Friday, April 24, 2009

A Bitter Rant on "Light" Products

It's never a good thing to look at the label of the item you are currently eating. I just went to the grocery store with Sally and saw her getting some yogurt so I thought I'd try some too. Have you ever had Yoplait's Thick and Creamy yogurt? Well I have loved it for a long time. Specifically the vanilla one. Well they make this "light" version so I thought I'd give the "Mixed Berry" flavor a try. First bite was okay. Has that artificial sweetener aftertaste that I hate, though. So I start reading the label... these interested me:

1st ingredient: nonfat milk (always good)

2nd ingredient: high fructose corn syrup (wtf?!?! is the "light" part of this the fact that you are adding artificial sweeteners to the hfcs or the nonfat milk???)

10th: colored with beet juice concentrate (I almost spit out the yogurt I was eating. I swear to you I can taste a hint of beet. That's just wrong.)

13th: sucralose/Splenda (THIS is the stuff that has the aftertaste I loathe - bring on the aspartame and real sugar baby!)

14th: natural flavor (well, I'm glad it is here but it is 14th on the list... and I doubt there is much real flavor in it)

Yeah... I just threw it in the trash. Here's the problem - I'd rather be eating healthy than loosing weight. Eating good foods is good for your heart. And I know that everything seems to cause cancer these days but I really really think Splenda is going to be the next big cancer causing meltdown. The world will soon die - asphyxiated on Splenda.

(...specifically "Light" Mixed Berry yogurt with the bonus of hfcs.)

[on a side note, I read this blog (http://fuckyoupenguin.blogspot.com) and laugh out loud so you should too - read it, I mean. It is up to you if you want to laugh out loud or not. :D This seahorse entry is pretty fantastic.]

4 comments:

Laura said...

I've been angry at yogurt makers for a long time. It's simply not ok to do things like that to people!
Hint: Horizon makes really yummy organic vanilla yogurt, and Dannon makes an all natural vanilla yogurt that's less expensive, but not as yummy as Horizon's. :)

ps-all sorts of crap falls under the category of "natural flavors". watch out for "spices" too. bad stuff is hidden in stuff under those names.

Unknown said...

Well I was very much releaved to look on my Stonyfield Farm All Natural O'Soy Yogurt (Peach flavor) that the ingredients are:

"Cultured Pasteurized organic soymilk, naturally milled organic sugar, organic peaches, natural flavor (ah!!), calcium carbonate, pectin, annatto extra for color"

Hooray. Not nearly so bad.

Taren said...

YES!!! I forget where I was the other day- prob Kroger- and I could not find any flavored low fat/fat free yogurt that wasn't "light." I ended up getting plain yogurt and adding my own fruit. I just couldn't believe that w/ all of the choices (and, seriously, yogurt takes up a whole refrigerator section at the grocery store) there was not a low fat version w/out sucralose in it.

Emily Anne Carson said...

Hey beautiful! I was going to post about Stonyfield Soy Yogurt, but I see you've already got that covered. :) And I am ELATED that you are into FUPenguin. lol. It has been great lately.

Lately I've come to realize that I'd rather be eating whole, healthy foods than eating fake sugar-free,low-fat crap. Maybe I'll always have cellulite, but maybe I'm okay with that. :)