How to Select Yogurt for a Low Carb Diet

Navigating the low-carb world can be difficult, especially because seemingly healthy foods like yogurt can end up being disastrous. Let us fill you in on how to pick the best yogurt for your diet.

Instructions

1

Head to the dairy aisle in your local grocery store.

2

The best yogurts for low-carb diets are low-fat yogurts with no added sugars. Ideally, they should contain live cultures, which are "good bacteria." Most yogurts with live cultures contain 7 or 8 grams of carbohydrates to begin with. The general belief (particularly according to the GO-Diet, which allows 8 oz of yogurt per day) is that bacteria continue to eat away at the lactose in yogurt over time, thereby decreasing the yogurt's lactose content. Since lactose is a form of sugar, there will be fewer carbohydrates in the yogurt as they are eaten away by the bacteria.

3

If you absolutely must have your yogurt sweet, add a low- or no-carb sweetener like sucralose or low-carb syrup.

4

You can also choose a yogurt that's already been sweetened with a no-carb sweetener. Most grocery stores contain yogurts that have been sweetened with sucralose or aspartame. This is really the worst of all the low-carb yogurt options. Plain, unprocessed yogurt is best.

5

Each low-carb diet has a different take on how much yogurt is allowed, so be sure to follow the amounts as described in literature on the diet. Atkins, for example, doesn't allow dairy in the first phase because of sugar alcohols that are present in dairy products. However, low-carb yogurt can be added in later. The South Beach Diet allows for one-half cup of plain yogurt per day.