For the past several years my morning meal has consisted of yogurt and fresh fruit–topped with (at first) store bought granola, thenI attempted to cut out all sugar in processed foods, so I made homemade granola, and now I’m using an all natural trail mix consisting of raisins, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, almonds, and cashews.
I’ve read that yogurt has the beneficial microbes for our digestive system….I’ve also read that it’s acid and we should limit our intake of acid-ey foods. There’s absolutely NO WAY we can follow all the rules, because for every thing good “they” find out about a food or food group, “they” also find out something is bad about it. It’s getting more and more difficult to wade through all the media crap just to eat a healthy diet. I figure it’s best just to stick to whole foods that haven’t been processed.
Except for coffee……and oatmeal. I have no way to process oats to make oatmeal and I have to have oatmeal to make my very favorite Oatmeal Chocolate Peanut Butter healthy snack balls. And peanut butter. I’ve never made peanut butter. Maybe I will someday.
Sorry, I almost got on my soapbox–back to the yogurt. My dad and I had a conversation last year (he passed away in February) about how people could eat the same thing for breakfast day-after-day-after day and never complain, but if someone were to tell you that you were going to eat the same thing for supper day-after-day-after day, that would be awful–why is that? Oh well, back to the regularly-scheduled blog on YOGURT.
Eating yogurt day-after-day-after day created lots of waste–a container every 5 days or so, plus if you’re trying to cut out processed foods, well, someone has processed that and put it in the container.
I purchased a Deni yogurt maker a couple of weeks ago and I love it! I had attempted to make yogurt without one a few times and failed miserably with the “keep it warm overnight” step because my crock pot was too hot and my heating pad shuts off after one hour. The yogurt maker was only $20 from Amazon……..
No, I don’t get a kickback from anyone for promoting their product, but I should figure out how to do that I suppose.
To make yogurt is SIMPLE! For this particular model, bring one quart of milk almost to a boil then remove from the heat.
Let it sit until it comes to room temperature….if you’re in a hurry you can put the pan into a bowl of ice water and it will cool rather quickly.
Then add 1/2 cup of yogurt (with live cultures) and stir well. I used store bought yogurt the first time, now I’ll save a jar as a starter each time I make more. Pour the mixture into the cute little glass jars that come with the yogurt maker, put the lid on, and plug it in. The directions say to set the timer for 10 hours which would be the hardest part to calculate doing all this so the timer doesn’t go off in the middle of the night. The first batch I made was absolutely PERFECT!
The second batch I thought I was setting the timer for 10 hours but I set it for 6 instead. The yogurt was a little looser than the first batch, but still great. The little knob to set the timer isn’t marked very clear as to which end of it is supposed to be pointing to the time, but now I know.
Right now I’m enjoying fresh South Carolina peaches, a banana, and trail mix on top of the yogurt. Next it will be fresh bluberries!
Now for the financial part. A quart of plain, whole milk, organic yogurt costs about $4.10. A gallon of whole, organic milk averages around $6.00, (both including tax). Divide $6 by 4 and the raw product for 6 containers of yogurt costs roughly $1.50.
Multiply that times 73 (replenishing every 5 days) and you get:
$4.10 x 73 = $299.30
$1.50 x 73 = $109.50
WOW! I just gave myself a raise 🙂
Wild Things Farm 