The Guardian - Life & Style • Jan. 24, 2026, 1:18 p.m.

Which supermarket live yoghurts leave a sour note and which are naturally divine? • The best supermarket frozen fruit smoothie mixes Live natural yoghurt is the bedrock of my family’s diet.

My six-year-old, for instance, gets through well over a kilo a week: for breakfast, she’ll have it with porridge, sometimes with blackstrap molasses, while most evenings she’ll have a generous bowl of yoghurt topped with frozen blueberries or mango before bed (ideally before teeth-brushing negotiations begin). To avoid excessive sugar and more processed ingredients, we never buy sweetened or flavoured yoghurt: just the plain, full-fat stuff that’s packed with beneficial bacteria.

So what is live yoghurt, and why does it matter? Live yoghurt contains active bacterial cultures, most commonly strains of Lactobacillus , Bifidobacterium and Streptococcus thermophilus .

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