If you eat yogurt, you likely feel good about the choice you are making and equate this with a healthy option. Some yogurts are healthy. When it comes to the amount of sugar that they contain, most are more dessert like than a health food.

Let’s take a look Tillamook yogurt – this low fat berry flavored yogurt has 31 grams of sugar listed on the label, per 6 oz serving. Since I know that regular yogurt has 12 grams of naturally present sugar per 8 oz (this is lactose, the sugar found naturally in milk), then I can do a quick calculation for the amount of naturally present sugar in 6 oz of yogurt.

A 6 oz serving of yogurt has 9.23 grams of naturally present sugar.

I take the 31 grams of sugar listed on the label of the Tillamook yogurt minus 9.23 grams of naturally present sugar which equals 21.77 grams of added sugar. To get the teaspoons of sugar, I divide 21.77 by 4 (because there are 4 grams of sugar per teaspoon) and this equals 5.4 teaspoons of added sugar.

If you have one Tillamook yogurt daily for a year, you will have consumed 1,971 teaspoons of sugar in a year, which is the equivalent of 20.5 pounds of sugar. This is a lot of sugar. Is it though, more sugar or less sugar than we would find in ice cream?

Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream has 14 grams of sugar per 4 oz servings, which means that it has 21 grams of sugar per 6 oz serving. Since I know that there are 9.23 grams of naturally present sugar in 6 oz of milk, then I can quickly calculate the added sugars. 21 minus 9.23 = 11.77.Breyers Natural Vanilla Ice Cream has 11.77 grams of added sugar per 6 oz serving and Tillamook Yogurt has 21.77 grams of added sugar per 6 oz serving.

So, what is the right choice? If we are comparing these two products, you are better off eating the ice cream. But, you know that I am not going to have that be my final recommendation.

Yogurt IS a healthy food, IF you choose full fat, organic and plain. One of my favorite yogurts is Brown Cow organic cream on the top, full fat plain. It has 12 grams of sugar per 8 oz serving, which means that there are NO added sugars in the product. I sweeten my yogurt with fresh fruit and also enjoy a dollop of yogurt on my oatmeal in the morning.

So, check the label on your yogurt. How many grams of sugar does your yogurt have listed on the label? Share this with me and let’s compare!