As you may have ascertained, I love yogurt. Tangy, creamy and light – it is a wonderful and nutritious food. All too often however manufacturers manhandle yogurt in an attempt to inject flavor into my beloved dairy product. The outcomes of these alterations leave yogurt loaded with sugars and artificial flavors, often devoid of any real nutritional value. While chocolate and caramel flavored yogurt does exists – I’m looking at you Stonyfield Oikos – most often these manipulations are done in the name of fruit. Fruit, a food item so inherently associated with health and well being, more often than not translates into excess sugar and artificial dyes in my yogurt cup.
In this analysis I have examined blueberry yogurts, as these plump, bulbous berries are rank high on my list of favorite fruits and are the perfect yogurt addition, as they are already small and sweet enough to add to a yogurt bowl without manipulation. Unfortunately most yogurt manufactures do share my outlook.
Let us compare some ingredient information in eight popular blueberry yogurts:
| Brand and Product Name | Serving Size | Sugar | Ingredients contributing to flavor |
| Dannon Oikos Blueberry | 150g | 19g | Blueberries, sugar, fructose, natural flavor, carmine (for color) |
| Stonyfield Oikos Blueberry | 150g | 15g | Organic sugar, organic blueberries, natural flavor, organic elderberry juice (for color) |
| Dannon Activia Blueberry | 113g | 19g | Blueberry puree, sugar, fructose, natural flavor, carmine (for color) |
| Dannon Fruit on the Bottom Blueberry | 170g | 25g | Blueberries, sugar, fructose syrup, high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors |
| Dannon Light&Fit Blueberry | 170g | 11g | Fructose, blueberry puree, fructose, natural flavor, blue #1, red #40, aspartame, sucralose (splenda) |
| Stonyfield Lowfat Blueberry | 170g | 20g | Organic sugar, organic blueberries, natural flavor, organic elderberry juice (for color) |
| Yoplait Lite Blueberry Patch | 170g | 14g | High fructose corn syrup, sucralose (splenda), natural and artificial flavor, red #40, blue #1 |
| Chobani Blueberry | 170g | 20g | Blueberries, evaporated cane juice, natural flavors |
Half of these yogurt products contain more sugar than blueberries, as denoted by the order of ingredients. In the “light” varieties that appear lower in sugar, the primary sweeteners are zero-calorie splenda and aspartame.
Compare the flavored yogurt stats to a cup of plain yogurt with ¼ of a cup of fresh, sweet blueberries:
| Brand of Plain Yogurt | Serving Size, Yogurt | Sugar, Includes Berries and Yogurt |
| Dannon Oikos | 150g | 9.6g |
| Stonyfield Oikos | 150g | 9.6g |
| Stonyfield Lowfat | 170g | 14.6g |
| Chobani | 170g | 10.6g |
Bottom Line: Add your own blueberries, ya dope!
