Is Frozen Yogurt Healthier Than Ice Cream? Well, Not Really

Be careful! It’s been a long-held belief that frozen yogurt is healthier than ice cream. You’ll see signs stating that frozen yogurt is sugar-free, low fat, and loaded with probiotics to improve your gut health every time you go into a froyo shop. These claims are true. Is frozen yogurt better than ice cream? This post will discuss the debate between ice cream and frozen yogurt.

It’s time to swirl!
It’s hot and you only have one thought: ice cream!
You crave something sweet but it is the middle of week and you want to be healthy.

You decide to go with a healthier option. So you head to the local froyo shop for delicious vanilla frozen yogurt. Knowing that you are taking a healthier path in your life.

But is frozen yogurt healthier than ice cream?
Now it’s time for the hard truth about frozen yogurt’s cold myths.

Nature calls for yogurt to be made only from curdled milk, cultures and yogurt. However, many frozen yogurt companies and brands often PACK their yogurt with sugar and other unpronounceable ingredients.

You’re not the only one who thought frozen yogurt was a healthy treat.
According to market research, frozen yogurt sales have increased by an average of 21 per cent each year since 2008. Menchies also conducted a survey and found that 95 percent of Americans think frozen yogurt is better than ice cream.

A typical yogurt container for self-serve can hold between 16 and 24 ounces. The frozen yogurt inside is about 100 calories per half cup. You might accidentally eat more than 510 calories if you fill your cup up to the top depending on how many ounces you have.

You’re going way beyond the city’s low-calorie limits if you add sweet toppings, such as crushed Oreos or favorite gummies.
You may think frozen yogurt is unhealthy, but it can be low in calories.
Is frozen yogurt better than ice cream?
Before I answer these questions and talk about whether frozen yogurt can be healthy, we need to know a bit more about the differences between ice cream and frozen yogurt.

What’s the difference between frozen yogurt and ice cream?
The Dairy
Ice cream must contain 10 percent milk fat. Cream is a good way to meet this requirement. Fro-Yo is slightly different. Fro-Yo is frozen yogurt made with cultured milk and does not require fat.

How good is the frozen yogurt’s dairy for your gut health?
Although cultured milk is the main ingredient in frozen yogurt’s dairy, it doesn’t often survive freezing. Therefore, your frozen yogurt won’t contain the beneficial bacteria probiotic which aids in digestion and is usually found in yogurts or fermented foods.

Manufacturers of standard yogurt and fro-yo will often add probiotics to their products.
Does that mean frozen yogurt is really healthy?
You don’t have to be concerned about the added probiotics making your frozen yogurt unhealthy. There are other dangers, such as sugar.

Yes, frozen yogurt is often advertised as being healthier than ice cream by many fro-yo shops, but this is not true.
It’s actually the reverse: Frozen Yogurt often has more sugar than ice cream.

How low is frozen yogurt in sugar? Frozen yogurt’s hidden sugar content.
A half-cup of frozen yogurt has 17 grams of sugar. Ice cream, however, is about 14 grams.
To get rid of the yogurt’s natural tartness and prevent ice crystals from growing, companies add sugar to make yogurt taste like ice cream. This is particularly true for low-fat and nonfat frozen yogurts. These versions tend to have more sugar to compensate for the lack of fat.

The largest nutritional difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt is their fat content.
Vanilla ice cream has a regular cup that contains around 270 calories, 15g of fat and 9g of saturated fat. Regular vanilla frozen yogurt, on the other hand, contains 221 calories, 6g of fat and 4g of saturated fat.

However, ice cream with more fat does not necessarily make it worse. The fat in ice cream can slow down your body’s sugar digestion, which will help you feel satisfied and prevent a spike in blood sugar. Frozen yogurt is generally not healthier than ice-cream.

Also, frozen yogurt is highly processed.
Frozen yogurt brands often add harmful processed additives or sugar substitutes to their products, which can lead to digestive problems like bloating and cramping.

Bloating can be caused by frozen yogurt
You probably already know my favorite rule for reading food labels. Don’t buy anything if it has too many ingredients. Don’t put your body at risk.

Frozen yogurt’s dangers
Unless your favorite frozen yogurt shop is organic, which many aren’t usually, they will add whatever they want to it. Your fro-yo cup may be full of artificial sweeteners and artificial additives.

After researching the ingredients in Pink Berry’s fro-yo, I felt literally sick. But I’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s start by talking about the additives and then we’ll move on to antibiotics.

Frozen Yogurt – Antibiotics
Pinkberry and TCBY are two of the most well-known brands of frozen yogurt. They use milk that isn’t organic.
We are exposed to potential growth hormone and antibiotics when we eat frozen yogurt from them. They use antibiotics because they feed cows corn rather than grass. This causes cows to become sick.

To help cows grow larger, they use growth hormone. They also feed genetically modified cows. It’s so cruel!
This is what traditional dairy farms do to their cattle. These growth hormones and antibiotics are passed on to us through our milk, which can lead to many health problems and even cancer.

Frozen Yogurt Ingredients: Artificial and Natural
Some frozen yogurt cups contain both artificial and naturally-derived ingredients.

Aguar gum, maltodextrin and sodium citrate are just a few of the strange additives found in froyo.

Carrageenan, also a thickener from red seaweed, is one of the “natural” ingredients. It has been linked to side effects that can be detrimental to your health like IBS, inflammation, bloating and irritable bowel syndrome.

Oh, and castoreum is a natural flavoring that berry froyos can be made from. It’s an extract from the beaver perineal (a gland that secretes an oil for marking territory – usually located near an animal’s anus).
Red food colorings found in candy, baked goods, and cherries can cause thyroid cancer in rats and could also cause them in people. It’s also been linked to hyperactivity in children, if that wasn’t enough.

These chemicals and their additives could cause harm so be careful.

Frozen yogurt contains artificial sweeteners and sugar.
The list keeps getting worse

Many yogurt brands add toxic genetically engineered corn syrup to their yogurt.
Sugar alcohols such as mannitol erythritol sorbitol and xylitol can have dangerous gastrointestinal side effects like gas, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and bloating.

You may get diarrhea from frozen yogurt.
These effects are unlikely to occur unless you consume approximately 50 grams of these sugar alcohols. However, they can be caused by consuming only 10 grams.

It’s even worse: all the sugar in your froyo can be hidden under a host of clever names making it difficult to spot: fructose and dextrose; corn syrup; high fructose syrup, juice concentrates; fructose; polydextrose; pure cane sugar, and the list goes on.

Sugar processed can cause skin damage, weight gain and inflammation, which can lead to conditions like arthritis, asthma, or cancer.
Another important thing to remember is that any food’s ingredients list lists the ingredients in alphabetical order according to their abundance.
Manufacturers may use sweeteners to reduce costs or source from certain countries. However, this is also a sneaky way for sugar to not be at the top of the ingredient list. The sugar product will have multiple names.

You can see the ingredients in my PinkBerry Cinnamon Churro Yogurt here.

Is it possible to even read all of this?

How to determine the nutritional content of frozen yogurt.
Many yogurt and ice cream companies offer nutritional information online. Don’t eat it if it contains more than seven ingredients.

Don’t worry if you don’t know the ingredients. Don’t risk it.

What’s the bottom line?
Frozen yogurt can be fooled into believing that it is healthy. This makes portion control difficult. Even a small amount of frozen yogurt can add up to calories and sugar, not to mention the extra toppings.

We must not forget that frozen yogurt is often made with artificial ingredients, toxic additives, and antibiotics from cow milk.

I hope that you are able to see the dangers of sugar and that you will be more aware of processed foods.
Food companies aren’t usually concerned about our health. Food companies make it appear that food products are healthy, but they hide the sugar to keep us coming back for more. You could end up buying a healthy food that contains hidden sugars, which can cause you to have a sugar cravings cycle.

Added sugars don’t need to be a part of your daily diet. They can also cause severe harm if consumed in large quantities, especially processed sugar.
My own journey has been difficult. I was plagued by a sugar addiction, suffered from health problems and lost my self-confidence. But, I am now able to control what I eat and feel happier. Many people are obsessed with sugar. But something is keeping them from ending the vicious circle.

* They don’t realize how much sugar is in their diets

* They don’t believe sugar intake is linked to obsessive behavior

* They tried to stop eating sugar, but it was too difficult.

For more information on your sugar cravings, read my blog post Why You Are Obsessed with Sugar (& How to Fix It). Or send me an Instagram message for support (or use the yellow messenger box at the bottom of the page). For more tips and support, join my free Facebook group “Sugar Balanced Living” for additional information.

Frozen yogurt dos and don’ts
We need to take a step back, look at the ingredients and memorize any hidden sugars. Then, we can try to make our own homemade meals. It’s always better to be informed about what we’re eating. There are many recipes to make homemade frozen yogurt, such as this one.

However, I don’t advocate for giving up frozen yogurt. I believe in sugar balance.
Frozen yogurt can be enjoyed occasionally. However, I hope that you will choose organic frozen yogurt.

These are five tips to help you make the most of your next visit to the froyo shop:
1. Do not overfill your cup.
You can keep the serving size to around 1/2 cup. Add some fruit, dark chocolate, or nuts to it.

2. Slowly eat it and enjoy the flavor.
You won’t feel tempted to return for more. To help you with this, download my free mindful eating exercise book.

3. Select organic frozen yogurt
OR, you can find a froyo with real ingredients that doesn’t contain a lot of thickening agents or preservatives.

4. Make your own froyo.
This will allow you to control the ingredients and calories of your treats. There are many great, simple recipes available (such as the one I linked).

This is a delicious and sugar-free frozen yogurt recipe that I love: 1 cup Greek yogurt full fat, 1 cup frozen raspberries, 1 Tbsp. Blend it with coconut oil, 2 drops liquid vanilla cream stevia extract to your taste and a pinch salt.

5. Plain yogurt is a great option for a healthy, simple treat.
You can enjoy all of the health benefits without adding sugar. Top it with fruit, cocoa, or cinnamon. Plain Greek yogurt has a higher protein level.

Oh… and if sugar cravings are a problem, my post on When You Should Avoid Sugar Consumption + How to Do It is full of tips and tricks to help you stop eating sugary foods and still enjoy life with all its treats!