With new research studies surfacing every day, the craze for Greek Yogurt only continues to grow. A couple of years back, everybody would throw back a regular yogurt with fruit on the bottom and think that they’re well on their way to a clean bill of health – today, most everyday consumers shake their head at the sugar content of the fruit on the bottom varieties of yogurt.

While many people have welcomed the Greek Yogurt craze and have accepted that it is healthier than your run-of-the-mill yogurt variety, most people cannot explain why it is the healthier choice. On this site, our goal is to make you stronger and smarter – so let’s kill two birds with one stone as we break down why Greek Yogurt is so much better of a muscle building staple than plain yogurt.

For this inquiry, we deferred to Flex’s nutrition expert Jordana Brown. Jordana does a great job in explaining the general concept while also breaking down the details so that you can sound like an expert when you hit on that hottie at the grocery store. She argues the following:

As our only master is muscle, we have to admit that, compared to regular yogurt, Greek yogurt is indisputably better for those muscle fibers, primarily because of its protein content. A cup of Greek yogurt contains 20 grams of protein, dwarfing its current competition. And, despite having its roots in the same source — milk that has had bacterial cultures added to it — Greek yogurt still has fewer carbs than plain regular yogurt – almost half.

These differences are likely related to the process of making Greek yogurt. Although it starts out the same as regular yogurt, once the cultures have been added, the mixture is left to rest in cheesecloth, which a l lows the liquid whey to drain away. The result is a rich, thick yogurt that doesn’t require stirring before eating. It also means that Greek yogurt’s proteins are primarily casein, the slow-digesting counterpart to the whey that drained away.

Also drained away is a good portion of Greek yogurt’s calcium, but getting slightly less of the bone- and muscle-contraction-boosting mineral per serving is a small price to pay for an excellent source of slow-digesting protein. Greek yogurt could even take the place of a bedtime snack of cottage cheese or, on a day when you have to eat a while before hitting the gym, pair it in the traditional Greek style with two tablespoons of honey for an almost-perfect pre-workout combination of slow-digesting carbs and protein.

By Daniel