Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt

Tangy, thick and creamy, Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt is enriched with probiotics and contains eight grams of protein in each 100-gram single-serve container. Sold four to a package, Oikos comes in several flavours, from classic strawberry (a kid fave) to exotic mango or passion fruit, so there’s something for everyone. The majority of our parent testers feel this yogurt is a healthy choice at breakfast and lunch, and as a daytime snack and occasional treat. The real critics—the kids of our parent testers—were equally impressed, with the majority liking the yogurt's level of sweetness and tang.

For our nutritional deep dive into the world of single-serve yogurts, we called on registered dietician Cara Rosenbloom to do a blind nutritional analysis (no brands or labels, just the nutritional information and ingredient list) of more than two dozen yogurts. Her analysis focused on the quality of the ingredients, as well as the sugar, protein, calcium and vitamin D content. Each 100-gram single-serve container of strawberry Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt contains 10 grams of sugar (2½ teaspoons), eight grams of protein and eight percent of the daily recommended calcium intake. It's worth noting that four grams (one teaspoon) of sugar occurs naturally in plain Greek yogurt, so the added sugar in this yogurt is six grams, or 1½ teaspoons. Overall, Rosenbloom rated this as one of the more nutritious yogurts we tested.

The main selling point of single-serve yogurts is the convenience, and we found that packaging can really have a big impact in this area. Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt comes in sturdy plastic containers that are recyclable. In our tests, the thick lid was easy to remove, but we suspected that little hands would have a harder time gripping and opening the wide container, and we were right: one of our parent testers noted that her almost-three-year-old couldn't open the container by himself. Nevertheless, the majority of parent testers say this yogurt is easy to pack in a lunch. Bonus: In our lab tests, we found that the thick texture of the yogurt helped prevent messy spills—always a good thing in a portable snack.

While Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt is on the higher end of the price-per-serving spectrum for yogurts, coming in at $1.00 per serving, that's about average for Greek yogurts. The majority of our testers feel that it offers good to very good value for money, and we agree, especially given the extra protein that kids get in a Greek yogurt.

FINAL WORD

The majority of our parent testers said they'd recommend Danone Oikos Greek Yogurt to other parents and felt it was worthy of the Today’s Parent Approved seal. We feel the quality and ease of use make it well worth the slightly higher price point when compared to non-Greek yogurts, which offer less protein. It's also on the sweeter side, which helps to temper the tanginess of Greek yogurt for kids.