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Ha! I caught you, Dreyers

Filed Under: Personal Ramblings

On my smooth and easy flight to Vermont (thank you Alaska & United!), I came across this ad. Check it out! Ice Cream that has HALF the calories and HALF the sugar of regular low fat yogurt? Rejoicing all around! After all, that healthy probiotic laden yogurt I’ve been eating down daily for breakfast for years is getting boring. And, with summer coming on, frozen, slow churned yogurt from Dreyers (owned by multi-national Nestle who also, shocker of shocker, makes Haagen Daz ice creams and Starbucks ice creams) sounds way better than boring ol’, low fat yogurt.

The Dreyers Product has: 14 grams of sugar and 107 calories in a 4 ounce serving
The ad claims that there is 26 grams of sugar and 162 calories in a 6 ounce yogurt.
Well, CLEARLY, the ice cream thing is the winner …. right?
Not so fast there. Let’s read that fine print all the way at the left of the ad, running up and down the page (left of the luscious ice cream cone) in a very non-readable manner. Dryer’s is pulling a fast one. Did anyone else notice that they are comparing a 4 ounce serving to a 6 ounce serving? Of COURSE less product would have less sugar and calories (duh). Let’s see what happens when you do the math though.
107 calories divided by 4 ounces = 26.75 (Dryers)
162 calores divided by 6 ounces = 27 (Example Yogurt in Ad)
So, actually, the calories per ounce is exactly the same.
.
What about their claim of sugar? By their “Example Low Fat” yogurt, the sugar in the yogurt really is more than their slow churned yogurt ice cream.
Except, that I didn’t find any “Light” yogurts when I was surfing the ‘net that had as much sugar as the ad claims. In fact, Yoplait Light Yogurt has just 14 grams of sugar in 6 ounces. Their regular yogurt has 27 grams of sugar in 6 ounces. But, that’s not what the ad said – the ad said “when compared to refrigerated low-fat yogurt.”
If you actually compare the Dryers Slow-Churned yogurt to a refrigerated low-fat yogurt, the yogurt wins on sugar counts as well.
Finally, let’s look at the actual ingredient listing of the Slow Churned “yogurt.”

INGREDIENTS (Chocolate Fudge Brownie Yogurt Blend Slow Churned): skim milk, corn syrup, chocolate brownie pieces, sugar, cream, cultured skim milk, fudge swirl (sugar, skim milk, corn syrup, cream, water, cocoa processed with alkali, bitter chocolate, modified tapioca starch, sodium alginate, potassium sorbate, salt), corn syrup, chocolate brownie pieces (sugar, wheat flour, soybean oil, eggs, cocoa processed with alkali, corn syrup, water, natural flavor, salt, soy lecithin, xanthan gum), cocoa processed with alkali, maltodextrin, whey, mono and diglycerides, milk minerals concentrate, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan

So, the slow churned “yogurt” is really like eating milk with corn syryp and flavoring in there. I don’t see *any* probiotics or yogurt starter in the ingredients listing. According to WiseGeek, in order for a product to be called “Yogurt” it must contain either Streptococcus thermophilus and Lactobacillus bulgaricusbacteria. The Dryer’s Slow Churned “Yogurt” contains milk, corn syryp and a thickener to make it seem like an actual health food.

It’s not. It’s a low-calorie ice cream subsitute. Skip it and have some healthy real yogurt instead.
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10 Comments

  1. Uggh! This is just another example that the food industries are not out there to help us. They would be completely happy if we became addicted and ate more and more of their food. In fact dairy companies try to sneak in all sorts of additional additives to get us addicted to their products.
    Thanks for keeping us updated on one of their recent slips.

  2. Yeah, thanks, Anne-Marie, for checking all the facts and fine print!

    Evil…that’s what big corporations are. Reading Michael Pollan’s books has really made us even more aware of the food choices we make.

    I bought a yogurt maker last year and have never looked back. We add a bit of local honey for sweetener but that is a miniscule amount of sugar compared to the store-bought stuff. I use organic milk and we add organic dried fruits. Some people might find it a bit tart, but we like it. 🙂

  3. Thanks for letting us know this!

    That ad looks so weird to me because Dreyer’s is called Edy’s here on the east coast. So, the package looks the same, but with a different name.

  4. Thank goodness you are a Sherlock Holmes. Because now when I see that ad, I can be happy to buy it as an ice cream substitute and not as a healthy treat substitute.

    bravo, am!

  5. You know, I throw lowfat yogurt in my icecream maker – much cheaper. 🙂

    BTW, it does have yogurt in it… 6TH ingredient in is cultured skim milk. Of course, since it’s supposed to be frozen yogurt, you’d think that would be the first thing in the list, right?

  6. I’m an avid label reader because my son is extremely sensative to wheat and corn. I distrust anything commercial for this very reason…great detective work AM!

  7. yeah we now make our own bread cause it was so hard to fine an actual 100% whole wheat bread without corn syrup in it. Come on why does bread need corn syrup? You really have to check your ingredient list on everything before you buy it. It is nearly impossible to get food without corn syrup in it unless you shop in the organic/natural section…and even then check the labels.

  8. I don’t really understand why we in America have to adulterate all our food. My grandson is allergic to corn which includes corn syrup, corn starch and other things. Try to find yogurt without corn syrup. I see it is one of the ingredients in this ‘healthy’ substitute for yogurt as well. I do read the ingredient labels because of this but I doubt I would have caught that they were comparing apples to oranges sizewise…

  9. The fine print typically tells it all. Amazing what you discover by reading labels and the fine print. If you read the ingredients on a loaf of “wheat bread” vs. whole wheat bread…be prepared to be shocked. You’ll find in most instances the “wheat bread” is brown because of the sugars/molasses.

  10. That is SO bad. I never would have ever chekced the ingredients listings myself. I just saw the ad in the new Rachel Ray magazine too. I guess if it looks too good to be true, it is.