Gut friendly yoghurt labels, what UK packaging can promise

Not much. In Great Britain a yoghurt can say it contains live cultures, and it may claim those cultures improve lactose digestion in people who have difficulty digesting lactose, if it holds at least 100 million live starter cultures per gram. Gut friendly is not an authorised claim, and neither is any immune claim for the cultures.

Everything else you read on the pot is either a fact about what’s inside, a claim borrowed from a vitamin or mineral, or marketing with no legal threshold behind it. Telling those three apart takes about as long as reading the lid.

What can a yoghurt pot legally say about your gut?

One thing, in approved words. The government’s claims register authorises this sentence: live cultures in yoghurt or fermented milk improve lactose digestion of the product in individuals who have difficulty digesting lactose. The condition is at least 100 million colony forming units per gram of live starter cultures, from the two classic yoghurt species named in the register.

Notice how small that promise is. It’s about digesting the lactose in that yoghurt, for people who struggle with lactose. It says nothing about bloating, immunity or the rest of your gut.

Contains live cultures is a separate matter. It describes what is in the pot, and statements of fact that don’t imply a benefit are not claims at all, so it needs no approval.

Is gut friendly allowed on a yoghurt?

Not as an authorised claim. The phrase sits in the register inside an application for a mix of lactic acid bacteria, and the whole entry is recorded as not authorised. Under Article 10 of the claims regulation, a general line about a benefit to health, such as good for you or gut friendly, may only be used if a specific authorised health claim goes with it. The full story of that phrase is in what gut friendly means on a UK food label.

So when you see gut friendly on a pot, look for the authorised sentence it is leaning on, and then check whether the pot meets that sentence’s condition.

Why does a yoghurt mention calcium, vitamin D or immunity?

Because vitamins and minerals are where the authorised claims are. The register authorises immune claims for named nutrients, including vitamin D, vitamin B12, vitamin C and zinc, in wording along the lines of contributes to the normal function of the immune system. There is no authorised immune claim for live cultures.

Calcium is the obvious one for a dairy pot, and one of its authorised claims even mentions digestion: calcium contributes to the normal function of digestive enzymes. Each of these claims is only allowed on a food that is at least a source of the nutrient, which means 15 per cent of its nutrient reference value in 100g. For calcium that reference value is 800mg, so the yoghurt needs at least 120mg of calcium per 100g. For vitamin D the reference value is 5 micrograms, so 0.75 micrograms per 100g.

That is a real condition, and it is met by a mineral, not by the cultures. When the gut words and the vitamin claim are on the same pot, it’s worth noticing which one has the approval.

Are kefir and other fermented drinks probiotics?

Not by the British Dietetic Association’s definition. Kefir and kombucha may contain beneficial microorganisms, but they aren’t considered probiotics, because the evidence on their health benefits is lacking. Products that do call themselves probiotic are generally classed as food rather than medicine, so you can’t always be sure they contain the bacteria on the label, or enough of them to have an effect. Probiotic, live cultures, biotic covers how the law treats each of those words.

What about sugar in flavoured and low fat yoghurts?

This is where the back of the pot matters most. Plain yoghurt can show as much as 8g of sugars a serving, and none of it is free sugar, because it all comes from the milk. Flavoured pots add their own on top.

Lower fat doesn’t have to mean lower sugar. Some lower fat yoghurts are sweetened with refined sugar, fruit juice concentrate, glucose and fructose syrup. The NHS advice is to choose lower fat yoghurts but check the label to make sure they aren’t high in added sugar, and it notes that plain lower fat yoghurts usually have no added sugars. On the traffic light scheme, 5g of sugars per 100g or less is low and over 22.5g is high.

A pot of plain yoghurt with nothing added beyond milk and cultures doesn’t have to carry an ingredients list at all, because the law exempts fermented milk made that way. The moment fruit, sugar or anything else goes in, the list appears, and how to read an ingredients list shows what its order tells you.

Does high protein make a yoghurt better for you?

It means at least 20 per cent of the yoghurt’s energy comes from protein, and nothing more. On average, people in the UK already eat more than enough protein, so most of us don’t need products with extra added. Check the sugars on a high protein pot as you would on any other.

If you’d like to see how you do on claims like these in the aisle, the label test has six of them, true or false.

When a yoghurt isn’t the question

If your gut has been troubling you, no pot will tell you why. See a GP if you feel bloated regularly, if you’ve tried changing your diet but keep feeling bloated, or if you have bloating with unintentional weight loss or blood in your poo. Ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 if bloating comes with vomiting, diarrhoea or constipation, a stomach ache, a high temperature, or a swelling or lump in your tummy. That is part of the NHS list for bloating, and the full list is on its bloating page.