Friends, let me tell you a creamy little story. (Impatient type: skip to the fourth paragraph!).
I started eating Stonyfield Greek yogurt (Oikos) for breakfast in 2009. In the middle of an super revolution when it came to my diet. Cutting out cereal, toast, pretty much any less than protein-packed, low-carb fuel. See, I wrote about it
here.
And then in 2010, I started commuting an hour, which meant breakfast on the go and I slacked off on the nutritious craze. Breakfast looked like the more tasty and convenient flavored Greek yogurt containers. Chobani blood orange and apple cinnamon. Stonyfield super fruit. nom.
Fast forward a few years to 2013 when I start paying attention to those pesky little things called calories, and I realized that not only had my portion gone from 8 oz. to 5.3 oz, those little cups of fruited goodness, while still packing a whopping 28% of your day's protein, also had a LOT of sugar. In fact, it's the second ingredient...19 g of it to be exact. Plus there is weird stuff like concentrate resulting in 140 calories.
Recently, I started thinking about how I could makeover my daily breakfast, and possibly work on a little environmental stewardship by reducing the purchase of those plastic yogurt cups. In talking with a dietician, she gave me a great idea to try buying a 32oz plain Greek and 32oz vanilla regular yogurts, mixing them together, and doling out in 8 oz servings for each day of the week.
That worked okay, but while the regular yogurt added calcium and a little sweet, it wasn't quite as filling. So, from the two steps forward, I took one step back and bought just the plain Greek 32oz. But how to flavor it without adding too much sugar?
Moment of genius I wish I could claim! There is a pre-existing pureed organic fruit product, with absolutely ZERO added sugar (plus some vitamins!) already sitting on grocery store shelves across the nation. Have you a clue?
Hello baby food aisle!! This week, I opted for a blueberry/beet/banana mix, which spread out nicely over four cups adding ~15 calories of pure fruit to each 6 oz serving (105 calories) of yogurt.
That results in a 120 calorie, filling breakfast (plus I add some whole grain grape nuts, oats, and sunflower seeds) with just over 17 g protein. Note that this may seem like a small calorie savings (20), but it is a larger serving size than the purchased cups AND has no added sugar. I also just feel healthier about it because who wants to feed a baby junk?
All mixed up and ready to go for the week. My last step will be converting these reusable plastic containers to glass cups!
