Frozen Yogurt - The More Bacteria the Better

Are germs driving us crazy? Apparently, yes. I walked into a nice diner in Greenwich, CT yesterday and the first thing I saw was a hand sanitizer set up at the doorway. I care more about the staff having clean hands. There's a tirade waiting to happen about the omnipresence of anti-bacterials creating a races of super-resistant bugs, but having caught a bug myself I'm too tired to summon up the energy.

Being the perverse sort that I am, my mind latched on to the counterexample, the times when more bacteria are better for you, not worse. That's the world of probiotics. Yogurt is the most famous and most familiar example. The "good" bacteria in yogurt are helpful in many ways. For those of us with lactose intolerance, their best feature is that they literally manufacture the enzyme lactase, and lactase is what digests lactose. That makes yogurt "auto-digesting," which means that it is better tolerated than almost any other dairy product.

The catch is a small one. The bacteria has to be in "live and active" colonies. Dead bacteria don't manufacture lactase. They don't hurt you any either. The bacteria begin to die off as soon as conditions are no longer optimal for them. By the time you eat any yogurt, there will be fewer good bacteria than in the beginning. No big deal.

One thing that leads to sub-optimal conditions is cold. That leads to an immediate and obvious question: can frozen yogurt still have live and active cultures? This question is huger than ever since the craze for frozen yogurt has moved from the trendiest portions of the coasts (see Yogurt is Hot Hot Hot from back in 2008) to every mall in America.

The answer to the big question is a qualified yes. Some cultures can survive the production process. Probably as importat, the newer, tarter frozen yogurt recipes depend on more of the lactose being converted to lactic acid. It's likely that most of what you try will be well tolerated.

Just for fun, I'm passing along an interesting chart I found on the Yogen Früz blog. I'm not showing it to endorse Yogen Früz. I've had it, and it's fine, but I have no idea how well it compares to the rest of the frozen yogurts in the world. Moreover, any chart issued by one company to tout its superiority is suspect. It may be perfectly accurate, but you shouldn't expect it to tell a full and objective story. All I want it to accomplish is to show to you that an independent testing agency, in this case Brazilian Proteste Consumers Association, can find cultures in frozen yogurt.



More is better for cultures. If you have any concerns, ask at the shop if they have the equivalent numbers available there or on their website. I'm just happy that a hot trend turns out to be something that we in the lactose community can enjoy, for a change.

LI Celebrity Video: Devin Hester for Berry Chill

I first wrote about Berry Chill a few months ago when the store opened in Chicago.

Barry Chill Yogurt Bar press release.

Berry Chill opened its first location in [Chicago in] January 2008. Two more locations are planned to open in the upcoming months. Berry Chill provides their customers with a daily menu of Original chilled yogurt and rotating flavors that include Chocolate Amaretto, Pina Colada, and Pink Guava (lactose-free). Customers can customize their yogurt or choose from a list of signature creations.

Review of Berry Chill from the Chicago Maroon.

Berry Chill apparently is trying to get a lot bigger than just a few local stores. They recruited football star Devin Hester and put a 30-second commercial up on YouTube. You can see it above.

And the cool thing is that Devin Hester is lactose intolerant.

Berry Chill, Chicago's first all natural yogurt bar, today launches a 30-second digital video commercial starring Chicago Bears wide receiver Devin Hester. Hester is known for his lightning-quick decisions on the field, earning him the nickname "Anytime" -- the inspiration behind the 30-second online video available now at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBeobWHQ5Uk.

The Berry Chill video opens with Devin Hester on the football field for the kick-off. As the ball comes toward him, he decides whether to "wave fair catch," "take a knee" or "run like hell," and graphics show his thought process as computerized options. Later, he applies the same precise decision-making at Berry Chill, only this time he's choosing his favorite toppings. http://www.berrychill.com/devinhester "I've been a fan of Berry Chill yogurt since this summer, when I discovered that it's lactose free," said Devin Hester, who is lactose intolerant. "It's the first time I've been able to enjoy chilled yogurt, and I really appreciate that it's high in protein, too."

Yogen Früz Comes to Rochester - and Lots of Other Places

Yogen Früz may be the largest chain of yogurt franchises in the world, with over 1100 stores in 20 countries. And they're expanding like mad.

From their press release:

The Yogen Früz menu is comprised of its signature "Blend It" frozen yogurt offering a combination of low-fat, non-fat or no-sugar-added frozen yogurt with an extensive variety of flash-frozen fresh fruit custom blended for each customer. Yogen Früz also offers their Tart "Top It" soft serve frozen yogurt, a refreshing yogurt with the customers' choice of a wide range of delicious fresh fruit and dry toppings. Other menu selections include yogurt and non-dairy smoothies, as well as a variety of healthy additions and beverages. This contemporary menu design and packaging subtly reinforce the healthy snack brand positioning and point of difference.

A unique ingredient to all Yogen Früz low-fat and non-fat yogurt products as well as the dairy smoothies is that all are packed with Probiotic cultures. Probiotic cultures have been shown to promote a healthy digestive system, improve mineral absorption, fortify the immune system, manage lactose intolerance and even help lower cholesterol. Yogen Früz has more than 17 million live Probiotic cultures per gram compared to as few as 69,000 for other brands, making their great tasting healthy snack alternatives even healthier. In a further market innovation, Yogen Früz maintains an industry leadership position by proudly placing key nutritional information on its menu for everyone to see (calorie and fat content).

Where will you see these new stores?

Yogen Früz plans to open stores in Hawaii, Orange County, Los Angeles, Virginia, Washington DC, Maryland, Chicago, Puerto Rico, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Miami and Upstate New York.

Did you catch that Upstate New York bit? For a rare change, Upstate New York means Rochester. Why do I care? I live here. I've been watching the revived yogurt craze from a distance, wistfully. And now I get to take part.

The first Yogen Früz store in the area will open in Eastview Mall on November 28. Plans are for 15 additional stores to be built in the area.

Fifteen? Fifteen new yogurt stores in Rochester? And 100 in upstate over the next five years? That's what the Democrat & Chronicle reported.

Yogen Früz must think that it's the best and most addictive yogurt in the universe to support that many stores. Admittedly, the chain started in Canada and so they must know the part about the six-month long winters. I'm still flabbergasted.

Check back in five years to see how they do.

Answers to Questions from Readers, Part 18b

Q. Is "Lecithin" a lactose milk product? It seems as if it is derived from a Latin root word for milk, and therefore I am afraid to eat anything containing it without taking a lactase tablet.

A. My dictionary shows it as coming from the Greek for egg yolk, which is quite correct. It has nothing to do with milk.

Q. I have noticed on frozen yogurt labels that most lack acidophilus. Does acidophilus lose something in freezing?

A. If you look at most yogurt packages, you'll see a label or a seal that takes about "live and active cultures." If the cultures aren't live then they won't do much of anything for you. Frozen yogurt has a problem this way. It's not quite as simple as saying that freezing kills the cultures - it seems to depend more on the exact manufacturing process as well as on how much culture is used - but finding frozen yogurt that is as tolerable as regular yogurt is going to be hit or miss. I know that I sometimes have very different reactions even to a familiar brand. All you can do is try different brands to see if one works.

Q. How many grams of lactose in a "serving" of milk chocolate?

A. I've never seen a number. I suspect that's because recipes for milk chocolate can vary sufficiently that analysis of any one is not very meaningful. For what its worth, there's probably a lot more chocolate than milk by weight in milk chocolate. A 1 ounce candy bar would therefore have much less than a gram of lactose. Not very much.

Q. I keep seeing ingredients like malted barley, malted this and malted that. I used to drink malts and malted milk when I was young. Is there any kind of milk in "malt"?

A. The only milk in malted milk is in the milk. Any malt by itself should be milk-free. And "malted" barley or any grain merely means sprouted grain.

Answers to Questions from Readers, Part 17

Q. Is "Lecithin" a lactose milk product? It seems as if it is derived from a Latin root word for milk, and therefore I am afraid to eat anything containing it without taking a lactase tablet.

A. My dictionary shows it as coming from the Greek for egg yolk, which is quite correct. It has nothing to do with milk.

Q. I have noticed on frozen yogurt labels that most lack acidophilus. Does acidophilus lose something in freezing?

A. If you look at most yogurt packages, you'll see a label or a seal that takes about "live and active cultures." If the cultures aren't live then they won't do much of anything for you. Frozen yogurt has a problem this way. It's not quite as simple as saying that freezing kills the cultures - it seems to depend more on the exact manufacturing process as well as on how much culture is used - but finding frozen yogurt that is as tolerable as regular yogurt is going to be hit or miss. I know that I sometimes have very different reactions even to a familiar brand. All you can do is try different brands to see if one works.

Q. How many grams of lactose in a "serving" of milk chocolate?

A. I've never seen a number. I suspect that's because recipes for milk chocolate can vary sufficiently that analysis of any one is not very meaningful. For what its worth, there's probably a lot more chocolate than milk by weight in milk chocolate. A 1 ounce candy bar would therefore have much less than a gram of lactose. Not very much.

Q. I keep seeing ingredients like malted barley, malted this and malted that. I used to drink malts and malted milk when I was young. Is there any kind of milk in "malt"?

A. The only milk in malted milk is in the milk. Any malt by itself should be milk-free. And "malted" barley or any grain merely means sprouted grain.

Can't Tolerate a Bit of Lactose. Really?

Vicky Ferguson's food column in the Grand Rapids Press tackles a lactose intolerance issue.

A friend says she has lactose intolerance. She insists she cannot tolerate even the least bit of milk in food. She can't tolerate cheese but says she's OK after eating frozen yogurt. How could it be?

How could it be, indeed?

I often get people who tell me they are sensitive to any amount of lactose, no matter how small. Often these people say they can detect the lactose used as a filler in a single pill, a tiny amount by any standard.

I have to believe them, since I'm not in their bodies. Undigested lactose is fermented by the bacteria that live in the large intestine, so it's possible that even a normally tiny amount might set them off.

But eating frozen yogurt without any problems?

That's odd. Yogurt is known for being auto-digesting. That is, the active cultures in yogurt manufacture enough lactase to digest the lactose that is in the yogurt.

Getting active cultures in frozen yogurt is much harder. Cold knocks out the cultures, making them non-active. Some frozen yogurts do a better job than others of adding more cultures to the product so that they will activate in the warmth of your system. Maybe the questioner's friend has found a brand that is especially good at this.

Still seems odd.

Ferguson fumbles around with a general answer that doesn't do much to address the real issues, but has a good point when she writes:

Perhaps your friend has more going on than lactose intolerance, such as irritable bowel syndrome. If that is the case, there could be a lot of bothersome foods, such as higher-fat spicy foods, raw foods, etc. It can be difficult and frustrating to pin down which food caused which symptom.

Very true, and very frustrating.