I like the sour cream overall a bit more. Sometimes i feel a hankering for nice greek yogurt but yeah the sour cream is the goodness. I think one of the whole reasons for the popularity of yogurt is that most of them are substantially less calorically-dense than the sour creams. Saturated far-fear probably plays a big role, too. Although you would lose the fermented goodness of it, you could try whipping your own cream at home and using that for the dessert. I think its fun to whip cream on the spot, makes you enjoy your food more and its kinda cool to show people how easy it is (dinner guests and kids, etc).

Considering that sour cream is soured cream and yogurt is soured milk and that, like you said, the fat content is much higher in fermented cream, my vote goes for sour cream.

I make my own yogurt and I'm considering switching to fermenting cream instead of whole milk. When you do this, you also control what bacterial strains you put in and the same strains that work well with milk will work with cream. Good quality grass-fed cream is not cheap though around here.

Sour cream is re-pasteurized to stop the fermentation process before it is sold in stores. So both providing beneficial gut flora is unfortunately incorrect. However making your own yogurt is really easy by simply adding a tiny bit of live yogurt or a culture package to milk and incubating for 8-10 hours. Making your own sour cream is probably similar, however they use a different culture array. http://www.differencebetween.net/object/comparisons-of-food-items/difference-between-yogurt-and-sour-cream/

what about marscapone cheese? similar consistency..

calories: 130 fat: 13g Carbs: 1g Protein: 2g

not sure about the probiotics or lactose intolerance though

Or creme fraiche, which you can make yourself from cream and save some bucks. (It's really easy; directions can be found, among other places, in Nourishing Traditions.)

My general statement is that I like the taste of yogurt by itself but prefer cream, sour cream, and creme fraiche mixed into sauces and things. Yogurt for flavor, cream and its variants for the saturated fat I need.

Another possibility is kefir.

Sounds like a winner to me. Thanks for posting this. I like sour cream just as much if not more than Greek yogurt. I have done the same with cocoa in sour cream.

Must we have a preference? :-) I prefer sour cream in some things (tex-mex type sauces, for instance) and yogurt in others (curries, for instance.) I tend not to eat dairy straight (except for a very occasional bit of cheese), so expressing a straight-up preference for one over the other seems kind of beside the point. I guess I prefer the one that works best with the other flavors at hand. They are definitely different, and at least for me, not really interchangeable.

My favorite is the Greek yogurt, but I have recently given it up once I heard about the high insulin index of 115. I wonder if the insulin index is based on low-fat yogurt, as I used to eat full-fat greek yogurt.

I started adding a little avocado to my cocoa and greek yogurt to hopefully tamp down the effects of the insulin.

I think the answer is moderation and variety -- some cream greek yogurt and sour cream, but not everyday.

My personal preference would be sour cream since I cannot stand unsweetened yogurt and I find sour cream to be more versatile for my cooking. I also choose sour cream because yogurt has too much casein for me.

The Paleo approach is to always chose the product that contains more fat

We moved to europe recently so I'm assuming these products are still availible in the states but we used to go between Wallaby organics european sour cream which is NOT re-pasteurized after culturing and is one of the only brands besides daisy that is 100% cream instead of cream and skim milk + thickeners which is whats in most of the brands out there including the organic. My son loved that stuff. I'd add a little bit of fruit or honey to it and he'd just lap it up.

Our other option was to buy seven stars creamery yogurt and strain overnight then make it nice and smooth in the food processor. I didn't like all the thickeners in the Greek yogurts and most of them skimmed some of the fat off even when they claimed to be full fat. Real Greek yogurt should have at LEAST 10% fat per serving, while brands like Fage run around with about about 5% and claim to be full fat. (Fage used to be more authentic but they changed their practices and started skimming the cream.) Obviously the culture in seven stars is different than the one used for traditional greek yogurt but I like my food less processed and skimmed milk powder is gross.

Sour cream is very popular over there, I'm from Russia . if you buy raw sour cream at the farmers market it can contain as much as 45-50g fat per 100g , yummy! Mushrooms , simmered in sour cream is a traditional Russian meal that tastes delicious. It's also usually added to soups and salads.