What is the “official” definition of the term “yogurt”?
Under the standard of identity established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in order for a refrigerated product to be called “yogurt,” it must be produced by culturing permitted dairy ingredients with a bacterial culture, which contains Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. In addition to the use of bacterial cultures required by the FDA standard of identity, live and active culture yogurt may contain other safe and suitable food grade bacterial cultures. No standard of identity exists for frozen yogurt products, but they too may contain live and active cultures. The National Yogurt Association (NYA) established its own criteria for live and active culture yogurt in conjunction with its Live & Active Culture seal program. In order for manufacturers to carry the seal, refrigerated yogurt products must contain at least 100 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture, and frozen yogurt products must contain 10 million cultures per gram at the tim
