Issue w/ Homemade Greek yogurt nutritional calculation - why a lot different than commercially made?

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powered85
powered85 Posts: 297 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've been making my own yogurt for quite a while now. Using different milk% I've found that using 1% or 2% work very well.

When I add up the total milk weight after making the yogurt - strain it and do the nutrition numbers based on initial weight of the pre-strained milk, subtracting the acid whey data - I seem to have much different data than commercial based products in the 2% range.

Primarily, the protein content of my yogurt is a lot less. Everything else isn't too far off.

So wondering - how would this happen? Is something happening during the culture phase that increases the protein? Or perhaps are the commercial folks straining the yogurt a lot more so the protein content becomes that much higher?

From 4L of milk I seem to remove about 1.5L of acid whey, so figure that is strained quite well! But can't figure out why the protein content isn't nearly as high even though I have quite a thick final product.

Any ideas?

Thanks

Replies

  • enterdanger
    enterdanger Posts: 2,447 Member
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    I thought the whey contained a huge portion of the protein in milk. I make my own yogurt too and just log it as Fage since I'm lazy. But, when I buy protein powder it's Whey Protein. Are we straining the protein out of the yogurt?
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    enterdanger wrote: »
    I thought the whey contained a huge portion of the protein in milk. I make my own yogurt too and just log it as Fage since I'm lazy. But, when I buy protein powder it's Whey Protein. Are we straining the protein out of the yogurt?

    I don't think so - mostly carbs. Based on my calculation, 1.5L of acid whey only contains around 11g of Protein. so not very much and that is a lot of whey removed!

    The other element I think is that sugar(lactose) is eaten up by the cultures during incubation but not sure how much. Even then it wouldn't be enough to up the protein that much. So wondering what is going on.

  • enterdanger
    enterdanger Posts: 2,447 Member
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    I give you credit for even trying to figure it out. I log it as the commercial stuff....and I don't even weigh or measure...just eyeball that stuff. The only reason I make my own is that my hubs is lactose intolerant and I can make the yogurt out of lactose free milk and it comes out beautifully and is cheap.
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    I love making it as well. I've settled on a 1% recipe and when strained - ends up around 2%MF. But regardless of using 1%, 2% or 3.8% and comparing to commercial, I'm always seeing this discrepancy especailly with much lower protein #'s.

    Its significant to make a difference in my requirements if I'm off because I eat a lot of yogurt! However I'm pretty sure my math is correct....so wish I knew why there is such a big difference.
  • Abby2205
    Abby2205 Posts: 253 Member
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    We're good at math, can you show us your calculations? How do you know the protein content of the finished yogurt and the drained off whey? If you know the protein content of the milk, then the protein content of the yogurt+whey has to be the same number.
  • CrabNebula
    CrabNebula Posts: 1,119 Member
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    Overthinking it.

    Personally, I have no reason at all to believe that the protein content of my yogurt is significantly different than commercial yogurt. Not only that, I use the calories given for 227g of commercial yogurt as the calorie value for my own yogurt at the same weight and I have not had any issue with my calories being off in total when I step on the scale. I have been doing this nearly a year now, so yeah.
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    Abby2205 wrote: »
    We're good at math, can you show us your calculations? How do you know the protein content of the finished yogurt and the drained off whey? If you know the protein content of the milk, then the protein content of the yogurt+whey has to be the same number.

    Ok this is how I calculated.

    4L of milk is the recipe. I haven't counted the calories in the 1/2 cup of yogurt I add in this - but shouldn't throw #'s off too much.

    So after making and evaporation etc I have 3858 grams. This is the yogurt and whey combined

    3858 grams of 1%milk=
    1697 calories
    38.5g fat
    185 carbs
    138 protein

    So then I get 1507g of whey strained which works out to:
    373 calories
    1.3g fat
    80g carbs
    11.9g protein


    To make the "my food" entry, I subtract the weight of the whey (1507) from the original weight (3858) to get my grams for the batch. Then I subtract the whey calories/fat/carbs/protein from the original amount to get the macros for the entire batch.

    So basically I get 2350g total, and then just set it to 1g and put whatever serving in I have (eg 200g).

    Let me know if I'm not doing this right.



  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    Does my above method to figure out the calories/macros add up?
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    Apologies for bumping again - wondering if someone can validate my method for figuring out the nutrition info above? Does it sound correct?

    Thanks
  • Abby2205
    Abby2205 Posts: 253 Member
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    Yes your method looks right. Culturing won't create more protein, so I think you are right that commercial yogurt has more water removed. Or has additional protein added.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Why is the protein in your whey only 10% of the initial protein when the whey volume is more like 40% ?
  • sarahthes
    sarahthes Posts: 3,252 Member
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    yarwell wrote: »
    Why is the protein in your whey only 10% of the initial protein when the whey volume is more like 40% ?

    Not the OP, but I'm guessing they googled typical whey protein content on a % basis and used that to calculate.
  • Colorscheme
    Colorscheme Posts: 1,179 Member
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    According to Fage, they use both milk and cream in their product. I wonder if that's part of it, maybe you're getting less concentrate than they are. After all, they have professional equipment.
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    yarwell wrote: »
    Why is the protein in your whey only 10% of the initial protein when the whey volume is more like 40% ?

    I used the acid whey nutrition details from the USDA website. There isn't much protein in the whey by the looks of it. It's primarily carbs.
  • powered85
    powered85 Posts: 297 Member
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    Colorscheme wrote: »
    According to Fage, they use both milk and cream in their product. I wonder if that's part of it, maybe you're getting less concentrate than they are. After all, they have professional equipment.

    Yeah I can't figure it out. The bacteria also eat up some of the sugars which isn't accounted for but wouldn't make a big impact on overall macros. But either way something the commercial folks are doing are yielding a lot more protein somehow.

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