So many parents I know feed their kids “yogurt” on a daily basis. I think they mean well…  After all, it’s got fruit in it, and fruit’s healthy, right?  If they’re drinking the yogurt based beverages, they’re not sipping on sodas, right?  Yogurt cultures are good for your body, right?  Calcium builds bones, right?

With so many colorful choices, Danimals, Yoplait Kids, YoKids, Munch Bunch, GoGurt, etc., today’s yogurt section looks more like a candy aisle and less like the boring dairy cooler I saw as a kid.

The most basic, and healthiest, yogurt is made from only two things; bacteria (yogurt cultures) and milk.  Yogurt is a product of the bacterial fermentation of milk; pure, simple, healthy… and yuck!

This is pretty much what was available when I was a kid.  I’m 43 and I still can’t stand the taste of plain yogurt.  I have to dress it up with fruit (fresh) or brown sugar (just a bit) or maple syrup (actual maple syrup, not that cheap corn syrup Aunt Jemima or Log Cabin crap that only looks like maple syrup).  Of course, as with most sweets, a little is better than a lot.  Had my gramma actually put something yummy in the yogurt, I might have liked it as a kid instead of thinking she was feeding me wallpaper paste.

Kids today love yogurt, or at least they think they do.  Many would argue that in actuality it’s the sugar in the yogurts they’re eating that they crave so much.  In fact, the crap many of these kids are eating is not actually by definition yogurt at all.  Below is the ingredient list for cherry flavored GoGurt as it appears on the package:

• Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Milk
• Sugar
• Nonfat Milk
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Modified Corn Starch
• Kosher Gelatin
• Tricalcium Phosphate
• Potassium Sorbate
• Carrageenan
• Natural And Artificial Flavor
• Carmine

As you can see, there are no bacteria cultures listed.  The first four ingredients consist of two milks and two sugars.  Although I’m puzzling as to why there are two different milks used (I’m presuming the first is whole milk), I would bet the two sugars (sugar and high fructose corn syrup) are to keep sugar from being listed as the first ingredient.  By the way, the fifth ingredient, modified corn starch, is also a sugar.  Modified corn starch is generally amylose and amylopectin, two forms of glucose which make a sticky paste, and in the case of this “yogurt” it’s used as a thickening agent.

Let’s have a look at the rest of the stuff, shall we?  Kosher gelatin is a thickening agent.  Tricalcium phosphate is there as a “nutritional additive.”  Potassium sorbate is a preservative.  Carrageenan is a thickening agent made from seaweed.  Then there’s the ever mysterious “natural and artificial flavors.”   And last we have carmine, aka “red dye number four,” which gives the product its color…

What?  You thought the fruit gave this “yogurt” its color?

Wait.  Did you see any fruit in the ingredients?

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