Greek Yogurt vs Greek Style Yogurt

Honestly, I have totally written off artificial sweeteners. I feel like with all the rules of surgery, this is one I just need to let go. I realize they probably aren't the best for my body, but neither was: being massively overweight, smoking (years ago), binge drinking (in my early 20's), etc. I hope it falls as a less evil than those things.

I feel like I could, quite literally, go insane if I allowed myself to obsess over every rule that I've been given for a post-Bari diet and every rule that society has given for what's healthy. For instance, I hate talking to anyone about how many veggies I eat. Um, not many? The conversations normally go like this:

Them: "Wow, you must eat a lot of salad now"

Me: "Actually, I haven't eaten a salad in nearly a year now. But, I do eat a lot of steak...and bacon."

Them: "...oh?"

Yes, there are some "rules" that I just don't worry about. I follow the big ones that aren't even my doctor's rules, but things like artificial sweeteners, I just don't care to follow. I probably use too many in a day, generally about 5-6 through out the whole day, but it keeps my sweet tooth at bay to be able to drink tea and coffee sweetened with them. I figure the packets are a better choice than that piece of pie I really want to eat!

I rarely use the actual sweetener packets, just because I don't have anything to put them in (I drink my coffee milky but not sweet). I do get it in SF pudding mix, Premier Protein, Protein Bars of various sorts, etc.

Oh, and I haven't tried making my own at this point. I've considered it, but never invested the time.

There is also a chance there is a good tasting real Greek Yogurt in my area, I am always just hesitant to try it as I'm not sure it's worth the extra calories. The real stuff seems to always be 20%-50% higher in calories. And it's also been very difficult to find sweetened Greek Yogurt that doesn't contain added sugar, and since US labeling laws don't require separating naturally occurring sugar (lactose in this case) versus added sugar, it's a whole lot of reading ingredient lists to try and figure out which ones are no-sugar-added.

Is there something wrong with the Greek style yogurts? Less protein but they all seem to have less calories. 190 calories in fage total unflavored compared to 80 to 100 in most others. I cannot eat plain yogurt it tastes too horrible and I have no luck sweetening it.

If you check the ingredients on "greek style flavored" you will see fillers like cornstarch to make it thick. I am not saying you have to eat plain, just make sure it's main ingredients are the best for you

This is quite a bit later since this topic was posted, but I bought a fage 0% total container to try it out. Plain was out of the question unless I wanted to use it as sour cream, so I added a table spoon of sugar free torani syrup in salted caramel and one splenda packet and I loved it. I will admit that it is A LOT thicker than my danon light and fit I was eating, so It's a big change, but I think the protein to calorie amount to carb amount is in my favor.

That is my favorite way to eat it adding some fresh fruit and SF syrup... Yum!

My favorite is Oikos Triple Zero Coffee flavor (Zero added sugar, Zero artificial sweeteners and Zero fat):

Ingredients: Cultured Grade A Non Fat Milk, Chicory Root Fiber, Water, Contains less than 1% of natural flavors, Beta Carotene and fruit juice (for color), stevia leaf extract, sea salt, malic acid, vitamin D3, sodium citrate.

I usually eat half a serving. Numbers for a full serving are below:

Calories 120

Fat 0

Sodium 150mg

Carbohydrate 14 grams

Dietary Fiber 6 grams

Sugars 6 grams

Protein 15 grams

Coffee flavor? Now that's interesting! I've never seen that flavor, but then again I never cared for Oikos probably because it was so much thicker than I was used to since I was doing "like greek" I bought a fage container recently to try it out at Kathy's recommendation in her post. I liked it a lot.