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I think someone has really mislead you on yoghurt. If you get plain, natural yoghurt it’s not ultra processed.

sellmesoap 1mo ago
Flavored yoghurt is often candy adjacent, but sneeks under the radar as a health food "It's probiotic!"
rpdillon 1mo ago
Yeah, this is totally true. A Greek yogurt is considered minimally processed, not ultra processed. The problem is, far and away, the majority of yogurt sold is fruit-flavored yogurt, which is considered ultra-processed. Icelandic yogurt and Greek yogurt are premium niche yogurts. I guess all I'm saying is that for the majority of people eating yogurt, it's an ultra-processed food.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
  The majority of people in which part of the world? Certainly not e.g. in the Eastern Med and the Balkans, I can assure you of that.
  - rpdillon 29d ago
    I just looked up global consumption.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 29d ago
      Sharing is caring.
maxerickson 1mo ago
It sort of illustrates the uselessness of the terms. Yogurt is made by sterilizing (likely homogenized) milk and introducing microorganisms that carry out some desired chemical reactions. They produce lactic acid, which is a stabilizer. Everyone apparently knows that those are good things, so they don't count.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
  >> They produce lactic acid, which is a stabilizer. Is it? The role of lactic acid in yogurt is to hydrolyze milk proteins and turn them into solids, so you can eat it with a spoon.
  - throw0101a 28d ago
    > The role of lactic acid in yogurt is to hydrolyze milk proteins and turn them into solids, so you can eat it with a spoon. These things exist on a spectrum: kefir has many of similar properties as yogurt but is more 'drinkable'.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 28d ago
      That's right. Kefir is essentially a mesophilic yogurt. I don't pretend to understand why but it seems the difference in texture has to do with the different organisms that produce one vs. the other (although the thermophilic bacteria used in yogurt-making -Lactobacilus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus I think- have also been found in kefir; but I don't know if they are very active given the lower temperature). To be fair, back when I used to make kefir it often came out quite firm to the point that I could lift it out of a bowl with a perforated laddle and eat it with a spoon. What seemed to make the difference was using non-homogenized milk rather than homogenized. Using unhomogenized milk from Jersey cows also seemed to do the trick but the result was a bit too fatty.
tptacek 1mo ago
No. And the way you're wrong about this is important. Any plain whole milk yogurt thickened or stabilized with starches or pectin is a UPF; Kroger's Plain Whole Milk, for instance, is a UPF and it isn't sweetened. (For what it's worth, I really dislike yogurt and would not in 1000 years consume a sweetened yogurt product, though I do work skyr into every other meal these days for protein-maxxing reasons).
YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
Nobody seems to have noticed the "product" next to "yogurt": >> * Almost all yogurt products, flavored or otherwise If we weren't on HN I'd say that's a subtle engagement hack calculated to generate maximum confusion and irate debate in the comments below. But we're on HN and good faith etc. So, yes, "yogurt products" are all going to be ultra-processed not least because they will have to destroy the gel matrix of yogurt to incorporate whatever other ingredients they must like fruit juice or sugar, stabilisers, emulsifiers etc. Actually I guess they must include the stabilisers and emulsifiers because they mix in flavours and therefore destroy the yogurt gel matrix, which would otherwise result in an unpleasant gloopy mess. Speaking of course in all this from the privilege of a summer in Greece where I've start every morning since June with a tub of 150g of fresh (not strained) goat's milk yogurt with the skin on and with a (European) teaspoonfull of honey. Not healthy, you understand. Not with all the saturated fats and sugars. But, boy, is it palatable.
- tptacek 1mo ago
  That's the point. The ultra-processing of shelf-stable unsweetened yogurt food products has nothing to do with engineering it for palatability. And yet they're UPFs, and you could easily ship a highly sweetened dessert yogurt product that would be far less healthy without tripping a UPF standard.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
    No you couldn't. The reason is you can't just mix stuff like sweeteners into yogurt and ship it or you end up with a gloopy goop as I say above. The thing that people don't get about yogurt is that it's a gel, and one with a very delicate structure to boot. The moment you so much as stick a spoon into yogurt you disturb the gel matrix and that causes whey to seep out, an effect called "syneresis". If you've ever tried the kind of yogurt I say above that I'm having for breakfast, you'd know that if you eat say half a tub and then leave the rest for a while and come back to it later you find it has turned into a watery mush that's not very appetising at all. A lot of good yogurt goes to waste like that because folks who want to maintain their waistline will eat some and leave the rest "for later", and it's a balancing act for producers to make yogurt tubs small enough that people will want to eat them in one go and large enough that it makes sense to sell them [1]. One traditional way to deal with syneresis is straining which produces what everyone else calls "Greek yogurt" and we, Greeks, call "strained yogurt" or "bag yogurt" (because traditionally it was strained through a linen bag). However, even strained yogurt suffers syneresis as long as it retains any moisture and as a result you still can't ship a tub of "Greek yogurt" with say fruit, or honey, mixed in just like that [2]. That's why you never get delicious FAGE yogurt with fruit already mixed in [3]. You also can't make yogurt with stuff in it from the get go, because yogurt starts as milk, therefore a liquid, and whatever you want to mix in it will sink to the bottom or float to the top before the milk has a chance to set. Some yogurts with fruit jams for example have the jams on the bottom because that way you just pour the milk on top and let it ferment and then you get jam with yogurt on top and you can scoop both in one spoonful. I've also seen home-made yogurts with fruit mixed in that stay at the top. But you can't just mix the jam or the fruit in the milk and expect it will stay mixed in when the milk sets. In order to sell yogurt with admixtures without it turning into a goopy gloop you have to stabilise its structure, so that's where the admixtures come in that cause sweetened yogurts to become UPFs. In other words, you need stabilizers. Then you probably also need emulsifiers to "correct" the texture. I don't eat that kind of stuff but I'm gonna bet that the sweeteners also end up being industrial-style ones like high fructose corn syrup or maltodextrin and so on, just for reasons of economies of scale and whatnot. So you end up with something that's many times removed from fresh yogurt that you can make in your own kitchen with milk, a thermometer and a bit of yogurt [4] and that counts as a "processed food" in NOVA terms. So, no, you can't just ship sweetened yogurt without it turning into a UPF. Or, perhaps you can if you're rally crafty about it, but it's not going to be easy, nor cheap, it's going to turn into a chemical monstrosity anyway, and nobody's gonna bother. Btw none of the above pertains to Skyr or similar products that I don't know anything about. I'm talking about bovine milk yogurt in the style traditionally made in the Eastern med and the Balkans. _______________________ [1] There's a bit of an exception in ewe's milk yogurt which is much firmer and suffers syneresis more gradually because of the higher protein content of sheep milk. Still, the largest ewe's milk yogurt I used to see was 250g and I don't see them anymore at all though possibly there's other reasons for that. I have never seen ewe's milk yogurt outside of Greece but I believe it's very common throughout the Balkans. [2] You can strain all the whey out of yogurt. But then you end up with cream cheese, not yogurt. [3] Btw the scene in Silicon Valley is probably the result of US teaspoons being bigger than European teaspoons. I can totally stick a teaspoon in the little jam tub in Greece. [4] It takes yogurt to make yogurt. I know. I was endlessly confused about that as a kid.

Flavored yoghurt is often candy adjacent, but sneeks under the radar as a health food "It's probiotic!"

Yeah, this is totally true. A Greek yogurt is considered minimally processed, not ultra processed. The problem is, far and away, the majority of yogurt sold is fruit-flavored yogurt, which is considered ultra-processed. Icelandic yogurt and Greek yogurt are premium niche yogurts. I guess all I'm saying is that for the majority of people eating yogurt, it's an ultra-processed food.

YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
The majority of people in which part of the world? Certainly not e.g. in the Eastern Med and the Balkans, I can assure you of that.
- rpdillon 29d ago
  I just looked up global consumption.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 29d ago
    Sharing is caring.

maxerickson 1mo ago

It sort of illustrates the uselessness of the terms. Yogurt is made by sterilizing (likely homogenized) milk and introducing microorganisms that carry out some desired chemical reactions. They produce lactic acid, which is a stabilizer. Everyone apparently knows that those are good things, so they don't count.

YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
>> They produce lactic acid, which is a stabilizer. Is it? The role of lactic acid in yogurt is to hydrolyze milk proteins and turn them into solids, so you can eat it with a spoon.
- throw0101a 28d ago
  > The role of lactic acid in yogurt is to hydrolyze milk proteins and turn them into solids, so you can eat it with a spoon. These things exist on a spectrum: kefir has many of similar properties as yogurt but is more 'drinkable'.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 28d ago
    That's right. Kefir is essentially a mesophilic yogurt. I don't pretend to understand why but it seems the difference in texture has to do with the different organisms that produce one vs. the other (although the thermophilic bacteria used in yogurt-making -Lactobacilus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus I think- have also been found in kefir; but I don't know if they are very active given the lower temperature). To be fair, back when I used to make kefir it often came out quite firm to the point that I could lift it out of a bowl with a perforated laddle and eat it with a spoon. What seemed to make the difference was using non-homogenized milk rather than homogenized. Using unhomogenized milk from Jersey cows also seemed to do the trick but the result was a bit too fatty.

tptacek 1mo ago

No. And the way you're wrong about this is important. Any plain whole milk yogurt thickened or stabilized with starches or pectin is a UPF; Kroger's Plain Whole Milk, for instance, is a UPF and it isn't sweetened. (For what it's worth, I really dislike yogurt and would not in 1000 years consume a sweetened yogurt product, though I do work skyr into every other meal these days for protein-maxxing reasons).

YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago

Nobody seems to have noticed the "product" next to "yogurt": >> * Almost all yogurt products, flavored or otherwise If we weren't on HN I'd say that's a subtle engagement hack calculated to generate maximum confusion and irate debate in the comments below. But we're on HN and good faith etc. So, yes, "yogurt products" are all going to be ultra-processed not least because they will have to destroy the gel matrix of yogurt to incorporate whatever other ingredients they must like fruit juice or sugar, stabilisers, emulsifiers etc. Actually I guess they must include the stabilisers and emulsifiers because they mix in flavours and therefore destroy the yogurt gel matrix, which would otherwise result in an unpleasant gloopy mess. Speaking of course in all this from the privilege of a summer in Greece where I've start every morning since June with a tub of 150g of fresh (not strained) goat's milk yogurt with the skin on and with a (European) teaspoonfull of honey. Not healthy, you understand. Not with all the saturated fats and sugars. But, boy, is it palatable.

tptacek 1mo ago
That's the point. The ultra-processing of shelf-stable unsweetened yogurt food products has nothing to do with engineering it for palatability. And yet they're UPFs, and you could easily ship a highly sweetened dessert yogurt product that would be far less healthy without tripping a UPF standard.
- YeGoblynQueenne 1mo ago
  No you couldn't. The reason is you can't just mix stuff like sweeteners into yogurt and ship it or you end up with a gloopy goop as I say above. The thing that people don't get about yogurt is that it's a gel, and one with a very delicate structure to boot. The moment you so much as stick a spoon into yogurt you disturb the gel matrix and that causes whey to seep out, an effect called "syneresis". If you've ever tried the kind of yogurt I say above that I'm having for breakfast, you'd know that if you eat say half a tub and then leave the rest for a while and come back to it later you find it has turned into a watery mush that's not very appetising at all. A lot of good yogurt goes to waste like that because folks who want to maintain their waistline will eat some and leave the rest "for later", and it's a balancing act for producers to make yogurt tubs small enough that people will want to eat them in one go and large enough that it makes sense to sell them [1]. One traditional way to deal with syneresis is straining which produces what everyone else calls "Greek yogurt" and we, Greeks, call "strained yogurt" or "bag yogurt" (because traditionally it was strained through a linen bag). However, even strained yogurt suffers syneresis as long as it retains any moisture and as a result you still can't ship a tub of "Greek yogurt" with say fruit, or honey, mixed in just like that [2]. That's why you never get delicious FAGE yogurt with fruit already mixed in [3]. You also can't make yogurt with stuff in it from the get go, because yogurt starts as milk, therefore a liquid, and whatever you want to mix in it will sink to the bottom or float to the top before the milk has a chance to set. Some yogurts with fruit jams for example have the jams on the bottom because that way you just pour the milk on top and let it ferment and then you get jam with yogurt on top and you can scoop both in one spoonful. I've also seen home-made yogurts with fruit mixed in that stay at the top. But you can't just mix the jam or the fruit in the milk and expect it will stay mixed in when the milk sets. In order to sell yogurt with admixtures without it turning into a goopy gloop you have to stabilise its structure, so that's where the admixtures come in that cause sweetened yogurts to become UPFs. In other words, you need stabilizers. Then you probably also need emulsifiers to "correct" the texture. I don't eat that kind of stuff but I'm gonna bet that the sweeteners also end up being industrial-style ones like high fructose corn syrup or maltodextrin and so on, just for reasons of economies of scale and whatnot. So you end up with something that's many times removed from fresh yogurt that you can make in your own kitchen with milk, a thermometer and a bit of yogurt [4] and that counts as a "processed food" in NOVA terms. So, no, you can't just ship sweetened yogurt without it turning into a UPF. Or, perhaps you can if you're rally crafty about it, but it's not going to be easy, nor cheap, it's going to turn into a chemical monstrosity anyway, and nobody's gonna bother. Btw none of the above pertains to Skyr or similar products that I don't know anything about. I'm talking about bovine milk yogurt in the style traditionally made in the Eastern med and the Balkans. _______________________ [1] There's a bit of an exception in ewe's milk yogurt which is much firmer and suffers syneresis more gradually because of the higher protein content of sheep milk. Still, the largest ewe's milk yogurt I used to see was 250g and I don't see them anymore at all though possibly there's other reasons for that. I have never seen ewe's milk yogurt outside of Greece but I believe it's very common throughout the Balkans. [2] You can strain all the whey out of yogurt. But then you end up with cream cheese, not yogurt. [3] Btw the scene in Silicon Valley is probably the result of US teaspoons being bigger than European teaspoons. I can totally stick a teaspoon in the little jam tub in Greece. [4] It takes yogurt to make yogurt. I know. I was endlessly confused about that as a kid.