Buying yogurt in Malaysia used to be such a hard task for me. I’m a full-fat girl because I don’t believe in low-fat foodstuff (as you can tell from my previous post) and whole milk/full fat is better for you. Plus, I only like plain natural yogurt. That way, I can add in my own choice of honey and/or fruits.
Anyway, while grocery shopping, I looked at the various brands of yogurt and saw that 99% were all proud to say they were “low-fat” or “fat-free”. Since I wanted whole milk yogurt, I found this particular brand which sold natural yogurt and Greek yogurt. I was relieved that it didn’t say low-fat/fat-free so I quickly bought those two to try. Rookie mistake. I didn’t read the ingredient label as I normally do.
When I ate the yogurts, I was wondering why it didn’t taste nice at all. It was nothing like the delicious whole milk yogurt I was used to. While pondering, I examined the tub closely and began reading the ingredients. First up, it said “Skim Milk”. *insert sad face* I’m pretty sure it tasted the way it did because it skimmed the delicious fatty yet healthy cream from the milk.
So, I went on a mission. Whenever I saw a Cold Storage, Village Grocer or Mercato, I’d check out their yogurts (amongst other things). Being my usual self, a label nazi, I read all the ingredients. Browsing through the yogurt shelves, I skipped through all the flavoured yogurt and ignored those that were clearly marked low-fat/non-fat/fat-free. Those unmarked would warrant me to read the ingredients label and weed out those that used skim milk.
Lo and behold, what did I find? That there are NO yogurts made with whole milk! I’m stunned as I cannot believe that the whole of Malaysia really eats only low-fat or non-fat yogurt. Why??? Does no one want the creamy, full of fat whole milk yogurt? It’s good and healthy! Then again, I don’t really know Malaysians who really love yogurt for its taste (because they’ve only been sold the low-fat/non-fat variety).
So I checked out online how to make my own yogurt and was disappointed that you need yogurt to start with. Sure, I can use a bit of the low-fat yogurt and use whole milk; but then I needed the live and active cultures. And guess what? Most of the yogurts sold do not claim they’re made with LIVE cultures, so of course I would assume the cultures were not live and active as I’m sure it would be a selling point, no? I did find some yogurt that said it was made with live cultures, but when I read the ingredients, it didn’t state which cultures. I had 2 specific cultures that I wanted in mind — Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. Since they weren’t disclosing which bacteria they used, I wasn’t going to use them.
I also looked at those dried yogurt starters but was even more disappointed when I read the ingredients. It had so many additional things that I didn’t want to consume. To Be Continued…
warm fuzzy 