Another great article...

By my hero, Michael Pollan.

Check it out.

And for more of his writing, see his website in the Links section. And pick up a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma.

New reviews coming soon!

Backed up

No new posts in nearly a week, I know--my backlog is growing by the day! But fear not, a big review is in the works and a few more are...well, in my brain, at least.

Coming up on The Yogblog:

-A full Fage report: Four yogurts reviewed for the price of one blog entry!
-The froyo tour of Manhattan: It was postponed to this weekend, so me and my frozen-yogurt-eating henchwomen should have some thoughts next week!
-Ronnybrook yogurt cups: Peach and Maple Vanilla (and maybe Coconut) flavors reviewed!
-Cascade Fresh yogurt: My favorite "American-style" yogurts (which happen to be on sale 3 for $2 at Whole Foods this week) reviewed!

So don't touch that mouse...or something.

Trader Joe's Matcha Green Tea Yogurt

One-word verdict: Wowsa!

The backstory: This yogurt definitely caught me off-guard. I picked up a cup at Trader Joe’s last week on a whim when I was stocking up on Fage—noticed the cup in the fridge case, thought “I like green tea, that could be interesting,” glanced at the Nutrition Facts, approved, and popped it into the basket.
Now I wish I had bought twelve.

Nutrition: One of the (few) downsides of this yogurt is that—perhaps because it’s part of a TJ’s new snazzy-looking “Coffeehaus” line—it comes in slightly smaller-than-average sized cups: 5.3 ounces instead of your standard 6. So let the rejiggering of the Nutrition Facts begin…

Per 6 ounces of this yogurt, my calculations tell me, you will find 125 calories, 17 grams sugar, and 1.1 grams saturated fat. (Per actual 5.3-ounce serving, the numbers are 110 calories, 15 grams sugar, and 1 gram sat fat.) Even with it’s reduced size, the yogurt packs a decent amount of calcium (25% daily value in the 5.3-ounce cup). And it’s kosher and gluten-free.

Not bad.

Well, how is it? Dude, if you like green tea and you like yogurt, I’d say run, don’t walk, to your nearest Trader Joe’s and get some (because you never know if it’s going to be discontinued next week).

I opened it up and was greeted with a bright green (well, yellowish-green) color—almost exactly the same color that appears on the outside of the cup. The yogurt had separated a bit and there was a puddle of clear whey on top, but once I had mixed the yogurt a little bit the texture was silky-smooth and light.

I sniffed and got a mild whiff of green tea flavor but also, to my surprise, a real dose of actual yogurty scent. Was this yogurt actually going to taste like yogurt?

Yes, it was! In the smooth first bite, I definitely tasted the telltale mild yogurty tang that told me we were not in typical American yogurt territory. As for the green tea flavor, if you’ve ever had a Matcha Green Tea Blast from Jamba Juice or a Green Tea Frappuccino from Starbucks (both of which I’ll admit to having been a little bit obsessed with a few years back, at least until I found out how much sugar was in them), it’s like that, but less sweet. You probably taste the yogurtiness first, but then the green tea taste lingers after the yogurt has gone down. In fact, this may sound weird, but if you eat a few bites then close your mouth and breathe out your nose, you can taste the green tea flavor again on your tongue.

I devoured.

Where's it made? Again, not sure where the ingredients come from, but this stuff is “Distributed & Sold Exclusively” from Trader Joe’s Monrovia, CA, address, 2,759 miles from NYC.

Ingredient notes: I couldn’t believe how short the ingredients list was when I first picked up the cup. Grade A pasteurized skim milk, cream, nonfat milk, sugar, matcha green tea, and four bacterial cultures. No thickeners or stabilizers or or colors, no starches or gums or preservatives. Dairy, sugar, green tea, cultures—which is exactly what it tastes like when you eat it.

A slight quibble, though: What’s the difference between the skim milk and the nonfat milk? Is only the skim milk (but not the cream or nonfat milk) pasteurized? (I find that hard to believe.)

Processing/Earth-/Animal-friendliness: The container is your standard #5 plastic with a foil lid. And unfortunately, the cup makes no claims that any of the yogurt’s ingredients are organic, minimally processed, or anything but conventional.

Price: 99 cents per 5.3-ounce cup at Trader Joe’s…which translates to $1.12 per 6 ounces.

The bottom line: Brilliant taste, great European-style texture, and I love the spare ingredients list. I wish I knew more about the origins of the ingredients and that the cup wasn’t skimpy-sized, which is going to lose it a couple of points on price and sugar content. Still, highly recommended if you like green tea. (As an aside, I imagine they must have a companion “Coffeehaus” coffee flavor…which is another flavor I don’t do, so I’d love a report from the field!)

SCORING:

Trader Joe’s Coffeehaus Matcha Green Tea Lowfat Yogurt:
taste: 5; texture: 3; flavor novelty: 1; sugar: 1; sat fat: 1; price: 1; free of thickeners/preservatives: 2

TOTAL = 14

Link: Trader Joe's.

Soygurt Cross-Posting!

I'm excited to announce that my post on Trader Joe's soy yogurt has been republished at the "ultimate information resource for non-dairy living," www.godairyfree.org! Future soy yogurt reviews will also be cross-posted there.

Make sure to check out the site for some great tips, product reviews, and vegan, egg-free, gluten-free, soy-free, and/or wheat-free (and of course dairy-free!) recipes.

Trader Joe's Soy Yogurt

One-word verdict: Varies.

The backstory: It’s hard to judge soy yogurt by the same standards as dairy yogurt. Add enough thickeners and colorants and you may get it to look like the real thing, but I think that—as is the case with soy milk—you just can’t expect it to taste much like a dairy product or you will be disappointed. However, once you get past that, I think it is possible to accept soy yogurt on its own terms. And if you have a need for a dairy-free yogurt alternative (whether for kosher, vegan, lactose, or other reasons), the good news is that there are definitely some soy yogurts out there that are worth accepting. (There are also some that are vile.)

So which category does TJ’s house brand fall into? I sampled the peach and raspberry flavors to find out.

Nutrition: Pretty much all the soy yogurts I’ve ever seen are saturated-fat free, which is great, but they are also often very high in sugar, as if trying to mask the taste (or lack thereof) of soy. Both TJ’s flavors contain 0 grams saturated fat per 6-ounce cup and don’t go too crazy with the sugar—18 grams sugar for the peach, 19 grams for the raspberry. As a bonus, each flavor also contains 2 grams fiber (thanks, soy!), but the variety of starches added to help the texture approximate that of dairy yogurt bumps the total carb counts up quite a bit (27 grams carb for the peach, 32 for the raspberry), resulting in 160 calories for the peach and 170 calories for the raspberry. And both have 6 grams protein, though how much of that is true soy protein isn't specified.

Both yogurts are kosher, pareve, vegan, and gluten-free.

Well, how is it? The thing that surprised me most about this tasting experience was how much it differed between the two flavors I tried.

I started with the peach flavor. Upon opening the container I was greeted with a fairly gloppy-looking yogurt (“American-style,” I call it), but it was a nice orange color and smelled appetizing. The taste was pretty sweet with a bit of a soy undertone (this wasn’t bad, however—like I said, you just have to accept that soy yogurt has a taste all its own). There were little peach chunks throughout the yogurt, though not that many, and I’m sad to say that they were kind of tasteless.

Still, the product was all right, innocuous. Not the best soy yogurt I’ve ever tasted, but perfectly edible. The next time I go vegan for a week, I would put it on the menu.

The raspberry, on the other hand, was distinctively grayish in color. (In fact, I’d call it a barely pink shade of gray.) It had the worst part of the raspberries—the seeds—distributed throughout without any good fruity chunks. And, I shit you not, it tasted like tartar sauce.

Tartar sauce, you ask? Yes, tartar sauce. I actually ate my way through the whole the cup because with every bite I thought “Nah…that can’t be right. The next bite has to taste different.” But alas, no, tartary all the way. So congratulations, Trader Joe, on discovering the strange alchemy that can apparently turn soy, starch, fruit, sugar, and cultures into such a close approximation of everyone’s favorite pickly mayonnaise condiment.

Blech.

Where's it made? Where are any store’s private-label goods made? It’s so hard to tell. These yogurts were, however, “Distributed & Sold Exclusively” from Trader Joe’s Monrovia, CA, address, 2,759 miles from NYC.

Ingredient notes: Both flavors consist of pasteurized and cultured organic soymilk (filtered water and ground organic soybeans), organic evaporated cane juice, fruit (peaches or raspberries), cornstarch, organic rice starch, natural flavors, lactic acid (from vegetable source), tricalcium phosphate, and four live active cultures. The peach also has “annatto (for color),” listed before the tricalcium phosphate, while the raspberry has no color additives listed (mystery of the gray color solved!).

So, more sugar than fruit…a couple of thickening starches…an acid to help ferment said starches...color in the peach flavor…and an added source of calcium (which may not be as bioavailable as calcium carbonate). That’s a fair amount of “stuff” added, though most commercial soy yogurts tend to be fairly processed food products in their quest to look similar to dairy yogurts (which are often pretty processed themselves). And at least some of the stuff is organic and all of it is fairly natural.

Processing/Earth-/Animal-friendliness: Clearly these yogurts are pretty animal-friendly, since they’re animal-product-free! Some of the ingredients are organic (the soymilk, evap. cane juice, and rice starch; not the fruit or cornstarch, though). The containers are your standard #5 plastic with a plastic lid.

Price: Not bad—a 6-ounce cup costs 99 cents at, you guessed it, Trader Joe’s. (But the question with any TJ’s product always is: Will it actually be on the shelf when I get there? And will it be discontinued next week? Hoard’em if you like ’em, I guess, because ya never know.)

The bottom line: The peach tastes all right, is at least partly organic, and doesn’t cost too much, so I think it’s a decent option if you’re doing the soy yogurt thing. The raspberry is flat-out nasty. There’s also a strawberry flavor, but I don’t eat strawberry yogurt (sorry), so if you try it, please post a comment and let us know how it is.

SCORING:

Peach flavor:
taste: 3; texture: 1; sugar: 1; sat fat: 2; price: 2; naturally sweetened: 1; animal/earth friendliness: 0.5

TOTAL = 10.5

Raspberry flavor:
taste: 1; texture: 1; sugar: 1; sat fat: 2; price: 2; naturally sweetened: 1; animal/earth friendliness: 0.5

TOTAL = 8.5

Link: Trader Joe’s.

Coming up on The Yogblog...

The Yogblog was quiet last week as I indulged in a few old favorites and took a break from reviewing. My apologies! But fear not, you have these works-in-progress to look forward to:

-A review of soy yogurts from Trader Joe's!
-Field reports from a frozen yogurt tour of Manhattan!
-Fage week: The Yogblogger finally gives famed Fage Greek yogurts a shot, with mini-reviews of the multiple varieties (0%, 2%, whole milk with add-ins, etc.)!

Stay tuned!

Emmi Swiss Pink Grapefruit

One-word verdict: Indestructible!

The backstory: Emmi Swiss Premium Lowfat Pink Grapefruit Yogurt is the professed favorite yogurt EVER not only of my good friend NYHH, but also of a fair number of Chowhounders out there. Now, I like me some grapefruit and I love me some yogurt, but—like many people I’m sure—I was a little skeptical about how well the twain would work together. The flavor would get a point for novelty, sure, but would it rack up points in any other areas?

I've known about this yogurt for a while, but I hadn’t tried for a few reasons: it's high in sugar, pretty pricey, and a bit hard to find (i.e., not stocked at Whole Foods). But all those tales of its uniqueness and deliciousness finally inspired me to seek it out, so when I recently spotted it at a somewhat reduced price, I picked up a cup.

Nutrition: When examining the Nutrition Facts panel, I found it hard to get past the whopping 24 grams of sugars—that’s at least three teaspoons of added sugar per bitty 6-ounce cup, blowing right past Stonyfield, practically into Dannon territory. The fat level's not bad (1.5 grams saturated fat), but all that sugar helps vault the calorie count up to 160 calories, which is higher than that of several full-fat yogurts. Not surprisingly, sugar is the second ingredient in the yogurt, after cultured reduced fat milk but before pink grapefruit, lemon juice concentrate, or grapefruit juice concentrate.

I understand that a little extra sweetener may be needed to counteract the tartness of the citrus components, but that much sugar added to a small cup of 'gurt really is too much for me.

Well, how is it? Well, I wish I could report that, with all that sugar, the yogurt was way too sweet…but it wasn’t.

It was actually very tasty. The flavor is a real wakeup call for the taste buds, managing to be citrusy, sweet, and yogurty all at once. It’s a novel experience, and highly enjoyable—after a few bites I got what the fuss is about. Damn those sugar-happy food chemists, they’d done an excellent job.

As for appearance and texture, the yogurt is a pleasant pink color (apparently aided by “red beet concentrate”) and contains distinct little pink grapefruit bits. Even better, the consistency is that great, silky European texture that’s not too thick but still hangs together nicely (well, probably with help from the “modified corn starch”).

Where's it made? Not totally clear (see below)—I contacted the company to ask, but they never got back to me. The address on the cup is in Valley Cottage, NY (39 miles from NYC), but I suspect that may just be corporate headquarters.

Ingredient notes: In addition to the cultured milk, sugar, fruit, and fruit juices I mentioned above, Emmi Pink Grapefruit Yogurt contains modified corn starch, red beet concentrate, natural flavors, whey protein concentrate, cultures (3 listed), and potassium sorbate (to maintain freshness).

In other words: genetically modified thickener, colorant, flavor enhancers, thickener…and preservative. Sure, red from beets beats FD&C red any day, and there's thankfully no HFCS to be seen, but still, the level of processing is disappointing, especially for a product whose “Premium” title, not to mention price, imply that it’s high-end.

Interestingly, according to this thread at Chowhound, it seems that this yogurt flavor may have recently been reformulated. Apparently it used to be less sweet, less “lemony,” and, according to the poster, better. (If any other longtime Emmi-eaters can pipe in with info on this subject, please do!)


I have been able to confirm that Emmi cups used to be slightly smaller than the standard yogurt cup, 5.3 ounces, and as you can see from the picture of the older version at the right, the design has changed. Also, the old cup used to say “Made from fresh Swiss Alpine Milk,” whereas the new cup says "Original Swiss Recipe" and "Produced for Emmi (USA), Inc." followed by a New York address. This at least implies that the company is now producing yogurt over here rather than importing from Switzerland. If that is the case and the yogurts are no longer being imported, then I think that their continued high price is completely unjustifiable.

Processing/Earth-/Animal-friendliness: The container is your standard #5 plastic, foil lid. (As an aside, I hung on to the empty cup after I finished the yogurt because I knew that Nutrition Facts for Emmi yogurt are not available online, and I wanted to have the evidence in hand for The Yogblog. Well, at one point the cup fell out of my pocket and rolled off into the street, where it was promptly run over by three different cars. I dashed back to get it when the light changed and found the cup to be in surprisingly good shape.)

The cup itself makes no claims about the origins of the milk or other ingredients, and the website offers frustratingly little information as well. In any case, none of the ingredients claim to be organic, "natural," or otherwise earth- or animal-friendly.

Price: This stuff sells for a whopping $1.99 per 6-ounce cup at Garden of Eden, which is the most convenient source to me, but I actually scored my cup at an Upper East Side branch of Dean & Deluca for $1.50. (Wow, what a deal! Note the sarcasm.)

For a product that appears to be using conventionally produced dairy, sugar, and fruit souped up with a bunch of additives (one of which is objectionable enough that Whole Foods won't carry it), that's pretty outrageous.

The bottom line: There are many reasons I should condemn this yogurt: its very good taste and texture should be overwhelmed in my mind by its high sugar content, not-so-good ingredients, and crazy price. It’s certainly not going to do well in my scoring system.

And yet…and yet…I don’t dislike it nearly as much as I should. It’s tasty, it’s interesting. Remembering how it pleasantly surprised me as I tried it for the first time, strolling through Central Park, makes me smile. There’s a lot of yogurt left out there to sample, but I’d like to eat it again sometime.

Apparently, not only the cup is indestructible—this damn yogurt is, too.

SCORING:

Emmi Swiss Premium Lowfat Yogurt—Pink Grapefruit With Other Natural Flavors:
taste: 4.5; texture: 3; flavor novelty: 1; sat fat: 1

TOTAL = 9.5

Link: Emmi USA.