Yakult — a probiotic or slow poison? Yakult side effects

In past few years, a lot has changed when it comes to our eating habits. Brands are launching products that are beneficial for consumes and can add tangible value to overall health. We all aim for a healthy life which generally starts from a healthy gut and robust heart. When it comes to a healthy gut, it seems that nothing is better than a wonderful probiotic drink like Yakult and if something is endorsed by the super fit Mrs Shilpa Shetty Kundra, then who wouldn’t purchase it. After her recommendation, the first thing I did was to add Yakult to my Supermarket shopping list without knowing Yakult side effects.

Read more about how to get a healthy heart

As soon as I went to purchase Yakult, a lady showed me tons of probiotic drink but I simply trusted Yakult. It was because of Mrs Kundra who endorses Yoga and has unflinching belief in Yakult. Little did I know about the pay check she got for endorsing!

Don’t get me wrong. Natural probiotics are great and have tremendous health benefits. Your gut health is closely linked to your overall health, so feeding your gut with good bacteria in the form of probiotics makes perfect sense.

Why then you should avoid Probiotic drinks like Yakult!!

Probiotic drinks and Yakult side effects Sugar

A major reason for referring Yakult as “slow poison” is because of its sugar content. Sugar acts as slow poison for lot of growing kids and Yakult’s sugar content is extremely high. It contains 11.4g of sugar per 65mL serving (this is 17.5g per 100mL) which is almost equivalent to 3 tablespoons per Yakult. You may think that shifting to Yakult Light might help but their ‘Yakult Light’ version contains 7.1g of sugar per 65mL serving (10.9g per 100mL). If we look at the nutrition label, we can see that the standard Yakult probiotic drink has 10.2 grams of sucrose. Overall, nothing less than 2.5 teaspoons of pure sugar that you are downing first thing in the morning!
You can imagine the Yakult side effects on our body..

Skim milk powder

Another unhealthy ingredient in Yakult is Skim milk powder. Skim milk powder is a particularly horrible food source partly because all the nutritious fat has been ‘skimmed off’ due to the heat treatment that the milk receives to turn it into powder form. This turns healthy nutritious food into an inflammation health bomb.

Dextrose-More Sugar

Dextrose is simple sugar and not as bad as Sucrose but it is just more sugar entering your body.

Ultra heat treated

High-temperature treatment of milk destroys milk proteins and can lead to autoimmune issues.

Homogenization

After the fermentation process is complete when making Yakult probiotic drinks, the next step is “a smoothing process” known as homogenization. I’m not entirely sure if this is good or bad for the human body.

Artificial Sweeteners and flavouring Plastic bottles

Yakult comes in a small plastic bottle and we are starting to realize that plastic is not necessarily the best form of packaging when it comes to health. Plastics disrupt our endocrine system, impact our hormonal and reproductive systems and have even been linked to cancer and neurological damage. Additionally, plastic is extremely hazardous for the environment and takes eons to disintegrate. For a drink which is supposedly the best for our body, using exclusive plastic packaging in small packages seems extremely careless and totally against corporate social responsibility.

Pin it here Conclusion

I have shared lot of reasons for not trusting Yakult or other bottled and artificial probiotics for overall health of your gut. However, there are literally tons of products available at our home that could help our gut health. A simple and easily available probiotic is Yogurt or curd. This is one of the best sources of increasing probiotics in your body, especially homemade curd. One bowl a day and you will not even think about going for any artificially sweetened products endorsed by celebs.

With holiday season starting let us aim to stay healthy and happy 🙂

Disclaimer — The views and opinions expressed are of the authors and do not necessarily represent official policy, people, institutions or organizations that owner may or may not be associated with. Any views or options are not intended to Malign any religion, ethnic group, company or individual.

Originally published at https://www.colossalumbrella.com on October 24, 2019.