How to Make Low Sugar Yogurt with Fruit for You or Your Child

Yogurt is good for you. That's what we are told. Yogurt is a tiny rock solid island of nutrition out in the junky morass of Cheetos, Pop Tarts and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. You eat a container of yogurt, you can get on with your day satisfied you did the healthy thing. Well, yes and no. Yogurt by itself is great, but a quick glance through the fine print on those containers and a whole other world opens up. Specifically, the sugar content. For instance, one 6 oz container of Yoplait can contain 28 grams of sugar. Why on earth? Most candy bars don't have as much! When I discovered this, I was a pregnant mom shopping for a toddler. My little guy had been on straight plain yogurt; I wanted to figure out something that would work for me as well. I checked the baby yogurt. It wasn't much better sugar-wise, and twice as expensive. I don't like a lot of chemicals in my food, so I wasn't going to give either of my babies Splenda or Nutrasweet, as in the sugar-free yogurts. I needed a different solution. This is what I did, and have continued to this day.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Plain yogurt. Any kind you like. Organic, whole, skim, fat free, whatever.
• A bag of frozen fruit
• Actual teacups or like-sized bowls
• spoons etc.

1. Have your fruit, teacups, and yogurt ready. Put about 1/3 of a cup of frozen fruit in each teacup. If you have larger fruit such as cherries, cut them in half or even quarters first. (The fruit should still be frozen. It goes straight from the freezer to the cups.)
2. Cover with two generous dollops of plain yogurt, out of a regular tablespoon-sized dinner spoon.
3. Mix well in each teacup. Make sure the fruit is completely covered by yogurt. If it looks like a ball of fruit with a thin milky coating, add more yogurt. The lumps of fruit should be distinct and dense, but well-covered; with yogurt to spare.
4. Serve at once. Because the fruit is still frozen, the yogurt immediately surrounding the fruit freezes and becomes like gelatto as you eat it. You'll wonder how something this good for you can be so delicious.

Tips & Warnings

• The teacup servings are designed to be served with cereal or other breakfast items. If yogurt is all that you're having, you may need a larger portion.
• Frozen fruit and yogurt are both traditional smoothie ingredients, of course. If you prefer smoothies, go ahead. For me, I would rather wash teacups than a blender every day.
• Not all fruit work well with this. Peach and strawberry don't because they don't have a strong enough flavor to carry the plain yogurt. Blueberries are the best we've tried. I love cherries too, though it's annoying to cut them in half. Mixed berries are good, though not the mixes that include strawberries. Experiment, and find what works well for you!
• You may not want to serve this in the winter, unless you're the type of person that likes ice cream when it's 20 below. Because of the freezing aspect of the dish, it will cool you down...which is perfect in the summertime.
• I used to make up a big batch and put it in the fridge to use for the week. I would strongly advise against it. After your fruit has sat in the yogurt for a few days, the outsides of the fruit get tough and the insides turn to mush. And you loose the marvelous frozen experience.