Huffington Magazine Issue 53 | Page 78

Exit TASTE TEST HUFFINGTON 06.16.13 If You Must Drink Your Yogurt, Choose Wisely BY KRISTEN AIKEN RINKING YOGURT has always been a mystery to us. Don’t get us wrong, we’re yogurt lovers here — but we’re perfectly happy eating it with a spoon. Unsurprisingly, convenience is important to Americans, and thus it’s become increasingly omnipresent on supermarket shelves as of late. So in true taste test fashion, we put our liquid-yogurt-pants on and sorted the good from the bad. When you’re shopping for drinkable yogurt, you’ll find two types of products: yogurt and kefir. What’s the difference? Not much, flavor- D PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAMON DAHLEN wise. But the health benefits do differ when it comes to probiotics. Here’s the deal: Yogurt is milk that’s been fermented with bacteria. Kefir (pronounced ke-feer) is also milk that’s been fermented with bacteria, but a specific type of bacteria from kefir grains, which produce more probiotics than yogurt. In simple terms, yogurt keeps the digestive system clean, and kefir can actually help digest your food and keep your colon healthy. But on to the tasting. Drinking yogurts come in about every flavor imaginable and range from runny to viscous, sour to overwhelmingly saccharine. We found 16 different flavors and brands and ranked them. As always, this taste test is in no way influenced or sponsored by the brands included.