In the 19th century a renowned German chemist named Friedrich Accum published a book in Great Britain that called to the attention of the masses the severe manipulation of the common English food supply. The Treatise on Adulteration of Food (which you can read for free, if you’re so inclined) was an instant best seller at the time. The knowledge of impure ingredients and practices was already commonplace before then, but industrialized methods for food preparation had made the production and distribution of these adulterated (and, in some cases, poisonous) products a much greater concern for the public. Frequently food and drink were contaminated with lead, copper or both, and many deceitful methods were used to pawn off inferior products to fetch a higher price that they didn’t deserve.
It is in large part due to Accum’s publication that raised awareness about the widespread use of contaminants in food, that started a snowball effect which eventually led to development of organizations like the FDA. You might be surprised to know that it wasn’t until 1906 that the FDA passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act that prohibited adulterated and misbranded food and drugs. Little more than a century ago, people didn’t even have the common security of knowing that their food was safe. While the FDA occasionally comes under scrutiny, having such an organization in place has definitely improved our public health in many ways.
There have been comparatively few issues with contaminants in our food in recent history. The debauchery of our food no longer poses such dramatic risks to our health as lead in our diet. However, Accum did not just write about direct consequence to our health, but ways of deceiving the public to buy products of inferior quality. Although there is regulation preventing completely unsubstantiated claims, it is still possible to skew the results of research and use suggestive and misleading marketing — implying greater benefits and omitting shortcomings — to sell products.
There are illegal deceptions taking place in this regard — impure olive oils, wines and cheeses claiming authenticity and fetching a high market value that have received media attention lately — and legal ones. An innocent example, to compare the times, would be the use of arrowroot in the past to thicken spoiling milk to pass off as cream. This was a technique once considered a dishonest business practice, but it is now part of a thriving industry.
No, the cream on the shelves isn’t spoiled milk masquerading as something else, but many, if not all of the most reputable yogurt producers use starch and/or gelatin to thicken their products. This not only appeases the producers, because it costs less money to produce, but the public as well, who want a cheap, low-fat and low-calorie yogurt without really caring how it is accomplished or what sacrifice is made. These yogurts are of mediocre quality, but since they make up a predominate share of the market, there is little basis for comparison, and soon the public simply accept the replacement as as a genuine article.
Keeping in mind that all that is necessary to make yogurt is milk and bacterial culture, let us compare the ingredients list of plain yogurt from the major brands:
- Astro Original: Skim milk, cream, skim milk powder, tapioca starch, agar, pectin, guar gum and active bacterial cultures.
- Yoplait (Source): Skim milk, active bacterial culture, milk and whey proteins, modified cornstarch, gelatine, vitamin A palmitate and vitamin D3.
- Danone Activia: Skim milk, cream, concentrated skim milk, sugar, milk and whey protein concentrate, fructose, corn starch, gelatin and active bacterial cultures.
- Stony Field Farms: Lowfat cultured pasteurized organic low fat milk, pectin, vitamin D3 and active bacterial cultures.
It’s no wonder that yogurt products consisting simply of milk and/or cream and bacterial cultures, like those offered by Fage and Liberté, are viewed as such a remarkable indulgence in comparison. Although it’s perfectly legal to add stabilizers (alginates, gelatins, gums, pectins and/or starches) to yogurt, it is definitely to the detriment of the yogurts they are added to. I suppose it might just be my opinion that yogurt is meant to be thick, but the word is actually derived from the Turkish word yogen, which means thick, so I suppose that’s your call.
Yogurt is well-established for being good for your health and aiding in digestion. While all yogurts contain healthful bacteria as their presence is a legal requirement to stipulate yogurt in packaging and advertising, in my opinion, you’d be far better served paying for a quality yogurt product instead of what typically takes up the majority of space on the supermarket shelves — overly sweetened and void of most all the characteristics that make true yogurts so wonderful. They might be slightly more caloric, but they have the bonus of actually being immensely satisfying. Let us abolish the term “Greek-style” and simply adopt yogurt for what it should be: a creamy and luxorious indulgence worthy of the breakfast table.
