Ha! I caught you, Dreyers

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.