For me, the biggest benefit is the lack of additional sweeteners, especially high fructose corn syrup which I try to avoid.
I made the switch to plain yogurt very slowly over time. When I started trying to eat better, I knew yogurt was a super food but the only yogurt I knew to eat was that Yoplait Lite yogurt (100 calories). I ate that at the beginning. When I started paying attention to high fructose corn syrup, I switched to Horizons brand. It's organic and I loved the raspberry and the blueberry. It still had a lot of sugars, so eventually I switched to adding cut up fruit to plain non fat yogurt.
I especially love plain Greek yogurt, like Fage. It has a wonderful, thick, creamy consistency - a texture (not a taste!!) like heavy whipped cream.
Now, if I eat flavored yogurt, it tastes sickeningly sweet. If you had told me 2 years ago that I would be cutting up fruit to put it in plain yogurt, I would have looked at you like you were nuts. Plain yogurt was gross and that would be way too much work. It tastes good and seems easy now!
I cook with it, I use it almost always in place of sour cream, I put a blob of it on top of soup instead of making that soup "creamed" ... so yes, for cooking and as a condiment, I love having it around.
But mostly, I like that I can control what I put in it when I eat yogurt for yogurt's sake--I can control how it tastes, and what it actually is. It's yogurt PLUS honey (or maple syrup!), or some sort of jam, or mango (no/little sugar necessary with some of the tropical fruits)--and that's that. Even if I put in a lot, and it tastes really sweet to me, it's always less sugar than in the processed stuff.
And frankly, it just tastes better to me/has more tang when I mix it myself, even when I do put in a lot of honey or whatever.
I find that if I sprinkle a little cinnamon or nutmeg with whatever fruit I'm mixing in, I need little if any other sweetener, but it's plenty sweet somehow anyway. Can't take the needless sugar OUT if they put it in at the plant.
I don't eat a full serving of plain naked yogurt with a spoon like a few people I know--I like tang, but not without something to balance it.
(Desperately trying to figure out a yin-yang joke to rhyme with "tang," but not coming up with anything... )
You might come up with some plain naked yogurt lovers here, though--I too am curious how many might be out there.
I agree that a lot of the flavored yogurts taste too sweet. I've always liked plain yogurt, although not always plain--I dress it up with fresh fruit. I absolutely love plain yogurt with sliced bananas and strawberries and a sprinkling of granola on top. These days, I don't do the granola so much, but I like the crunchiness, so sometimes I add some chopped almonds.
I have also strained plain yogurt and used it like sour cream in recipes.
I've tried the fage yogurt and didn't like the thickness or texture, but perhaps I'll learn to like it. It may have been because I bought a flavored kind and didn't like the flavor so much.
I'm a Plain Naked Yogurt Lover, but I mix mine. Usually with fruit and nuts. If you must use a sweetener, try Stevia (natural herb sweetener) or honey.
I tried the Fage yogurt (plain), but I didn't see what all the hype was about. I just stick to my regular plain stuff.
I love plain yogurt and I will eat it by itself, but I also like it with fresh berries, melon, or mango. Sometimes I also stir wheat germ into it. I never add sweetener because I like it fine without any and I don't want to use the calories if I don't need to.
My favorite yogurt is Trader Joe's Non-Fat Greek Style Yogurt. At only 100 calories per cup, it is the lowest calorie yogurt I've found. It is thicker than US-style yogurt (I don't like my yogurt to be soupy, the idea of yogurt you can drink is icky to me).
I started eating pre-sweetened yogurt (my favorite was Brown Cow Cream on the Top--all the sugar and all the fat, could I have done any worse?!!). Eventually though, I got sick of all the flavors, so I switched to whole milk plain yogurt. I either mixed berries into it or put honey on it (or both). After I ate the yogurt that way for a while, I got to the point where I liked it plain and didn't need either the berries or the honey.
Then I started counting calories and whole milk yogurt was out of the question. So for a while I didn't eat any yogurt at all, but I've recently started eating plain non-fat yogurt again. I'm sure if I ate some whole milk yogurt again, I would remember why I found it so hard to give up. For that reason, I don't even allow myself to have it as a treat and am perfectly happy with my non-fat yogurt.
If you don't mind artificial sweeteners, one suggestion I've heard is to top the yogurt with low-sugar preserves.
I bought a Donvier Yocheese maker and have been using that. You can get the same results with putting the yogurt in a coffee filter and straining out the whey. The final product is something like cream cheese but has the active cultures. I use it to spread on homemade bread, or add to fresh fruit, or on top of baked potatoes. You can also put in roasted garlic and make a sort of dip for carrots and celery.
I've never sat down and tried to eat it with a spoon like I would have done with flavored yogurt. I think it would be plenty ick like that.
This one took some time to work up to. It helped when I found Fage greek yogurt which is very different from runny american yogurt. I started eating it with berries and honey. Quite a bit of honey. I'm down to about a teaspoon now with blueberries or dried berries mixed in. I figured not eating sweeteners or dyes was a plus and worth learning to like it. I dislike milk intensely so it is also a way to get some calcium.
I've never been a big yogurt eater, but when I do, I like to strain ff or lf plain and make it thicker, then add fruit. I can't get the Fage yogurt in Alaska, but next time I'm at a relative's I'm going to try it. My DH eats whole milk yogurt, and I've tasted it, oh my, it is good! I sometimes stir a spoonful into my ff cottage cheese. It really improves the flavor and texture.
I have to put a little splenda and fruit in mine. Sometimes I put vanilla flavoring and sometimes I put coconut extract. I love it with coconut extract and fresh pineapple with a T. of grape nuts or granola on top...heavenly.
Try buying a bag of frozen blueberries or blackberries, put some in a bowl, zap in the microwave just long enough to PARTIALLY thaw them, then add plain yogurt and stir.
Plain yogurt...really?
