The yogurts are recognized superfoods throughout childhood and adolescence, even more than the milk itself from which they come, mainly because they are more comfortable to absorb than this. But since we understand that not all those that exist in the market have the same score- some may include more sugar than a soft drink – we are going to try to find the healthiest yogurts for children.
Major properties of yogurts
Yogurts have a wide variety of privileges for our bodies. Do you want to know all of them?
- Due to their dairy source, they hold calcium, the most essential mineral to assure strong bones, and vitamin D, vital for the absorption and obsession of calcium to the bone. [1]
- Besides, it also holds phosphorus, vital for the bones, particularly because yogurt (as in milk) has a certain calcium/phosphorus ratio, guaranteeing its optimization.
- Yogurts are loaded in other vitamins, both water-soluble and fat-soluble, aside from vitamin D, and they also carry excellent quality protein.
- Being a fermented product, the sugars have been converted into lactic acid, so yogurt holds either minimal quantities of lactose or, it may also be lactose- free, being suitable for lactose-intolerant children eat them.
- Includes live microorganisms, therefore it must be stored in refrigerators. These dairy ferments are efficient for the transformation of lactose into lactic acid. The specific strains of yogurt are two lactic bacteria.
Read Also: Healthy Food For Your 2-Year-Old baby
List of healthiest yogurts for children
Despite this, in the supermarket freezers, we can see such a type of yogurts and dairy products that the choice when deciding the best one or healthiest yogurts for children becomes difficult, particularly if we take into account the commercial campaigns that are made on many of them.
In the first place, we can separate two large groups, natural yogurts and the rest, those with flavors, both artificial or from the fruit they carry. All of them can be in a liquid form or to consume with a spoon.
The basic natural yogurt – sadly frequently hard to find – must include milk and the two dairy ferments mentioned above, individually and exclusively, being the best and the healthiest yogurts that we could offer to our children.
Oftentimes the list of ingredients is lengthened, including cream or powdered milk in its preparation, usually to make the taste more creamy. Therefore, yogurts such as the so-called creamy or Greek ones are obtained.
Yogurts are acidic, due to the amount of lactic acid that is produced in the fermentation of lactose. So it is very usual for these basic natural yogurts to be added to sugar, honey, artificial sweeteners, becoming the ones we know like sugary or sugared yogurts.
Additionally, other bacteria, identified by the name of probiotics, including other strains of lactic bacteria and/or bifidobacteria, can be added to the strains capable of making the yogurt. They can also be identified as “active Bifidus”. These bacteria are 100% safe for the health of the user, and frequently, their promotion campaign guarantees that they are advantageous to health in one way or another – depending on the strain in question – either for the gastrointestinal tract or to develop defenses.
For use in food, they have been widely examined by scientists and researchers, and to associate health advantages to them they have been an element of research studies for years and probably important results have been taken in cell lines (in the laboratory) or animals of experimentation. Sadly, it is not always simple to extrapolate the results achieved in the laboratory with what happens in real life, so the advantages may not be as relevant.
The second big group is flavored yogurts, which can also hold probiotics following the main bacteria. Flavored yogurts may include fruit or contain artificial colors to affect the color of the fruit. This group of yogurts also includes sugar or artificial sweeteners, in addition to other types of additives and stabilizers, making them less suitable for children.
Although plain yogurt without sugar is the healthiest and most appropriate for the children in the house, we can improve ourselves with the labeling to determine how healthy one or the other is, checking that the list of ingredients is as short as possible, avoiding sugar and additives.