Comparing plant based yogurts

Vegetarian versions of high protein foods are often much less nutritious than the 'normal' versions. I have compared a number of plant based yogurts, all from Sainsbury's, mainly in terms of protein per calorie and find a huge range - a factor of 9. Since protein rich foods are generally more 'satisfying' this could help you reduce your calorie consumption, at least a little.

This is not the 'Christmas' blog post for this year - the only relationship to Christmas that I can think of is that it is about food. Having said that, if you have an intention to try a more climate friendly diet in the new year this could be relevant to implementing your resolution. The Christmas one is the one about good news in 2025 (https://energy-surprises.blogspot.com/2025/12/good-news-in-2025.html). It was published earlier this month.

In all cases calories are in kcal, protein is in g and the reference quantity of yogurt is 100g. The upshot is, if you want high protein you should look at soy based products, although greek style yogurt is generally higher in protein than others. This is because whey is strained out (or the plant base is concentrated) to concentrate the protein. The chart below shows protein/calorie and the variation between brands ranges from 0.09g/kcal for Alpro Greek Style down to 0.01 for the Coconut Collab natural.

Based on product data from the Sainsbury's website.

In general:

• Alpro is based on soya milk and is the most nutritious by a good margin - more than our 'usual' yogurt which is Sainbury's Greek Style based on cow's milk.
• Oatly is based on oat milk (made from blending oats in water and straining the result) and this is considerably less nutritious than milk or soy products, though better than Coconut Collab which is based on coconut milk. 
• The high protein version of the Coconut Collab yogurt also has almonds.
• Only one of the brands quantifies climate impacts on the Sainsbury's product page- the Oatly ones. The Oatly Greek yogurt (0.69 kg CO2e/kg) is somewhat higher in GHG emissions than the strawberry flavoured version (0.62 kg CO2e/kg) and is also higher in protein, though both are based on oats.

Conclusion: Although plant based yogurt makes a tasty adjunct (in my view) to fruit for breakfast you should choose soy or nut based products for concentrated protein.