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Plain yogurt is level 2. Flavoured yogurt is level 4. Here is why they are completely different.
FoodLens verdict
🫣 Keep as a treat
Yogurt has a healthy reputation — and plain yogurt deserves it. But most yogurt sold in Swedish supermarkets is not plain yogurt. It is flavoured yogurt, which is a very different product that belongs in the same NOVA category as crisps and fast food.
Take strawberry yogurt as an example. Plain yogurt is milk and live cultures — two ingredients. Strawberry yogurt adds sugar, glucose syrup, artificial strawberry flavouring, modified starch, E471 emulsifier, and sometimes artificial colours. The yogurt base is still there, but it is surrounded by industrial ingredients.
Level 4 is assigned when a product contains industrial ingredients not used in home cooking — glucose syrup, artificial flavourings and E471 all qualify. You would never add these to yogurt at home. Their presence means the product has been industrially reformulated beyond simple food preparation.
Low fat flavoured yogurt is often even more processed than full fat versions. When fat is removed, flavour is lost — so manufacturers add more sugar, more flavourings and more thickeners to compensate. Full fat plain yogurt is dramatically cleaner than low fat flavoured yogurt.
Plain yogurt — Greek yogurt, kvarg or filmjölk — with your own toppings. A handful of berries, a spoon of honey, some granola (check the label) or fresh fruit. You control what goes in, and the base product is level 2.
The word yogurt on the label does not tell you much. Plain yogurt is one of the cleanest dairy products you can buy. Flavoured yogurt is often closer to a dessert. Check the ingredient list — the shorter it is, the better.