No artificial anything

I just love these words on food labels. Whenever I see them, I have to stop and read more. The one that caught my eye yesterday morning at Shaw's was for Dannon All Natural yogurt.

The problem is that the word 'natural' has no real meaning when it comes to food. Processed foods can be natural. So can sugar, or maple sugar, or white flour. Natural sounds warm and fuzzy, but it's really a marketing term.

So I read the ingredients on the label. Cultured grade A low fat milk, sugar, peaches, water. Since this is yogurt, it's good that the first ingredient is milk instead of sugar. I think what's really going on here is that the yogurt contains plain sugar - not high fructose corn syrup, which has been labeled 'evil' by many people. A 4-oz container has 110 calories, which is about twice the calories in one cup of plain yogurt, or one cup of yogurt sweetened with sugar substitute. Sugar substitute isn't 'natural', and most people won't eat plain yogurt because it's not sweet.

But what about the rest of the ingredients? The label says it contains <1% of corn starch, natural flavor, pectin, locust bean gum, lemon juice concentrate, annatto extract. Are these all natural? I suppose it depends on your mindset. Cornstarch is a thickening agent ground from the kernel of corn. Not bad.

Here's the definition for natural flavor:
"The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional."
That doesn't sound so good, does it?

Annatto is a red coloring made from achiote trees in Latin America. Sure, trees are natural, but by the time they actually make annatto it's more chemical than anything else.

What's my point?
- Read the list of ingredients whenever a product says it's all natural. Sometimes it is - and sometimes it isn't.
- beware advertising for "no artificial ingredients" because it's just too complex
- choose plain yogurt and flavor it yourself with an all-natural apple or peach.

carb control yogurt

The things I do in the name of research.

Last week I was working on a piece about probiotics for Today's Diet and Nutrition magazine http://www.todaysdietandnutrition.com/. I not only researched probiotics and the various types of foods that contain them, but I also tried a bunch of different yogurts that contain probiotics.

While I was skulking around the yogurt section of the grocery store, I found Dannon's Light & Fit Carb and Sugar Control yogurt. I bought some, along with Activia and Silk's Live! smoothie as part of my research.

Now, I really like yogurt. I first started eating it when I was an exchange student in Germany back in the 1970's. I routinely eat 1-2 cups of yogurt per day, either in a smoothie, mixed with fruit and granola, or just plain. But I have to say, the Carb Control stuff tastes nasty.

It has only 60 calories in each 4-ounce cup, and also contains probiotics. According to the marketing, it's supposed to help control your appetite, especially for sugar and carbohydrates. My appetite didn't change after I ate it, and what I really noticed was the strange aftertaste.

These are the ingredients according to the Dannon website:

Ingredients:
Water, ultra-filtered skim milk, cream, raspberry puree, contains less than 1% of whey protein concentrate, modified corn starch,kosher gelatin, natural and artificial flavors, sucralose, potassium sorbate (to maintain freshness), Red 40, malic acid, Blue 1, sodium citrate. Contains active yogurt cultures.

I don't really see anything there that might be responsible for the aftertaste. Maybe it's just me; this looks like a healthy product and could certainly work well for many people. I'm just not one of them.

If you've tried the Carb Control yogurt, let me know! For now, I think I'll stick with my favorites: plain fat-free and Cabot brand yogurts.

Lynn