Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 08:15 AM
A few months back, I blogged about Kids’ Yogurt. The news wasn’t good. Basically, the category is filled with substances that glow in the dark, sparkle, crunch (really? it’s yogurt!), and containers that get crushed when all is said and done. Even the brands that one would consider to be the “healthiest” have NuVal scores that fall below average for the yogurt category. That’s right. No one is making a Kids’ Yogurt that is even average (never mind above average) when compared against other yogurts that adults typically eat. Not even Stonyfield Farms.
When I blogged about this topic in October, the average score for yogurt was a 37 and the highest scoring kids yogurt was Stonyfield Farm YoKids Squeezers Organic Lowfat Strawberry with a score of 33.
Well, two things have happened since then.
First – and bear with me for a moment, this gets a little technical – but it’s important for you to know. NuVal has re-calculated the ranges and averages for all of the food categories and the newly published list just came out on January 1st. This is a really big deal because as we score more and more products (we are up to 90,000 products scored now!) the category averages and ranges change. So, the average score for yogurt has gone up! That’s good news! Manufacturers are listening and re-formulating their products to make them more nutritious. The average score for yogurt is now a 45.
Second – and this is very, very cool – I found a kids’ yogurt that scores higher than the old high of 33. I feel kind of like a kid with a new high score in a video game! Woo Hoo! The other great news – it’s my son’s favorite yogurt!!!
I was out scouring the aisles at Big Y with my camera, looking for some stories in the scores last week, when I found this gem: Go-Gurt has come up with a higher scoring kids yogurt, called Simply Go-Gurt. Simply Go-Gurt gets the highest score I’ve ever seen in Kids’ Yogurt: a 39.
Still below average, but hey, it’s getting closer! What else do I love about this yogurt? No artificial flavors or colors. There’s just something about neon yogurt that’s - I don’t know – wrong! And really, it’s not the color that my 7-year-old son is enthralled with, it’s the little doo-hicky squeezer thing that Go-Gurt has included in the box. We now own three of them (green, red, and yellow) and yes, they go to school and come back (amazingly).
So, kudo’s to Go-Gurt for listening to Moms (and Dads) who want better nutrition – and less neon – for their kids. They can squeeze all they want! Little steps in the right direction.
Yesterday’s Winner
Congratulations to Commenter #11 Amy at The Nifty Foodie (a very cute blog, check it out!) You have won the Special K/Weight Watchers Cookbook Giveaway. Please send me an email at abetterbagofgroceries@gmail.com with your mailing address so that I can mail your prize out to you. Thank you to everyone who entered. I loved reading all your New Year’s Resolutions. Stick to ‘em!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: yogurt
Tags: Go-Gurt, yogurt
Friday, October 1, 2010 at 07:09 AM
Welcome to Cart Confessions, a frequent feature here on A Better Bag of Groceries, where I ‘fess up and tell you about a product that landed in my grocery cart that I might have tried to cover up if I had bumped into you in person.
Writing a blog about nutritous food choices is an interesting experience – to say the least! When I bump into ABBG followers in the “real” grocery store, they’ll either ask me questions, show me that they’re shopping with their NuVal notes, or run away from me and cover up their shopping carts. ”Don’t look in my cart!” they’ll say. It’s hilarious and I love it!
But mostly, I get a lot of questions and requests to do certain posts. One friend of mine, Bridgett - a mom of four boys – has been asking me to write about yogurt. I haven’t yet because it’s such a confusing category – and frankly, I don’t think I make the best choices for my kids in it. So, I guess that’s why I ended up making a Cart Confession out of it.
You see, there are so, so, so many varieties of yogurt. And unless I shop in a store that has NuVal (the nearest Big Y is still about 20 minutes from my house – so I don’t get there every week), I can’t remember the scores in yogurt. At least not in “Kids Yogurt”. Basically, kids yogurt is all about color, explosion, squeezing, crushing, glow-in-the-dark, mixing-in, in other words, it’s a nightmare. And when we get to that part of the supermarket, my kids inevitably want something that they saw some other kid eat in the cafeteria at school.
Now, when I was a child, we made our yogurt at home from scratch using a yogurt maker. Or we would buy non-fat plain yogurt and add our own strawberries. Things didn’t glow in the dark. That was then. Now there are Danimals Crush Cups.
Truthfully, by the time we get to the yogurt section of the supermarket, I’m a little worn down. Our shopping trip is almost over. So when my son asks if he can get Danimals Smoothies for his lunch box, I say OK.
How do they do on the NuVal scale? Below the average for yogurt. Yogurts range from 11 – 100 and these score a 37. But basically, all the kids yogurt products score below average:
- Stonyfield Farm YoKids Squeezers Organic Lowfat Strawberry: 33
- Yoplait Trix Lowfat Yogurt 3 Very Berry: 32
- Dannon Danimals Crush Cup Strawberry Banana: 29
- Yoplait Kids Strawberry Naturally Flavored: 33
So, yes, sometimes, I say OK and we get these Danimals Smoothies or the Crush Cups. But I refuse to buy anything that has cookies to mix into it or anything that glows in the dark. I just can’t. And the Trix hasn’t landed in my cart yet either – much to my daughter’s dismay. She keeps talking about the sticks that they come with – they change color – or something like that.
Most of the time, we buy the Chobani Champions, but unfortunately we do not have a NuVal score for them. The reason we do not is because they are packaged in a variety pack. And at NuVal, we are not scoring variety packs. Variety packs really complicate things when it comes to NuVal scoring because the strawberry yogurt might have one score and the banana yogurt that is is packaged with might have another score. It would be cool if Chobani would decide to package these kids yogurts monochromotically, if you will. Because, chances are, Chobani Champions might score better than the other kids yogurts. But we really don’t know until it goes through scoring.
In the meantime, I’ll be in the grocery store, bumping into my neighborhood friends who are all getting very excited about NuVal these days: reading the Family Circle article, shopping with the List of Best Kindergarten Snacks, and heading to Big Y – just up the road from us in Walpole, MA. And some of my friends will run away from me, embarassed by the the glow-in-the-dark yogurt in their shopping cart. Hey, we all can’t get A’s all the time!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Cart Confessions, yogurt
Tags: Crush Cup, Danimals, yogurt, YoKids
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 at 07:05 AM
Welcome to Summer, the season of mayonnaise! How many cookouts will you go to? How many mayonnaise-drenched salads will be on the table? Too many to count.
In general, I am not a fan of mayonnaise-y salads. I just think there are much better ways to bring out the flavor of foods. I much prefer a cold pasta salad with olive oil, pine nuts and basil to one that’s a big blob of mayo. Call me a dressing snob.
There is one exception to my mayo aversion: old-fashioned potato salad like the one my Grandma Wood used to make. The mix of onion, celery, mayonnaise, cold potatoes and her secret ingredient (red wine vinegar) was heaven in a bowl. I resurrected this recipe a few years back for those hot summer nights when a cold side was in order. However, with my new-found NuVal knowledge, I think I’ve truly perfected and healthified this recipe.
Since I began blogging for NuVal and experimenting in my kitchen, I’ve discovered a great trade-up: Yogurt. Here’s my rule about yogurt.
- If the recipe calls for sour cream, try substituting non-fat plain Greek yogurt.
- If the recipe calls for mayonnaise, try substituting non-fat plain yogurt (NOT Greek).
- If you miss the taste of the sour cream or mayonnaise, try just reducing the amount and adding in the yogurt to make up the difference.
And that is exactly what I did with Grandma Wood’s Potato Salad!
Ingredients:
One 3-lb bag baby red potatoes: NuVal score 93
1/4 cup red onion, chopped: NuVal score 93
2 stalks celery, chopped: NuVal score 96
2 T. fresh dill (or more if you are a big fan of dill, OK to use dried): NuVal score 100
1 T. fresh chives (I buy a chive plant and try to keep it alive): NuVal score 100
1/3 cup plain non-fat yogurt (not Greek): NuVal score 96for Dannon Fat Free Plain
1/3 cup red wine vinegar (not scored)
3 T. light mayonnaise: NuVal score 7 for Hellmann’s Low-fat
1/2 tsp Kosher salt: NuVal score 1
1/2 tsp ground black pepper (not scored)
Directions:
Scrub potatoes and place them in a pot. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until you can pierce with a fork but they are still somewhat firm. Remove the pot from heat, drain the potatoes and rinse with cold water. You can even immerse them in a large bowl of ice water. Drain again and store in the refrigerator for a few hours. Typically, I boil the potatoes in the morning, before it gets too hot, and put them in the fridge all day.
Remove the potatoes from the fridge. Chop coarsely into bite size chunks, leaving the skin on, and place them into a large mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients (red onion through black pepper). Mix well.
About the Mayonnaise
As you can see, I did leave some mayonnaise in this recipe – but just 3 Tablespoons. That is significantly less than the probably 1/2 cup my grandmother used to put in. She never measured, so it could have been more. As you can imagine, mayonnaise scores rather low on the NuVal scale. Interestingly, Cain’s regular mayonnaise scores better than Cain’s Fat-Free mayonnaise. That’s right. Cain’s regular scores a 2. Cain’s fat free scores a 1. Wow! The mayonnaise products with the best scores are Smart Balance Light (NuVal score of 18) and Hellmann’s Canola Cholesterol Free (NuVal score of 18).
How else is this recipe different?
I am old enough to remember the days when supermarket tomatoes barely had color and only came wrapped in cellophane. Grandma was more likely to use regular potatoes (they score the same as red, by the way), but I like the size and texture of the red with the skin on. She also did not have the advantage of buying fresh dill or chives in the produce department of her supermarket – certainly not 12 months out of the year. And who used Kosher salt back then? Anyway, I love the updates to this recipe and it makes a great fuss-free, guilt-free side on those hot nights. Now, if only I could get my kids to eat it!
Winner of Yesterday’s Giveaway
Congratulations to Commenter #54, Arlene! You’ve won yesterday’s giveaway – Nature’s Path cereal, 2 Larabars and a NuVal t-shirt. Please email me at abetterbagofgroceries@gmail.com with your t-shirt size and mailing address. Thanks to all who entered!
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: yogurt
Tags: potato salad, yogurt
Tuesday, August 25, 2009 at 09:09 AM
As I’ve mentioned in the past, I work for this amazing company called NuVal. We are analyzing thousands of foods and scoring them on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being highest. This process is eye-opening, to say the least, and there have been many “Ah-ha!” moments along the way. One of the most interesting categories so far has been yogurt. Considered by many to be one of those universally healthy foods (It’s yogurt, it must be good for you!), yogurt actually has a huge range of scores, from 14 – 99.
We used to be all into Activia in our household. I guess we thought we’d try the whole digestive health thing to see if it made our tummies happier. The Activia scores are all over the board, with Dannon Activia Light Fat Free Blueberry scoring an 89 and Dannon Activia Low Fat Mixed Berry scoring a 23. So, my DH and I ate our yogurts, but not with gusto. We just ate them because, you know, it’s yogurt and it’s good for you.
And then, on the advice of my super-healthy, Pilates-studio-owning sister, I tried Greek yogurt. Well, I just thought I had died and gone to heaven. Yum, yum, yum. I love it. It is smooth and creamy and filling. When I was growing up, we actually made our own yogurt. We bought a yogurt-maker with S&H Green Stamps (I am so dating myself here) and made delicious plain yogurt that we ate with strawberries. I think that experience gave me my taste for plain, thick yogurt, which I much prefer to thinner, fruity varieties. I love that Chobani Non-Fat Plain Greek yogurt scores a 94.
Here are some things I’m doing with my Chobani plain these days.
1. Mixing it with blueberries, strawberries and/or bits of nectarine
2. Serving it on baked potatoes in place of sour cream
3. Layering it in our Healthy Fajitas (we use a whole-grain tortilla, slices of lime grilled chicken, my famous Avocado salsa, and of course some Chobani plain)
A well-mannered foodie friend of mine mixes her plain Greek yogurt with cold boiled new potatoes and fresh dill for a delicious potato salad.
Another structured foodie friend makes a great salad dressing with plain (not Greek) yogurt, a little feta cheese and fresh or dried dill. It is my new favorite dip. I even had the kids fooled for a while until they demanded they get their Ranch back.
What fun things are you doing with yogurt these days? I’d love to hear your comments.
Posted by: Melissa
Posted in: Chobani, yogurt
Tags: Activia, Chobani, yogurt
