Coconut Yogurt and Deli Meats

[AmandaLP]

Item 1: Coconut Yogurt, made with coconut milk, coconut water, and non dairy yogurt cultures.

 

Item(s) 2: Pasture Raised pork made into deli meats and sausages.  Ingredients: pork, sea salt, celery powder, individual spices (no sugar, no carrageenan, no nitrates other than celery salt)

 

I am aware that they may be considered SWPO, and thus will not comprise a majority of my diet  

 

 

[Robin Strathdee]

If there is no added sweetener in the coconut yogurt then it would fall into that grey area of technically compliant but not a good choice. There are always  more nutritious choices out there.

 

Deli meat is acceptable as long as there is no sugar or carageenan added.  It's hard to find, but it exists.

[NatalieBA]

Can you explain why the coconut yogurt is considered a poor choice? Coconut milk is allowed and embraced, and coconut water is compliant. Why is it grey? Is it considered swypo because it resembles dairy? Just wondering why it's considered a bad choice?

[Robin Strathdee]

Good question. We consider it a poor choice primarily because of how folks tend to use it. Many people come to Whole30 and miss their morning greek yogurt with fruit, so they want to recreate that using coconut yogurt. But we know that a breakfast that contains protein and healthy fat is more beneficial to the body and to our food habits, so we ask folks to put aside that ritual for another time.  

[drtracyb]

Does coconut or almond milk not contain enough protein and fat to be a component of a healthy whole30 meal?  And cultured with a probiotic, turning it into yogurt?

[missmary]

Does coconut or almond milk not contain enough protein and fat to be a component of a healthy whole30 meal?  And cultured with a probiotic, turning it into yogurt?

 

Tracy- The problem with coconut or almond-milk yogurt is people using it to prop up their sweet, low-protein, high carb breakfast tradition. It could be a part of a meal, but not the primary part and it is tough for people to get that distinction. During the whole30 I would limit such yogurts to savory preparations if someone wanted to go to the trouble of making the yogurt themselves. All coconut yogurt i have seen in stores is heavily sweetened. The almond milk version I've seen is sweetened with fruit juice, which makes it a technically compliant option, but nothing we would recommend.

 

As a post-whole30 person, you might decide that coconut milk yogurt is worth including. I would still suggest making your own, simply based on the many sweeteners and additives in the store-bought version (one of the sweeteners is inulin, which is a sugar alcohol, which causes digestive distress, for example).

[Tom Denham]

Let me add that there is only a little protein in almond milk and less in coconut milk. And no plant-based protein offers the rich nutrition of animal-based protein. So coconut or almond milk yogurts don't come close to meeting Whole30 standards as breakfast food.