Yogurt: the magical cure-all

Are you having digestion problems? Do you want to lose weight? Have you been feeling under the weather? Well don't worry - yogurt can cure it all!!!!!

Yogurt commercials these days, from Jamie Lee Curtis using inoffensive hand gestures to promote a healthy bowel system, to a women arguing with a dry cleaning tailor whether she wants her clothes taken 'out' or 'in', to women sucking down yogurts in the dairy aisle and contorting themselves in ridiculous yoga poses, are trying to convince me that yogurt can actually perform miracles. Of course, I'm not buying it.

Reason #1 I'm not buying it is because they remind me of Shimmer: the dessert topping that's also a floor wax.
"It's the best shine you've ever tasted!"

Reason #2 - yogurt has always been good for you for many of these same reasons. The bacteria in yogurt is good for your stomach and digestive system - you don't need to rename it and pretend like it's a new yogurt for that to be true.

Reason #3 - yogurt is capable of absorbing many things, which is why it's so damn good with fruit. But I'm NOT open to the idea of using yogurt as a petri dish of extra ingredients, even if they are only fiber and vitamins, and selling it as a super yogurt.

Reason #4 - I've HAD it with challenges!!! The low cholesterol cereal challenge, the special K challenge, milk before meals challenge, and the yogurt challenges. Pick anything mildly healthy, eat it as one of your primary meals each day for two weeks, and you'll be thinner and healthier. Here's my challenge for you: drink water and eat vegetables, EVERY DAY, and you will feel and look better, I promise.

The real problem here is an over-saturated yogurt market - companies are even competing against themselves. Yoplait has 13 kinds of yogurts it sells from original, Yo-plus, and even FiberOne. THIRTEEN!!! Dannon is pushing Activia, Light & Fight, and DanActive. Go to a major supermarket store and you will be dizzy with the number of options (and the amount of packaging - most of which isn't recyclable!!!)

Is pushing yogurt to the next level really worth it? Dannon Activia has even faced lawsuits saying the higher prices promoting benefits that regular yogurts already provide is false advertising, and consumers are trying to get their money back. At some point, we need to just leave good things alone and move on. But that's just my two cents (as a Brown Cow non-fat vanilla yogurt eater).