Could this be because they are actually getting more protein in their diets as a result of eating the yogurt? So, not necessarily the dairy helping the weight loss but by the fact that the yogurt is replacing unhealthy choices with a healthier, higher protein alternative?
Could a low dairy (and low calcium) diet lead to obesity?
Saphire
#22
Can you please post your instructions for yoghurt?
Sounds like Kefir rather than yogurt. Our local Trader Joe’s has the drinkable regular and goat’s milk
I have mostly given up wheat but dairy is impossible for me to give up especially as I do not love meat (I will eat it but prefer lean. Gristley meat still makes me gag). My kids joke that I am always going to the store for more cheese! I did give up dairy for a couple of weeks when it was popular in the keto world to talk about all the cow hormones in dairy and how it is the way to grow a huge cow. It was a few years ago but I did not notice a difference. As opposed to wheat, whenever I have some I feel much stiffer especially in my back
Shinita
#23
That’s a lot to me! I never saw any kind of bush with that much fruit (I surely forget about something though)! And I never even saw a blueberry bush, IDK how big they are. It must be a rare fruit here, I haven’t even eaten it more than 2 times in my life except fruit yogurts as a kid (the little things are expensive when fresh, not so much when frozen but once I have tried it and it wasn’t good. last time it was great though so I want bushes. I could buy it but I love growing fruits. not like I do much at that point. my work starts when we have too much to eat at once, I have hundreds of cans of fruit on top of cupboards downstairs. a single tree may have enough fruit for 120 big jars but thankfully it’s rare).
I bought this property about… 13-14 years ago. Partially because it had lots of fruits… The house needed a quite serious rebuilding (a few walls remained), that was tough as we lived in it during that time. Of course I added more fruit bearing plants (and decorative plants) and even trees don’t live forever… I can’t imagine not having a garden, I am not into the work (or not very much of it) but I love having one.
Okay, I don’t like strawberries much as they are hit and miss but they are surely beautiful!
I only have everbearing mini strawberries, they are tiny and super tasty (not hit and miss :D).
I like to buy one peach per year to eat but a lovely, tasty, yellow one! Not so easy. There are wild trees nearby, they have tiny green fruits but they are nice and juicy. There is a charm in walking and finding all kinds of fruits… (As if we hadn’t too much of ours… But we have no peach or proper plums yet.)
Same. Well, it’s quite frequent in summer, no matter how much I want to do carnivore (clearly I don’t take it very seriously as I don’t see the point to force it. my body loves when I am close but a few grams of fruit don’t ruin anything for me. I am surrounded by a lot of different fruits the bigger part of the year, I am working with them, sometimes more than an hour a day, I love them… let’s be real, I eat some here and then, no way I don’t).
I wondered about the farmer’s market as 1. our village has one now 2. as I eat very little fruit, it start to get a bit too much for us (for my SO, basically and he buys a lot of fruit as we don’t have everything or in proper amounts)… But I decided not to bother. I can make some kind of jam for us but for others…? Jam isn’t my strong suit to begin with and the amount of sweetener seems to matter in the texture, a lot. Only plums are okay as one doesn’t add sugar to it. But we don’t have plums (greengage comes close though, ours are wonderful, the tree just happened - maybe a bird dropped a seed - and got big and plentiful in a few years! it’s tasteless raw but a few minutes turns it into a plum-like tasty beauty. with almost zero sweetness but it is sour like crazy 
oh I love it but it needs some sweetener. or I could mix it with cherry jam as that’s inedibly sweet but not tart enough. or sour cherry but we barely have any, it’s great though, very sweet, nicely tart and its jam is inedibly sweet to me - and I don’t even get out much of the water, it’s just a super sweet fruit, our sour cherry. we have little so I made cherry/sour cherry jam but alas, that was even sweeter. I can eat the fruits, why I can’t eat their jam? oh well, I have my trusty greengage in copious amounts in every year, even in the bad ones where our other fruits have problems. greengage and blackberry never have a bad year, apparently. maybe they yield a bit less than usual but it’s still plenty!).
My days are like yours! I may have more carni days in winter (when I really try… I have less fruits so there is a chance! ) but it’s very similar. My body is healthy enough, I can get away with whatever I fancy (now that I usually fancy better things, at least. but it wasn’t hard to change, well 90% of the change was instant, the rest takes ages…). Never wanted a badge, if it is WAY easier (or simply realistic) with 1-2 toes out of the line, so be it. I keep trying to behave but of course I fail here and there and it’s more or less okay. I am not pleased with myself yet but I don’t do too bad eating wise.
No, I talk about Greek yogurt but normal, low-fat drinking yogurt is a thing here too.
Kefir is a nice thing, way too low-fat for me but I used to buy it a small cup every 3-5 years before. I love sour things. I never liked yogurt (I think Greek yogurt is a newer thing, at least I don’t remember it from decades ago. yogurt is the super low-fat thing to me. IDK, a few percentages, I barely can detect fat that low), it isn’t bad but I could just drink water, about the same to me. I understand people love it for reasons but I always had my sour cream, much better. Greek yogurt isn’t just a mildly fatty, richer thing but it is sour too and that’s nice.
Kefir isn’t drinkable (or not every kind). It’s like yogurt, just sour.
Thankfully not everyone must or should give up dairy! I never tried. I had dairy free days and lactose free year(s?) but I need dairy for variety. I am fine with meat but I can’t even live on meat and eggs alone, I need dairy too. Even if I am not close to carnivore, I have very few extra items and they never could fill the void that dairy items would leave. Low dairy, fine but none? Even for just 3 days? Not my style and I don’t even feel the need.
Bellyman
(Brian)
#24
I’m really lazy about it. I have an InstantPot knockoff with a yogurt setting. The knockoff heats the milk to 180 (F), allows it to cool to 108 (F) and signals for adding the yogurt culture. After I add the culture and press a button on the pot to tell it I’ve done so, it will maintain that 108 (F) temperature for the next 9 hours. Yogurt. I’ll then put it into a strainer and let it drip into a pot underneath, all of that in the refrigerator, overnight. It doesn’t get out all of the whey but it gets out quite a lot of it. Letting it drain even longer gets even more whey but it is dryer in texture. I’m perfectly fine with anything between 8 and 24 hours of draining.
I start with raw milk but have done it with store-bought milk as well. The 180 (F) pasteurizes the milk anyway. Not hard to do that on the stove if one wishes.
Really, that’s about it. You can buy starter cultures, and I’ve done that before. But really I find it just as easy to buy a small container of Fage’ plain Greek yogurt to use as a starter. It’s readily available and apparently has the live cultures in it to make the new batch. No flavors or sugars added, just plain. After 3 or 4 times of saving out a little of the homemade batch for a starter, it can get a bit of a sharp taste to it and I’ll start the process over again. Some might go even longer. (?) It’s all really very forgiving. If the temperature is a little lower than 108 (F) for those 9 hours, it won’t be as set up but no reason not to give it a little more time. If no InstantPot type device, people can probably do something like putting it in an oven with the oven light on and be close enough to get the job done. (Just don’t want it to get too hot that the cultures are killed or damaged by heat.)
I’ve heard of people making yogurt with raw milk that is not pasteurized, I’ve not tried that. You can use whatever kind of milk you want, from skim to whole. Since I skim the cream for coffee, it’s probably something between a skim and 2% (1% maybe?) milk that I’m using. Have heard that some will add some cream just for the extra fat and to make it a bit smoother texture. I’ve not messed with that too much though I know I never get all of the cream out of the milk, just whatever rises.
That’s pretty much it. I like it with a little peanut butter, maybe some fresh fruit like strawberries or blueberries. Definitely not carnivore. But a decent amount of protein and not a huge carb load. Probably matters more what a person puts on it than any other factor.
Janie
(Jane)
#25
I’ll have to look at my Instant Pot to see if it has a yogurt setting. I make greek yogurt for my chickens (they aren’t spoiled a bit! 
) and I use my sous vide to keep it at 108 for 12 hours or so. But I have to heat it on the stove to 180, then cool down to 108 with an ice bath so that messes up an extra pot. I strain my for 20-30 minutes to thicken it. I have the smallest Instant Pot since it is just the two of us, so not sure it will hold a whole gallon of milk, which is what I make about every 2 weeks for the girls.
Will find out when I get home.
Bellyman
(Brian)
#26
Hi Janie, yes, the sous vide would work quite well. Something I’ve had happen in the past was having the power go off for a minute or two while making yogurt. And once the power goes off, the InstantPot knockoff can’t start where it left off, it has to be reset. Well, once I’m into the cycle where it’s just babysitting the yogurt, I don’t want it going back to the beginning and pasteurizing again as that would kill the cultures. So if that happens, I have discovered the sous vide setting on it will complete the job just fine… it just takes me a while to get it set. If it were within an hour or two of being done, I’d probably just let it sit right there in the pot. That thing is heavy enough that it would retain it’s heat for a while anyway.
Yeah, I do cheat a little with the cool-down cycle. It displays “heat” while it’s heating to 180 (F) and then “cool” when it’s letting the milk cool. Takes a very long time. So… I’ll take the stainless pot out of the machine and dunk it into a sink of cold water to speed the process, stirring, checking the temp as it goes. Doesn’t take long. And by the time I have it cooled to the right temp and add the starter, I’m usually very close to the machine thinking it has cooled down to the proper temp and it’ll beep at me. Pot back in, push a little button so it knows I added the culture and forget it for a while.
I hadn’t used my sous vide stick for a while but lately have been using it more again. Discovered it can do a melt-in-your-mouth NY Strip steak. Made one for step-son a couple of weeks ago and he was seriously impressed, like “Move Over Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse” kinda of impressed. 
Saphire
#27
Thank you. I will try it.
My IP does not have a yogurt setting but I looked up options. One is the Sous Vide setting which it does have and I have never used. Will go to the store to get some Fage. I have one in my house but it is old and I think a new one would give it the best chance
Bellyman
(Brian)
#28
I’ve tried a couple of different kinds of yogurt but seem to like the Fage best. Just plain, no flavors or sugars or anything else added.
I don’t know why but I always seem to have better results when I use a freshly opened one for starter. When I try to open one, only use part of it, and then back in the fridge until next time, what I get out weeks later doesn’t seem to work as well. Not sure what the difference is if it’s refrigerated. Would be curious what you find if you do it that way. Anymore, I do it with about a gallon of milk and just use the whole container (something like 5 oz, probably twice what I’d really need to use). When using my own yogurt for starter, I’m not so fussy about how much. Probably 4 or 5 oz give or take a little, not sure, never really measured. I just try to make sure it’s mixed well into the milk so that it’s not lumpy. (I’ll get maybe 1 to 2 cups of the cooled milk out of the pot and use a wisk to work the lumps out of the old yogurt, almost making a slurry out of it, then pour that back into the pot of just pasteurized milk and stir that in. Details, details… LOL!)