If you have been strolling your local dairy aisle lately, you may have seen a plethora of new plant based “yogurt” offerings. All of which have left you asking yourself whether or not these are healthier alternatives and should you make the switch? Brace yourself for the reality of this latest marketing push.

Now we love that people are getting more interested in eating plant-based foods, because as an overall rule, the more plants in our diet, the better. (In terms of our own health and the good of the planet.) Like most packaged foods plant-based yogurts vary wildly in terms of their ingredient lists and nutrition facts. Overall, they are not inherently healthier than dairy yogurts, but there are nutritious options if you’re avoiding animal products, and you really do have to go searching for them. The trouble is that while whole plant foods like nuts are incredibly nutritious, that don’t always translate when they’re processed into packaged foods.

Firstly, we all love Kalypso Greek yogurt, right?  It’s a protein-rich, low-sugar breakfast food (or snack) that contains gut-boosting probiotics and is made from just one whole-food ingredient. Of course, there are hundreds of versions that are terrible thanks to highly processed added sugars, flavors, industrial milk (we always recommend buying organic and grass-fed when possible) and some questionable packaging options like clear plastic and glass jars.

In order to get a sense of what we are talking about lets simply look at the nutritional facts of our Kalypso Natural Plain compared to a non dairy alternative brand. Our Kalypso Greek contains 19 grams of protein and 5 grams of sugar (which is natural milk sugar) and lots of calcium and vitamin A.  A non-dairy alternative is 1 grams of protein with 7 grams of added sugar. In terms of ingredients, our dairy option is simply cultured milk, while the non-dairy is cultured coconut, cane sugar, and a few stabilizers, such as carageenan, xanthum and guar.

The bottom line here is look at the nutritionals, and if your a vegan or are just trying to eat more plant based foods, do yourself a favor and flip over the cup and read your labels carefully.

Kalypso Greek yogurt is the original plant based food. After all we exclusively craft our products with grass fed cow’s milk!