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I just want to add a small personal anecdote.

I eat yogurt regularly, and I've been a convert to Chobani lately. I started eating greek-style yogurts with Fage, and have had several other brands but Chobani flavors and texture are superior (IMO).

If you don't already know, it's the most expensive yogurt at most supermarkets, and is even pretty expensive compared to other brands at specialty retailers. So in the interest of saving some money, I recently bought some Dannon greek yogurt with coupons for about 1/4 the price.

It was awful in comparison. To get a similar texture, they use gelatin. The texture is still inferior. And the flavors are not in the same league either. I think it's refreshing to see someone rewarded for not buying into the conventional wisdom that the American public has no taste and can't recognize/won't pay up for quality products.

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Nonfat Chobani is also the highest protein yogurt I've seen, and beats all the other yogurts in as far as nutrition is concerned.

That's impressive. I've made a general habit of rejecting 'nonfat' foods without even looking at the label because I've never seen a case where the nonfat version had more than 2/3rds of the protein the fatty version has. A nonfat alternative that has more protein is a nice achievement.

It appears that their nonfat version has 18g of protein: http://www.chobani.com/products/c/nonfat

And their 2% version has 17g of protein: http://www.chobani.com/products/c/lowfat

I imagine the difference is only because the fat displaces some of the protein in the low fat version, not because there is some special "high protein" quality to the nonfat.

I continue to be baffled by Americans' obsession with nonfat products, when nearly all current nutritional research says there is nothing wrong with fat, and that in many cases it's good for you.

I contend that the lack of fat just makes the product less filling so we eat more. On top of that it tastes terrible so we add a bunch of sugar.

I love plain full-fat yogurt (ex: Fage total or brown cow cream top). Unfortunately non-fat yogurt tastes terrible once you've had the good stuff and is all you can find outside of specialty stores. (I have only ever seen/tried Chobani 0% so I can't rate their 2% fat yogurt)

Anyway, after years of never finding the good stuff I gave up on the system and dropped $30 on a yogurt maker on Amazon. Now Yogurt is $1/half gallon (price of milk) - 2-3 times that price for strained/Greek yogurt since you throw out the whey, it's super-easy to make (pasteurize milk, add culture, let it incubate for 6-12 hrs), and it's always just the way I like it.

My sister makes yogurt herself in a crock pot (?). Haven't tried it myself, but she says it's super simple, all she does is puts in a few ounces of fresh yogurt along with a bunch of milk and lets it sit there while the cultures do their thing.

I'm sure I'm missing something but how can she make yogurt if one of the starting ingredients is already yogurt?

It's used as a starter. You start with a tablespoon or two of plain yogurt (containing live culture) and 1 liter of milk, then you get 1 liter of yogurt.

By the way you don't even need a crockpot, just heat the milk, put in the yogurt then keep it warm for 7+ hours (google it for a more detailed recipe).

ok, thanks. That makes sense.

My entirely unscientific hypothesis is that serving sizes in the USA tend to be larger, and non-fat foods allow Americans to maintain these larger serving sizes while keeping the calorie density low enough that they don't become obese.

I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but it would be interesting to see a comparison of both caloric density and volume of average meals divided by culture, region, etc.

non-fat foods allow Americans to maintain these larger serving sizes while keeping the calorie density low enough that they don't become obese.

It's not working...

Actually in my experience low/nonfat foods have just as much, and usually more calories than their original versions. They need to load in more sugar to get a similar taste as the original. Sugar being worse on your metabolism than fat, you end up fatter as a result. Low/nonfat is purely a marketing strategy to convince people they're eating healthy while stuffing their gullet.

I don't think Americans have anything against fat. If anything now they are anti-carb more than anti-fat. Walk down the aisles of a grocery store and you see way more "low carb" than "low fat".

Fat happens to be the most calorie dense of the required macronutrients, however. At 9 calories a gram versus 4 calories for carbs and protien it's the easy culprit for people trying to cut weight (by reducing calories). For a while it became the diet fad because of its supposed links to heart disease as well. People want a silver bullet to get thin, once it was fat, then carbs and now, probably more sensibly, it's processed foods like HFCS.

In the end it's not that hard: Eat less.

At my local supermarket they sell 32oz cups of Chobani (in vanilla and plain). Because of the bulk, price per oz is only slightly more expensive than the cheapest stuff they have. And it's really nutritious: 16grams of protein and only 13 grams of sugar per 6 oz serving! Significantly more protein than sugar. The lack of fat doesn't bother me. There was an article in the Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?_r=1) about strong new research that found that yogurt was the food "most strongly linked to weight loss". It also found that the fat content of yogurt (or other dairy) consumed didn't affect weight change.

Based on this article and the research suggesting a weight-loss effect of yogurt I'm thinking about getting into the yogurt business.

hmmm makes me wanna try some, love my yogurt, im in OZ, wonder if they have any here or if i can get it from some specialty greek deli's ?!

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