Yogurts with added protein: the industrial trend that makes you double your nutrient intake

High-protein yogurts are trending. You'll see them on every refrigerated shelf. They're more expensive than usual and are designed and marketed to seem like the healthiest yogurts in the world. But let's take it one step at a time, because yogurts, by definition, have always provided protein to our bodies; therefore, if a product contains more protein, we should consider whether we really need it.

In a meal, nutritionists recommend (with the Harvard plate modelThat a quarter of the plate be protein, which would represent 20 or 25% of the total. So, if we eat vegetables as a first course, followed by chicken breast with bread, and everything cooked with extra virgin olive oil, we already have all the necessary nutrients in a balanced way. If we add a high-protein yogurt for dessert, we throw off the balance, because some of these yogurts provide the same amount of protein as a chicken breast. In other words, in a balanced diet, high-protein yogurts are unnecessary and an avoidable expense: one pack A pack of four yogurts can cost (depending on the brand) between 4 and 5 euros.

An alternative to chewing

However, there are exceptions where the yogurts popularized by the food industry can be a good option. If we don't eat meat, fish, or eggs, but we do tolerate yogurt, high-protein yogurts can provide the protein we need. They can also be a good choice for people who have difficulty chewing meat, because yogurt will compensate for this deficiency—the lack of one of the three macronutrients we need for our diet (the other two being carbohydrates and fats). Perhaps we could find a few more exceptions, but always at the extremes of what constitutes a healthy diet.

The fact is that high-protein diets are one of the current trends, and you'll find them in yogurts as well as other products. "This all stems from weight-loss diets, which recommend eating only protein and eliminating carbohydrates, thus achieving immediate weight loss," says nutritionist Anna Grífols, who points out that in two days, without eating carbohydrates, a person can lose two kilos, but "People who don't eat carbohydrates for two days lose weight due to a depletion of our natural muscle glycogen reserves," says Grífols.

There's another reason why high-protein products are all the rage. "Every ten years there's a trend in the food industry, and now it's protein. The previous one was 0.0 products—sugar-free and fat-free; the one before that, low-fat; and the one before that, low-sugar," says Grífols. Products that arrive at the supermarket always have to be packaged in a way that seems as up-to-date as possible, when in reality the diet we should be choosing is the one we've always had: vegetables, fruit, whole grains, protein (meat, fish, eggs), and bread. And little else. Yogurt from time to time, too, but the kind we've always eaten. It doesn't need to cost five euros.