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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label.

Antibiotic resistance is a concern but the FDA has made progress in that area.

https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/safety-health/antimicr...

The EU bans routine antibiotic use for promoting animal growth but antibiotics are still widely used for other purposes.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/first-report-eu-wide-sales...

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The US still used 6.1 million kilograms of medically important antibiotics for animal farming in 2023. It was only down 2% from the year before. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/fda-rep...

That sounds like a lot but what's the comparison to another country adjusted per animal (or weight of meat produced?)?

This paper[0] (from a UK activist group but well referenced) says:

> US farm antibiotic use is 2.6 times higher than the median use in European countries and 60% higher than the average use throughout Europe.

[0] https://www.saveourantibiotics.org/media/1830/farm-antibioti...

It's marked as "plain" yogurt. You can still find adulterants in it, just not added sugars. For example Trader Joe's "plain yogurt" is a mixture of yogurt and buttermilk.

Plain yogurt is strictly defined by the FDA. It's when you have flavored versions that the rules get loose.

For example this contains only milk, cream, bacteria: https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/plain-whole-mil...

This is basically sugary milk with thickeners added to make it vaguely like yogurt: https://www.yoplait.com/products/original-single-serve-straw...

I don't understand your comment. Trader Joe's sells plain yogurt with no added buttermilk.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/greek-whole-mil...

Or you can buy essentially the same thing for less at Walmart.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mountain-High-Low-Fat-Yogurt-Vani...

While there are some people who live in "food deserts" with very limited options, complaints by most HN users about the difficulty of finding healthy food don't align with reality.

Even if they did add buttermilk, it would almost undoubtedly be cultured buttermilk, which is really nothing more than very thin yogurt. So I'm not seeing what the issue would be with Trader Joe's adding yogurt to yogurt.

Not sure if they carry it anymore but yogurt marketed as "European style" often has buttermilk: https://oatmel.com/products/European_Style_Smooth__Creamy_Pl...

But not sure I would consider fermented milk to be an "adulterant" in a different fermented milk product...

FWIW, Greek Yogurt is not the same as Yogurt, it's a different product. Those two items are not "essentially the same thing". Also, low/zero-fat yogurts dominate the market in the US. Plain Whole-Milk traditional yogurt is more available now than it was a decade or two ago, but it's still nowhere as common as the high-sugar flavored ones.

It's the same thing with the additional step of straining out some whey

the original is, but in the usa 'greek' yogurt is often thickened with additives instead.

In Europe it's also Greek (as in, literally from Greece) milk, or else labelled 'Greek-style'.

I am continually astounded that zero fat/low fat yogurt is just seen as normal. Ditto for oatmeal with added sugar.

I hate the obsession with low/no fat that has stuck around for decades here. Taking out the fat makes the food less tasty and less satiating. Not to mention that extra sugar tends to be added to try to compensate for the taste, thus making it at least as bad for you if not worse than if had more fat.

The Walmart thing has pectin in it as a stabilizer/thickener, which, benign as it may be, qualifies as an adulterant. And it's not permitted in plain yogurt in Germany (though usually added in fruit/flavored yogurt).

> While there are some people who live in "food deserts" with very limited options, complaints by most HN users about the difficulty of finding healthy food don't align with reality.

Some… Most…

You’ve made some broad assumptions here. I’ve lived in various neighbordhoods in one of the largest cities in this country and near and far suburbs of the same. Only when I’ve lived in ritzy or trendy areas have I had no issue eating healthy (according to my definition of healthy), and always at significantly greater financial cost.

My guess is either your concerns are less restrictive than mine annd others’ on this thread. Or you’ve been privileged enough to not have a clear perspective on just how large, dispersed and discontinuous, the American “food desert” truly is.

I haven't made any broad assumptions. You can buy healthy food like frozen vegetables, raw chicken, ground beef, potatoes, beans, rice, apples, olive oil, plain yogurt, etc pretty much anywhere. I travel a lot and have seen these foods widely available in neighborhoods that are not remotely ritzy or trendy. They are usually inexpensive, and if you have a little storage space then you can stock up when stores have discounts to save even more.

There are a small fraction of people who do live in food deserts and we ought to help them out. Probably the best thing we could do to make many food deserts "bloom" would be to fund the police and strictly enforce shoplifting laws, especially against organized retail theft gangs. Good grocery stores have been driven out of some neighborhoods partly by high shrinkage rates (not the only problem but a major contributing factor).

They exist but are a small minority of the shelf. You have to really look for them.

This begs the question - is it reasonable for the consumer to put in a little work - reading labels and doing research outside of the grocery store?

I find that you do the research once, and then you know what to buy next time.

I think the point is more that the norm is sugary, and so it's necessary to do what you describe to find plain (not to say 'normal') yoghurt.

The amount of work the consumer puts in is matched by food makers. You'll see the deceptive marketing on so many foods. "No sugar added" no longer means no added sweetening agent. It means that sugar was replaced by alternative sweeteners.

It's exhausting being a consumer these days.

Are we still talking about yogurt? I do not find it difficult or have to put in any work to buy low sugar yogurt. I buy large amounts of full fat zero added sugar Greek yogurt and yogurt cups with 2g of added sugar and there are always multiple options clearly labeled on the shelf among all the other more sugary options.

Sure. In the Kroger app when I search for “plain yogurt” the first result is yoplait vanilla flavored yogurt. I wish I could share the screenshot because it’s so ridiculous.

Well, the supermarkets know know what the effect of their product placement is. If they change it, the customer buys different things, on average.

So, we can say it's reasonable for people to do some research and pick the yoghurt they consider best, but we know most people don't do that. And that supermarkets prefer to give the best spots to sugary yoghurts.

What's wrong with doing the research once for the average person and then regulating the supermarkets so they give those the eye level space? People can still make different choices if they want.

It could be the result is people buy more danishes and doughnuts from the bakery section for breakfast instead of now harder to find sweetened yoghurt.

Can we believe that consumers have any agency at all?

Like maybe the reason there are 200 varieties of single serve cups is that people like them.

If the issue was only about choices adults make about their own bodies and there were no externalities from those choices, then IMO it would of course be reasonable.

Ridiculous.

Look? As in open your eyes? It's literally right on the front of the package in large letters. You can see exactly what you're getting without even squinting at the fine print on the back.

> You can see exactly what you're getting without even squinting at the fine print on the back.

So the nutrition facts and ingredients list doesn’t convey any new information? The designers managed to cram all that info into an appealing front facing label? And the marketers refrained from soft deceptions and convenient omissions, prioritizing truth and clarity over sales numbers? Sure.

Sure, if you want plain yogurt with no added sugar then you can find that just by looking at the front label. Have you ever been to a supermarket?

Lots of people in this thread missing that unsweetened yogurt options are probably not distributed evenly across US supermarkets.

Your local coastal city store might have a half dozen plain greek yogurts but I bet there are plenty of areas where they are not stocked because they know it won't sell.

You would lose that bet. I eat plain unsweetened yogurt. I have seen it on the shelf in supermarkets everywhere, not just coastal cities.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Most large supermarkets now offer online ordering. Pick a few small Midwestern cities at random and look what dairy products the major local supermarkets have in stock. It's hilarious how people keep posting uninformed comments here without taking 5 minutes to do some trivial fact checking.

half the time, no sugar means sugar substitute. It is definitely confusing.

Glad you're hear to tell people they are dumb and they should work around systemic problems instead of trying to fix the system.

Look for plain yogurt, it never has sugar added. Easy to spot too.

My nearby Kroger has four brands of greek yogurt with no sugar added and three brands of plain yogurt with no sugar added. Each of these brands sells yogurt of varying fat contents in quart and cup containers. This takes up like eight feet of width on the shelves.

It’s not just about sugar/no-sugar. It’s about the amount of sugar. Sometimes I want sweetened yoghurt, maybe as a treat. Especially for the kids. Getting something with a reasonable amount of sugar in reasonable portions is the problem.

When you default to an insanely high amount of sugar in very big portion you train people to expect that sweetness in their treats. Hell, people end up expecting more sweetness in their regular meals. I honestly think that’s a bigger problem than the lack of entirely sugar free options.

You can buy unsweetened yogurt and add whatever amount of sugar you want. Follow me for more recipes.

> Follow me for more recipes.

Submissions history on HN does not check out.

> Every grocery store where I've shopped has yogurt with no added sugar. It's right there on the shelf, just look at the label.

Large parts of the US are designated as food deserts, where one's best option for groceries might be the convenience store attached to a gas station. Good luck finding plain yogurt with no sugar added there. Your specific experience is exactly that.

[1] https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-deta...

Food deserts do exist but appear to have no meaningful effect on eating habits.

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/food-deserts-not-blame-growi...

You made a claim that plain yogurt is generally available in US food markets, attempting to make an inference about grocery store selections drawing from your own experience. I pointed out that it is not actually generally available and noted that your experience does not generalize.

I am not sure why you mention eating habits, since this is not what is being discussed

> I pointed out that it is not actually generally available

Actually, you pointed out that food deserts exist, and asserted that that meant that plain yogurt is not generally available, the thing you pointed out does not support the conclusion drawn from it.

Food deserts appear to roughly correlate inversely with population density[0]. I don't interpret the existence of food deserts as evidence that food choice is not 'generally' available. Assuming we are serving people and not geographies.

[0]https://vividmaps.com/us-block-level-population-density/

People that live near gas stations drive to grocery stores for their groceries.

My claim was 100% accurate and my experience does generalize. Plain yogurt with no added sugar is generally available at the vast majority of supermarkets throughout the country. I have actually seen it in both poor and affluent areas all over.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Instead of making things up you can literally just go look.

Wow, 100% accurate? OK, I definitely can't argue with that. Nor I suppose can I argue much with overinterpreted anecdotes and absolutist analysis from a non-expert about a nuanced topic. You should start a Tiktok or a Substack or something, you are leaving money on the table.

While I don't live in a food desert where these kind of stores are the only option, I have, in fact, regularly found plain yogurt in gas-station convenience stores, the even smaller refrigerated-food sections in urban drug stores, etc.

Now, fresh produce, except—if you are very lucky—extremely expensive (for the quantity), relatively small packs of cut carrots and other things people might reasonably purchase as snacks, anything usable as a cooking fat excepted salted butter, and lots of other things, sure, you are going to be SOL, but plain yogurt (both the usually watery American kind and strained "Greek” yogurt) seems pretty common.

I have also found plain yogurt in gas station convenience stores

My issue was less with the plain yogurt specifically and more with the logic of the parent, namely that "X product has been available in every grocery store I have shopped in" implies that "X product can be found in every grocery store"

Looking at your source, it seems as though food deserts exist almost exclusively when you're very far from civilization.

In which case you can just grow the food.

A good example of a food desert would be an inner-city neighborhood, the first time I heard this term, they were talking specifically about places in Oakland, CA. Which ironically is a short train ride away from the Food Mecca of the USA.

If it's a short train ride away, what's the qualifications fir food desert?

Here's a very detailed article

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/537685fafa614d80ac83a60...

> There are no set few factors, but some other influences that affect food deserts may include: mobility, existing health issues, working irregular hours, fast food culture, lacking adequate knowledge about nutrition, and many more.

Seems like the qualifications are whatever they want them to be.

It actually says right at the top that overwhelmingly they are in urban areas

It doesn't, actually. It says most people who are in food deserts are in urban areas. The vast majority of food deserts, however, are absolutely not in urban areas.

Even if it were true, it still only affects 13 million people. There are 330 million in the US, so it's a non-issue with regard to our obesity problem.

OK, point taken re most people vs most food deserts

In any case, I am talking about the availability of items in response to the parent's obviously absurd implication "every food market I have been to sells X, therefore every food market sells X".

I am using food deserts as a counterexample since definitionally these are regions where certain items are hard to find. I know (hope?) that the person I am responding to likely doesn't believe every grocery store in the United States carries plain yogurt, but I also know that people here often forget that not every place enjoys the same level of choice that is enjoyed in places like the SF Bay Area

I truly don't understand why you are bringing up obesity, this feels very remote to what is being discussed.

I'm bringing up obesity because the overarching topic is UPFs, which are a primary cause of obesity, which is the main reason they are bad.

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