Yogurt Parfaits with 24-Hour Yogurt

Yogurt is highly encouraged on the SIBO diets. It can be a great way to get nutrients as well as helpful probiotics. But if you are new to SIBO, you may be seeing “24-hour” written in front of yogurt and might asking why 24-hours?

The short answer is that you want to make sure your yogurt is SIBO-safe and doe not contain any milk sugars know as lactose. SIBO bacteria can feed off of the lactose and cause symptoms as the population grows.

The long answer is 24-hour yogurt is yogurt that has been fermented for 24 hours. When you make yogurt, you usually pasteurize the milk or heat it to simmer to kill any bacteria in the milk. Then you let the yogurt cool back down to room temperature. Then you add cultures (bacteria) and place the milk in a yogurt maker, oven, or dehydrator and set the temperature between 100-110 degrees Fahrenheit. Then you let the milk ferment at that temperature for 24 hours or longer. While the milk will turn into yogurt a few hours into the fermentation, the 24 hours enables the bacteria to break down all of the lactose in the milk. The long duration allows more bacteria to grow and consume all of the lactose so the remaining yogurt is sugar-free.

Most yogurt found in the grocery store is only fermented for a few hours so it still contains lactose and can feed SIBO bacteria unless it is labeled as lactose-free.

Another super easy way to get sugar-free yogurt is to buy lactose-free yogurt in the store. Here you are relying on the manufacturer to do the work for you but if you tolerate 24-hour yogurt you should not have any problems with commercialized lactose-free yogurt.

Some Tips and Ticks

• Unless you are using an oven or large dehydrator making a batch larger than 1/2 gallon can be too much to fit at one time.
• If you like thicker yogurt, strain your 24-hour yogurt and you can vary the thickness from a greek style to a Siggi’s Icelandic Skyr to a cream cheese.
• If you need to gain weight, use whole milk and add 1-2 cups of heavy cream. Be sure the cream doesn’t have any added gums or thickeners.
• If you go all in and want to use a dehydrator I recommend the Excalibur 9 Tray dehydrator (affiliate link and the exact dehydrator I had). They have several different kinds now with automatic shutoffs and 24-48 hour timers. You don’t have to spend that much money to get a dehydrator though. But I like the large space and removable trays. I could fit a whole gallon of yogurt in this one.

Yogurt Parfaits

Now, to get to the good stuff. Parfaits. Yogurt Parfaits are a super easy and fast way (once the yogurt is made) to get in good nutrients with some good tasty treats as well. Fresh or frozen berries, fresh seasonal fruit and nuts or nut butters are a delicious way to enjoy yogurt. If you tolerate honey you can sweeten it up with a drizzle.

Our family favorite right now is frozen berries lightly thawed with pecans but you can make all sorts of variations from almond banana to strawberry shortcake. The possibilities are endless which is quite nice when a SIBO diet feels restrictive. We love yogurt parfaits for afternoon snack to get in a third meal before our supper later on, but you can eat them at any meal or even for dessert.

(Please remember that Phase 1 of the Bi-Phasic Diet restricts yogurt and all other dairy. This is only to help allow for more die-off without repopulation of bacteria to lessen severe symptoms faster.)

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