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The Loving Spoonful:
A Consumer Guide to America's Yogurts
by Robert Christgau and Carola Dibbell
Yogurt is a dairy product of ancient origin. Europeans have known
about it for years. Many of them consider it healthful, not because
something that tastes so bad must be good for you, but because lactic
acid--which yogurt bacteria ferment from milk sugar--inhibits
disease-causing germs. Americans didn't discover the sour-cream-like
stuff until the mid-1950s, when the Dannon company (an offshoot of
Danone in France) began slipping fruit preserves under individual
portions and launched an intelligent ad campaign. Dannon's fruit
supplement changed yogurt from an oddity to a novelty. The next
innovation was Swiss style, which satisfied the American taste for the
sweet and the ready-made by mixing the fruit and sugar right in. By
now, yogurt qualifies as junk food--sweet, convenient, cheap, and
habit-forming. Sales were over $100 million last year. One factor in
yogurt's growing popularity is its substantial--although
unsubstantiated--reputation as a weight-loss aid. Most Americans eat
it with preserves, which brings the calorie count up from 130 for the
plain product to 270 calories per eight-ounce serving. This is higher
than the same size serving of ice cream, but lower than pie. Of
course, yogurt's peculiar digestive properties may make it dietetic,
but that's only conjecture. Another aid to yogurt sales has been the
"natural foods" movement, despite the fact that most flavored yogurt
contains additives--stabilizers to keep it firm, preservatives to
hold off yeast and mold, and artificial coloring and flavoring to save
money. All of these are listed as G.R.A.S. (generally regarded as
safe) by the Food and Drug Administration, but then the FDA is always
changing that list. We eat yogurt because we think it tastes good,
and when we drove cross-country last summer, we decided to put our
passion to the test. We sampled about 60 brands, tasting several
flavors from most, to arrive at an evaluation of 37 representative
brands. This method had its difficulties. Because yogurt doesn't
keep forever, we had to compare by memory and compensate for context
(a great yogurt in San Antonio tastes more extraordinary than a great
yogurt in San Diego, because you don't expect to find great yogurt in
San Antonio). Our first conclusion is that the reason 60 percent of
all yogurt is sold in the Northeast and on the Pacific coast is
because mid-American dairies make lousy yogurt. Virtually the only
good Midwestern yogurts we found were privately made. Second, price
tends to vary with quality, but not absolutely. It is possible to get
excellent yogurt cheap, and some expensive brands (including
health-food-store stuff) are bad. Overleaf, the results of our quest,
listed alphabetically rather than by rating. Yogurts are rated from A
for absolutely great to E for execrable.
Anderson and Erickson (Des Moines, Iowa) Contains potassium
sorbate (a common yogurt preservative), which is OK as long as you're
not allergic. The FDA might decertify the "artificial coloring and
flavoring" tomorrow, for all you know. For A & E cherry vanilla,
which goes down like cannoli, we'll endure it all. The other flavors
aren't worth it. The blueberry (a fruit hard to preserve or imitate)
is downright puky. C
A&P Look-fit (New York, New York) This is your low-average
high-additive Swiss-style yogurt--a gelatinous hunk, with flavors from
funny (peach, Dutch apple) to inedible (strawberry, plain).
D PLUS
Astro (Toronto, Canada) The other kind of yogurt. You get it
in health-food stores in the Toronto area. Nothing is added, but the
fermentation is controlled so that some natural sweetness from the
milk sugar gets past the lactic-acid test. A
Berkeley Farms (Oakland, California) This additive-free local
brand is inoffensive but forgettable. Comes in the expected fruit
flavors. Too sweet. B MINUS
Borden (Columbus, Ohio) One of the imitators of Swiss-style
yogurt, which does require stabilizers--starch, gelatin, gum, or
carrageenin--to keep the fruit in place. It usually gets a funny
taste. Borden's funny taste is like cardboard. D PLUS
Breakstone (South Edmeston, New York) Breakstone succeeds at
blueberry--in its All Natural line--with plump, whole berries in an
ungummy preserve. The All Natural raspberry is tart and seedy, the
strawberry immemorable, the vanilla overflavored, and the plain smooth
but nondescript. The sticky-sweet Swiss Parfait line has additives,
costs more. B
Carnation (Los Angeles, California) A good yogurt with adequate
flavors put in sundae style at the bottom. Stabilizers, artificial
color, etc. but no preservatives and no aftertaste. B
Colombo (Methuen, Massachusetts) After 40 years of
small-timing, Colombo is cutting corners to try to get Dannon's market
in a hurry. Too bad, because it could be the best yogurt in the East.
Its whole-milk formula beats every contender in the country except the
higher-priced Continental. Its fruit flavors are sumptuous, and even
its novelty line (shocking-pink peach melba, lemon custard with egg,
lavender cold duck) tastes good. But the new supermarket quantities
show inconsistent product control and the flavors are artificially
spiked. It's not impossible to avoid additives--just expensive--and
Colombo wants to remain competitive. The blueberry, with its dusky
blue color, generous strewings of berries, and creamy consistency is
the best in America, as is the all-natural honey vanilla. When they
make it right, even the wheat germ and honey is better than you can
mix yourself. A MINUS
Continental (Glendale, California) The yogurt with hubris. It
could be too rich. At seven percent, the butterfat content is well
over the one-and-one-half percent of ordinary low fat, or even whole
milk's four percent. But it could be the best-tasting plain and
certainly is the most unusual yogurt with any real distribution. The
honey-sweetened sundae-style flavors are subtle and close to those of
the real fruit--though the raspberry is thin and overly tart and the
pineapple is bubble-gummy. Strawberry, apricot, and pear are our
favorites. The low-fat Bulgarian line is not special, and the Goat's
Milk yogurt made us gag, but Royal Continental is worth seeking out,
in the ubiquitous California health-food emporiums (at about 40
cents/8 oz.) and in big Eastern cities, where it's expensive.
A
Crescent (Montreal, Quebec) Dannon's recipe with whole milk.
It takes remarkably like Continental, only it isn't quite as well
rounded and the fruit is mushy. B PLUS
Dannon (Minister, Ohio) In making lactic acid yummy, Dannon has
done more than any other to promote yogurt in America, has never used
an artificial ingredient--even when nobody cared. The plain is so
conscientiously controlled that it comes short on character, but its
function is really to mix with the carefully preserved choice fruit
underneath. Dannon is wholesome rather than mind-blowing. It's good
with tricky yogurt fruits like cherry and peach (though not blueberry)
and some of its flavors are the best. Try the fluffy
pineapple-orange, with shreds of marmalady peel, or tart apricot, made
from frozen fruit to avoid the sulphur used in drying. Our favorite
is Dutch apple, in with the lightly spiced tender apple chunks go with
mellow yogurt like apple pie with ice cream. Number one in the United
States east of the Mississippi. A MINUS
Dean's (Chemung, Illinois) Crummy for the money (40 cents/8
oz.) with a surface like the moon--cratered. Blueberry as weird as
usual. Dark, viscous cherry. Strawberry tastes like a lollipop, the
plain is so sour it made our eyes water, and all of them are loaded
with G.R.A.S. helpers. D
Delisle (Boucherville, Quebec) French Swiss-style yogurt
doesn't use stabilizers, and maybe that's why Delisle has the
consistency of soup and tastes chalky. Still, the over-all effect is
fresh, with large pieces of fruit. Delisle coffee is the best we've
come across--subtle and light textured. B
Dr. Gaymont's (Chicago, Illinois) A tolerable basic formula
(thick) but a cheesy aftertaste (parmesan). Candy-style strawberry,
spoiled blueberry, and black cherry that's like marzipan, which is at
least a novelty. Sells big in North Central States and is the only
American brand to spell it yogourt. C MINUS
Eudokia's Ya-our-ty (Des Plaines, Illinois) Variations on this
yogurt--by no means identical but just as unique--are probably made at
small Balkan and Middle Eastern restaurants and food suppliers all
over the country. This one, available in the Chicago area, has curds,
tastes mild as light cream, and goes with salt and pepper.
A MINUS
Erivan (Oreland, Pennsylvania) A whole-milk yogurt available in
some Northeastern health-food stores (at 63 cents/7 oz.). Freshness
is the main attraction, as it has no special flavor.
B PLUS
Gandy's (San Angelo, Texas) A lot of brands outside the big
yogurt markets are really awful. We ate this in Big Bend, Texas, and
it wasn't awful. Despite the ingredients listing on the label, the
plain tastes like it has sugar in it. The lemon (a good bet in bad
brands because it doesn't cost much to make) is all right.
C MINUS
Hawthorne Mellody (Chicago, Illinois) Why do they bother?
E
Hollywood (Detroit, Michigan) One of the worst yogurts in
America. Smells like fresh chemicals, and the blueberry looks like
extract of used typewriter ribbon. Cheap and gummy. E
Hood (Boston, Massachusetts) Dannon's New England competition
buys artificial flavoring instead of fruit, and stabilizers instead of
quality. Why no preservatives? Nothing to preserve.
D PLUS
Jerseymaid (Los Angeles, California) Twenty-three cents is a
good buy for good yogurt, even in California, where it tends to run
cheap. Jerseymaid plain is clean and rich. It has pizazz--but not
too much pizazz. The preserves are like fresh fruit--but in a pie,
not off the bush--mushy yet flavorful. They also do chocolate fudge
(a flavor that tastes the same--a little weird--no matter who makes
it) and ice-pop lime. B PLUS
Johnston's (Glendale, California) Strawberry is America's
favorite kind of yogurt. Johnston's, a corporate relative of Dannon
with a different style, does it all three ways: (1) Fruit Fondae
(Swiss style), which is light pink, too sweet, and has the consistency
of baby's tapioca; (2) Sundae Style, which (like the Fondae) includes
stabilizers and sorbic acid--"practically non-toxic," according to
Ruth Winter's Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives--is smarter
tasting but nothing special, with a good, smooth, plain base; and (2)
All Natural--substituting honey for sugar, sundae style, for a nickel
more--delicate, fragrant, with succulent firm berries; one of the most
remarkable examples of any flavor in any brand. B PLUS
Knudsen (Los Angeles, California) The big California dairy
(unrelated to the New England Knudsen) makes the biggest-selling
yogurt on the West Coast. The plain is exceptionally thick and
substantial, although one went gamy soon (refrigerated yogurt should
keep for at least a week). Some of the flavors are artificially
bolstered, and all are stabilized and colored. None of them are
exceptional. They include a vanilla that tastes like banana; a banana
that tastes like wax; a good, gunky, spiced apple; a smooth, junkety,
fruit-at-bottom strawberry; and a too-sweet, Swiss-style strawberry
with little gritty things. Buy the plain. B PLUS
Lacto (New York, New York) This is an old family company that
makes roughly the third-best yogurt you can buy in East Coast
supermarkets. It's sourer and thicker than Dannon's and available in
quarts for 89 cents, but it's unpredictable and known to go bad fast.
The all-natural line demonstrates that additives aren't the only way
to hurt fruit flavoring--you can overcook, oversweeten, and underspend
on ingredients. B
Lucerne (Oakland, California) The people who say good yogurt
must be sour--and we're among them--do not mean this exploitation from
Safeway Stores. Its viscosity comes not from fermentation but from
gelatin, starch, vegetable gum, carrageenin, and lecithin. Boycott.
C MINUS
Maola Trim (New Bern, North Carolina) Another boondocks bummer.
The peach is a complete disaster. D
Meadow Gold Viva (Chicago, Illinois) One of the worst. The
aftertaste penetrated its most lurid flavors, and the boysenberry was
gray. E
Nancy's (Springfield, Oregon) This health-food yogurt has
preserves (in a separate plastic cup on top) had honey mixed into the
plain, which is rich and heavy in texture but disappointingly bland.
The sugarless preserves taste like good canned fruit. Good canned
fruit? B PLUS
Nordica (Albuquerque, New Mexico) This was the worst. We could
not eat two bites of the bitter boysenberry or the astringent, rotten
plain. E MINUS
Ralph's (Los Angeles, California) The best supermarket yogurt.
Although most of the flavors were not special, you could spill the
tart, cheesecaky orange into a sherbert glass and call it desert.
It's available in quarts like Knudsen's. The plain ranks with
Knudsen's. In fact, one informant insists that it's made by Knudsen.
Accusation denied. B PLUS
Sealtest Light 'n' Lively (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Naïve
interpretations of flavor plus Sealtest's distribution makes this one
of the three top-selling yogurts in the East. Gelatin, usually used
as an unsuccessful short cut to body, is handled deftly enough; its
fine granularity stops short of chalkiness; and the small stains of
U.S.-certified color have leaked off chunks, rather than shreds, of
fruit. Much like baby food. C
Sugar-Lo (Atlantic City, New Jersey) This is grade A milk
(partially skimmed), yogurt culture, choice blueberries, water,
certified food coloring, vegetable stabilizers, natural and artificial
flavors, less than one tenth of one percent sodium benzoate as a
preservative, and .012 percent calcium saccharine per eight ounces.
Result: 118 calories, 14.61 grams carbohydrate, 9.49 grams protein,
and 2.27 grams fat. E
Superbrand (Jacksonville, Florida) A big supermarket brand from
the South. The peach tasted like ether. D
George Szanto's Home-Made Little Balkan Yogurt Maker Yogurt
(Laramie, Wyoming) They say the best yogurt is the yogurt you make
yourself, but that's not as easy as it sounds. In Laramie, however,
there are no reasonable alternatives. George's first batch melted in
our mouths, something like snow. The second had some rough residue
and was too sour. But it was fresh, and it sure beat Meadow Gold
Viva. B
White Cloud (Los Angeles, California) This is an overrated
gourmet health-food brand. Good body, bad aftertaste--twice.
B MINUS
Yami (Oakland, California) We tried Yami in lots of
places--even as far east as Ontario--and it never justified its
reputation, despite the fact that its cultures come from the Roselle
Bacteriological Institute in Quebec--one of the first sources of
yogurt in North America. Texture is usually OK, except in the plain.
The royal natural was hard as the white of hard-boiled egg. C
Yonson (Fullerton, California) Plain Yonson, though creamy, has
a funny, oldish taste. The lime has citrus shreds and tastes like
good Italian ice or real lime chiffon pie. But we were confused by
its color--an implausible aquamarine. We could track down only one
flavor in its natural line, but it was a find--orange with honey that
really tasted like both. B
Carola Dibbell & Robert Christgau
Oui, May, 1974
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