Does Freezing Yogurt Kill The Active Cultures?

Yogurt! Healthy, right? Delicious, trendy, eaten for its nutritional benefits for thousands of years and now enjoyed frequently in its equally appealing frozen form. It's known that some foods, like fruits and vegetables, lose some of their vitamins when frozen. But is the same true for the beneficial probiotic bacteria (a.k.a. "active cultures")?

Thanks to various miracles of science, frozen yogurt does in fact retain some of the active cultures that made you choose froyo over ice cream in the first place. Or maybe it's because frozen yogurt basically pretty much comes in better flavors with less sugar than ice cream nowadays. Seriously, we'll take a blackberry-lemon yogurt pop over one of those intimidating Magnum things at this point to not feel like total crap for eating a delicious frozen treat.

Related: The Secret Ingredient In This Pasta Dough Is Yogurt

You'd have to drop pretty far below zero to kill something meant to survive in human guts. Those friendly bacteria are hardy little organisms and, when frozen, simply become dormant until heated up. Sure, you may lose a few here and there, but all in all, don't worry about your dessert. It's alive and well.

More from the wide world of yogurt on Food Republic:

• The Do's and Don'ts Of Cooking With Greek Yogurt
• Viral Yogurt? Why Does This Dannon Ad Have Over 1 Million Views?
• French Yogurt Cake