who's funding the research.

Here's some interesting stuff which leans toward the opinion that saturated fat, in general, is not bad. The reason we were told coconut oil was the worst of all the fats is because it contains the highest amount of saturated fat. https://wellnessmama.com/1265/saturated-fat/

I know our diets contribute to heart disease and our genes contribute much more to heart disease. Our livers manufacture cholesterol - and some of us are genetically predisposed to manufacture much more cholesterol than others.

For many years we were told coffee was the devil - now coffee is the savior. I don't trust scientific research on food much. I think everything is fine in moderation and I would not worry about the small amount of coconut oil present in some yogurt - as long as I wasn't eating quarts of yogurt every day.

I wonder if there have been any real research studies done to determine, scientifically, if vegans have healthier hearts than non vegans? I know we have a lot of anecdotal evidence.
 
There are lots of very healthy vegans and lots of very unhealthy vegans. Veganism is not primarily about health, it just tends to be a by product. There are many of us who are 'beyond vegan' in that we try to live a whole food plant-based lifestyle with minimal added oils, salt and sugar (aka SOS).

We have had many discussions on this forum about oils and there are many opinions and one of the conclusions is that the younger you are the more leeway you have to add some oils to your diet. The older or more obese you are the less leeway you have. If you have heart issues, type II diabetes or other issues then limiting it is a good idea. We do need some fats for health, we do not "need" oils.

Emma JC
 
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Regardless of the studies, oil is just empty calories. there is a term in economics, which I have forgotten the name of. but it means that if you buy something there is also the cost of what you then can't buy. Food is like that. So you add some oil (100 calories per tbsp) and get almost no nutrition when instead you could have eaten a cantaloupe.

But 100 calories may not be that crucial when your daily meal plan is 3000 calories.
 
Regardless of the studies, oil is just empty calories. there is a term in economics, which I have forgotten the name of. but it means that if you buy something there is also the cost of what you then can't buy. Food is like that. So you add some oil (100 calories per tbsp) and get almost no nutrition when instead you could have eaten a cantaloupe.

But 100 calories may not be that crucial when your daily meal plan is 3000 calories.

My idea of heaven is to be able to eat 3000 calories a day! Can you imagine? Oh yeah.......I USED to be able to eat that much......when I wasn't working so many hours and had a lot more time to be physically active. Sigh.
 
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My idea of heaven is to be able to eat 3000 calories a day! Can you imagine? Oh yeah.......I USED to be able to eat that much......when I wasn't working so many hours and had a lot more time to be physically active. Sigh.

yes! maybe even 5000. 6 beers and a bag of potato chips with dip!
And heading over to the donut place at 3 AM with the munchies and getting a fresh bear claw.

Sheesh. Between that and the unsafe driving practices. the killer playground apparatuses, the lack of seatbelts and bike helmets. I sometimes wonder how I lived this long.
 
For me, the choice to eliminate oil is prevention (why wait until I need to eliminate oils and sat. fat when I could prevent myself from getting there in the first place?), and the empty calorie thing. Eliminating it means I can eat more actual food which has actual nutrient value. Focusing on nutrient density foods makes me think of my food as vitamins. It just seems to make sense. Also, I think it's worth mentioning that one of Dr. Greger's videos pointed to the evidence that the risk associated with the consumption of oils and sat. fat are minimized when consuming them greens. So if I do end up consuming oil (which is inevitable with basically anything outside of my home), I try to eat a lot of greens with my meal.