I’ve asked you, practically begged you, this week to give it a go trying homemade yogurt. Saving money and avoiding high fructose corn syrup are two good reasons, and here’s another: when you have so much yogurt on hand, you and your family will eat more of it. Considering how healthy yogurt is in so many ways (click here for health benefits), it’s one food you can certainly eat several times a day.
Yogurt has become a staple food in our house, for breakfast, lunch and snacks. Because there’s not the stigma of “using the little cups that are perfect for traveling or lunches,” we eat it for morning or afternoon (or even late night) snacks, and almost every lunch has a side of yogurt. My son even likes yogurt cheese and honey sandwiches, which makes a usually non-car-friendly food easy to travel with.
I’ve been thinking lately about the trade-ins, the “foods” we don’t eat because we’re having so much “real food” homemade yogurt:
- Cereals (expensive and debatable nutritionally)
- Munchy things like goldfish, pretzels, and chips. Not that we don’t have these things in our house at all, but we certainly don’t go through them very fast.
- Applesauce cups, a traditional lunchtime item, but virtually zero on the nutrition scale.
- Packaged cheese and crackers
- Fruit snacks
- Granola bars (except sometimes homemade)
- Even ice cream sometimes!
- What else do people pack in lunches that I’m not sad to be missing out on? Our lunches are usually leftovers, fruits, maybe veggies, and yogurt!
I strongly believe our family’s nutrition has been improved by our consumption of yogurt, with all its beneficial bacteria, calcium, and other nutrients. Since it’s so easy and inexpensive to make, I’m happy to provide my family with this good, REAL food!
See other Real Food entries here.
By the way, the Super Foods list has been reorganized a bit, ordered as the foods will appear at Kitchen Stewardship, and updated to include links to the Food for Thoughts and Monday Missions. See the post here.
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Katie, your lucky that your kids eat the yogurt so well, 3 of our 4 like it, but our oldest was too warped by all the years of “Trix” yogurt he ate before I got a clue about the junk I was feeding him!
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Thanks, Katie- you inspired me to start making my own yogurt again and eating more of it! So lazy of me not to have gotten out the yogurt maker lately when you do all that!
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Kelly, My husband likes it with sugar and fruit — frozen is best! — and he was raised on junk, too. Maybe there’s hope! I’d take tsp of sugar over the packaged stuff any day…
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Lindsay, You go girl!
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We love yougurt. Everytime I buy it (yuck) it is gone within a day. I wanna make it!! Already have been doing my own sourdough starter for 6 mo so should be able to do it. Do you sweet it for taste? What are some yummy (realistic) ways to sweeten it?
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Jill Reply:
November 3rd, 2011 at 7:43 am
My favorite way to sweeten our homemade yogurt is with real maple syrup. Yum! I just had some.
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Gia,
I also often put some granola on top. My kiddos eat it plain, and hubby puts 1 tsp sugar in a cup. One last non-sugar way to sweeten is to use unsweetened applesauce with a healthy amount of cinnamon – it tricks you into thinking it’s sweet enough!
Katie
If I’m sweetening a whole quart for adults, I use about 1/4 cup sugar and (opt.) a tsp of vanilla. For myself, I’ve been able to wean down to a drizzle of honey with the frozen fruit. Frozen fruit makes it seems like dessert!
Welcome to KS, and Good luck making it yourself!
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Forget the sugar, try sprinkling cinnamon or a pinch of cardamon. Just add it to your yogurt and fruit.
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I eat it with jam or preserves. Plenty of sugar in there to sweeten the whole bowl — just a couple of spoonfuls of jam for a cup of yogurt. Blackberry and apricot preserves are my two favorites!
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Homemade Counter-top Yogurt — Serving From Home // Aug 3, 2011 at 9:19 am
[...] cheap! And healthy! And did I mention easy? ;0) Check out Kitchen Stewardship’s post on why homemade yogurt is so great! You only need these 4 [...]