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There is an evil genius who works for Yoplait. This man (or woman) devised a clever ploy back in 1999. I can just imagine the boardroom pitch now:
“Ladies and gentleman. As you all know, it’s high time we expand our product line to foods only tangentially related to yogurt. I have devised a colorful food that our food scientists assure me can be legally marketed as yogurt. It tastes like candy, comes in a tube, and will be the next hot item for today’s kids-on-the-go. I give you: Gogurt.”
[Awed gasp.]
Today, apparently anything passes as yogurt (the New York Times warned us way back in 1982). I could not find the ingredients listed on the Yoplait site (how sketchy is that? even the pancake and sausage on a stick listed theirs) so I pulled this from Hubpages:
- Cultured Pasteurized Grade A Milk
- Sugar
- Nonfat Milk
- High Fructose Corn Syrup
- Modified Corn Starch
- Kosher Gelatin
- Tricalcium Phosphate
- Potassium Sorbate (preservative)
- Carrageenan
- Natural And Artificial Flavor
- Carmine (which is made from boiling dried insects to extract the carminic acid…)
Real yogurt is nothing but milk and live bacteria cultures. Gogurt gets a +1 for including one of the required ingredients. The marketing opportunities are endless. I found Shrek branded Gogurt and this RoGurt:
Yes - Scooby Doo's agent is a marketing genius
Hubpages also points out that Gogurt has roughly 1/3 MORE sugar than Coca-cola. No guilty conscience for you parents, it’s yogurt afterall! The product is successful enough to have spawned Gogurt Fizzix which is…CARBONATED yogurt?!? I don’t have to tell you that The Reluctant Eater recommends real food, not crap that was invented in a laboratory, patented, and then sold to a giant food conglomerate. (Edit: Their website is ridiculous, and features many inexplicable “games” that all revolve around burping. Check out this “challenge” that I issued. Gross, right?)
Has anyone tried this stuff? Speak up…I promise the mockery will be contained to the product itself.
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Yuck! We spent Thanksgiving weekend with my folks. They don’t eat very healthy, but we almost always eat what we are served with no complaints. Where I absolutely drew the line was when there was nothing to eat, and we dug into the Blueberry yogurt in the refrigerator. It was the most disgustingly sweet yuck that I’ve had in a very long time and the gag reflex kicked in. It all makes sense after reading this…
I was so mad when I read the label to my yoplait yogurt and found CORN SYRUP. No wonder it was so cheap at Jewel! I didn’t realize that Gogurt was even worse…and they still insist on calling it yogurt? Lies, lies.
My 3 year old just ate 3 tubes. Then he spilled some and the horror! It’s neon pink! I pulled out the package and threw it away. Is it even real yogurt?
I can’t get my mom to stop bringing it to my 4 year old. She just doesn’t understand. So today I went on line to give her the toxic information on the ingredients and found your blog. Good job. I will print this for her. Visit me at notthemommytype.com.
I hate it when companies do not put the ingredients of their product online!
and forget about the sugar in the yogurt….they put Gelatin in it!! there is no good reason for why they put it in! they only do it to thicken the “yogurt” to make it seem more luxurious then it really is. i personally dont like the idea of having cow fat in my yogurt! itz disgusting!