food directives

I strain home made yoghurt through muslin which makes it into a delicious thick, Greek style.

Right.

Loopylou said that low fat yogurts are heaving with sugar to make them palatable. It's not true. Whether it's low fat, full fat or low calorie, they have the same amount of sugar from the milk. As Janea says, it's only the fruit yogurts that have added sugar. That happens regardless of whether they are low fat, 0% or full fat.

Milk sugar (lactose) is not harmful because it doesn't break down into fructose.
You only need to worry about the sugar that is added to fruit yoghurts.

Is that good or bad?

Just checked my Yeo Valley organic fat-free vanilla yogurt. I buy it because my granddaughter likes it. I eat plain soya yogurt, but I cannot check at the moment.
The main ingredient is yogurt, 92%. The other 8% is sugar and vanilla extract etc. However, it has 15.5% of carbohydrate in it, which means that there must be just as much milk sugar as there is added sugar. All milk contains sugar. You can't get away from it. Soya yogurt contains half the amount of carbohydrate to cow's milk yogurt.

Reading a bit more several people suggest adding some powdered milk after boiling in order to thicken the yoghurt Ashtree

Yes, reducing the milk gives you a lovely thick yoghurt. It is really easy and you don't need any fancy equipment.

How long are you happy to keep it after you have made it AshTree and have you ever tried freezing it? I love frozen yoghurt

Yes, I looked at those Elegran, but in the end (because I'd had one years ago) I plumped for another electric one. So convenient because all the yoghurt is in portion size pots, with lids, and they go straight in the fridge. I bought the Severin one, which makes 7 pots at a time, but there are more on the market now - the Andrew James one makes 12 in one batch and it's cheaper than the Severin.

Or you can buy an EasiYo. You fill the outer insulated container with boiling water up to a mark, mix up a sachet of starter/dried milk in cold water in the inner container, put on the lid(s) and leave it out on the work surface overnight. No thermometers or reducing milk.

Grace I used to make it like that, boiling and cooling the milk, but it's such a faff, so I now use UHT milk which can be used straight from the carton at room temperature. I buy packs of 6 x 1 litre cartons, so i've always got enough milk and don't have to worry about them going off so long as they've not been opened.

Mamie does this method result in a thicker yoghurt?

I guess i am using too much yoghurt, but I've just always done it that way from years back when I first started using an electric yoghurt maker - the instructions were to use 5oz of yoghurt to however much milk you needed to make it up to 6 5oz tubs. I always saved one tub to make the next batch, though I mostly don't do that now as I'm inclined to forget .

I boil a litre of milk until it is reduced by a third, cool until I can leave my little finger in and count to ten, put in about half a small tub of live yoghurt and leave beside the cooling woodburner overnight. I guess an airing cupboard would do just as well.

I have thought of making my own yoghurt AshTree and I wondered if I would need to use full fat milk.

Anyway, I have looked it up and the recipe I have found has only 2-3 tbs of plain yogurt (as a starter) to half a gallon of milk (any fat % you like) so I wonder if you are using to much yoghurt.

You have to bring the milk to 185°F in a double boiler and then cool quickly to 110°F in a cold water bath and add 2-3 tbs of plain yogurt into the 110°F milk. You then leave to stand on a heating pad, undisturbed, for 7 hours and then cool over night in a fridge.

There was a lot of stirring involved too. Having read this I may look up yoghurt makers

I often make my own yoghurt, using a 5oz pot of natural yoghurt as a 'starter', mixed with a litre of milk. Problem is, skimmed or even semi-skimmed milk results in a thin, runny yoghurt and the only way I've found of remedying this is to add a heaped tablespoon of dried skimmed milk. OK, so it's skimmed but it is turning the milk into a 'concentrated' version of itself and I'm not sure of the health implications of this. However, at least I know there is no added sugar, so I'm happy with that.

And we get the all important calcium!

We have a pot of no added fat yogurt daily. It contains 0.35 ounces of sugar. Not too much for good health, but enough to make it a pleasure. I'm happy with that.

My own feeling is that if we stuck, in the main, to natural, unprocessed food we wouldn't have to worry that much - and it's easier than trying to work out exactly how much sugar, salt and other additives these processed foods contain.

Well said Gracesgran
Low fat yogurt is heaving with sugars to make it palatable and is no way as satiable as normal yogurt, leaving you craving more sweet foodstuffs.
When you eat anything with sugar it will lead to you wanting more....

One of the interesting things you find when looking for products that don't poison you with sugar is just how much everyone has bought into the "fat make you fat" mantra that became popular in the 70s. It is now so popular that people are buying endless low or no fat products which fill them full of ... fructose. Take yoghurt. I imagine most of us see it as a natural product but natural yoghurt has fat in it. What it does not have is all the fructose (it has several akas) that the now processed food needs to make it taste OK.

Natural food has one ingredient; it does not need a list on the side. The best person to put these together is ourselves. Processors put unnatural fats instead of butter, unnatural amounts of sugar, a hugely smaller proportion of fruit or meat and very little in the way of vegetables. Even tinned tomatoes can have added sugar and there is loads in some well known tomato soups. I certainly don't put sugar in tomato soups but getting us hooked on the flavour means we will buy more.

There is a list in this article of added sugar in some well known items.
www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/secret-sugars-your-favourite-foods-3006625

My mum can eat a few Pringles for the salt and then leave the rest until the next week.

The population seems to be divided into a camp that happily eat junk food without a thought, a group that are aware they should eat "more healthily" and struggle a bit and increasing numbers who are obsessed with faddy "healthy diets'. Some of the last group are very young, eat a fantastic diet but still fret about whether they should be taking extra vitamins or giving up gluten.
The recommended serving of juice is one very small glass a day (small wine glass, not filled).
I agree about the crips anno but have you noticed that a lot of packets on display in shops are not the original small size but something a bit bigger, called a "grab bag" I think. And then there are those whopping bags of "healthy crisps" with "sea salt" (i.e. posh salt) and the skins on. If you read the small print, they are recommended "for sharing" and contain about 5 recommended sized portions (honestly!!! the crisp manufacturers would be so upset if you ate a half a bag of those with your OH while waiting for the dinner to cook...)

TRANSFATS you stupid thing.....

Transfer???
Transfers (ruddy iPad)

So long as the diet is balanced, and not junk food, then that's good enough for me.
I'm fed up with 'experts' contradicting each other. I agree high cholesterol is caused by consuming unsaturated fats etc but they are mainly found in high sugar (to disguise the taste of transfer) and junk food, cakes, biscuits, cheap chocolate etc.

Surely it's common sense?