After reading some pretty horrendous articles about dairy farming, I recently went through a brief phase of not drinking or eating dairy products. I noticed a difference in my energy levels straight away - they hit rock bottom, which I found bizzare as I never drank a lot of milk or consumed a lot of dairy to begin with, and after a couple of days I even started craving full fat milk which isn't like me at all! I made the decision a couple of days ago to introduce dairy products back into my diet as long as they were good quality and organic.

Yeo Valley is a brand that is easily available and their products are stocked in all the major supermarkets such as Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and so on. They are a little more expensive than own brand versions of milk and yoghurt but as their products are organic and generally better in quality, I feel that it is worth paying an extra 50p or so. I usually buy the Tesco's own range of natural yoghurt, but as it is not organic I have replaced it with Yeo Valley's natural yoghurt which the company describe as 'the original one'.

This yoghurt is available in either small 150 gram pots or larger 500 gram pots. A small pot is priced at around 50 pence while the larger one is on average £1.50. I paid £1.50 for the 500 gram pot that I bought from my local Tesco store, which is 50p more than the same sized pot of Tesco's own brand natural yoghurt, but as I said before I am willing to pay extra as in my opinion, or as far as I am aware, organic cows that can roam free rather than being caged up have a better quality of life and therefor produce better milk. I've heard a lot of rumours that there is no difference between organic and non-organic but I like to think i'm doing my bit by choosing organic. Also, organic dairy cows are not subjected to the amount of steroids, antibiotics and chemicals etc that non-organic cows are injected with so obviously that is an enormous advantage.

This yoghurt can be purchased in an 'original' flavour which is the one that I am reviewing but there's also a lot of other flavours to choose from, for example strawberry, coconut and so on. A zero percent fat version is also available which I actually didn't realise until I checked Yeo Valley's website out - I will certianly be purchasing the zero percent calorie one next time as there is a big difference in calories. The original version has a green and white colour scheme and comes in a simple pot with a plastic lid that pulls off. It has a foil type lid which I remove but it can be kept on. The branding is good - eye catching and it has all the info on the pot that you need to make a buying decision. I love the little flower detailing too.

One of the statements on the front of the pot is 'supporting British, family farms' which I think is great and it informs me that it is made from fresh, British milk and not imported milk. Another statement is 'proper organic bio live yeogurt'. It contains live cultures including bifidobacterium, lactobacillus acidophilus and streptococcus thermophilus. I had no idea what live yoghurt or live cultures were, until a quick google search. Turns out, this simply means that the yoghurt contains live bacteria, which apparently help to stimulate the gut's friendly bacteria and it also helps to keep bad bacteria at bay.

The yoghurt itself is white in colour with a lovely, smoothe, thick and creamy texture. You can tell that it's of good quality as it isn't at all blobby or wattery. I have found with cheaper brands of natural yoghurt it easily congeils or milky water starts to appear at the top, where as this has been in my fridge unopened for two days and it still looks as luxuriously thick and creamy as when I first opened it. The taste is similar to the usual brand of plain, natural yoghurt that I used to buy, except it doesn't have a bitter edge to it like the other brand does and it is a lot richer. It's a very versatile taste and it can be used in either sweet or savoury dishes. It's great for cooling down homemade curries or it can be eaten with some fruit and nuts for a healthy pudding. There are lots of different possibilities and in my opinion this is tasty enough to be eaten on its own, although as it's so rich I don't think I could eat a lot of it.

The calories in this yoghurt are pretty low in my opinion at just 124 calories per 150 grams. There's also plenty of protein and calcium so it's certianly a healthy option. I was quite suprised to see that although it has no added sugar, the sugar content is still quite high at 6.3 grams per 150g, but as this is natural sugar it doesn't bother me too much. I overall reccomend this yoghurt - it's organic, tasty, versatile and most importantly affordable!