When Life Gives you Lemon Yogurt...

I did not learn to eat healthy growing up. I learned to eat deliciously growing up. I learned that adding salt pork and/or bacon to everything was essential to life itself. But I digress. I learned just out of college from a co-worker who never ate anything except the lemon twists out of vodka martinis that lemon yogurt with Grape Nuts was an acceptable breakfast/lunch on the go. I grew up thinking eggs, bacon, and biscuits was an acceptable breakfast on the go and a BLT was an acceptable lunch on the go. Dannon lemon yogurt was the yogurt of choice, Grape Nuts the Grape Nuts of choice. Recently, given the mandate of eating more judiciously, I went searching for Dannon yogurt and was left wanting. I did find that yogurt that makes you poop (Gee thanks, Jamie Lee Curtis) and 20 kinds of baby yogurt but no Dannon lemon. In a curious marketing strategy, Yoplait had three choices of lemon yogurt.



And only the one kind of Grape Nuts, the original.



When I was eating them in the 80s, the box looked like this



and was much smaller. Anyway, you tore off the top of the yogurt cup, licked the top and ate a couple of spoonfuls to make a dent and then dumped in about a tablespoon of Grape Nuts or however much would fit before it spilled out and stirred it up. Then you had to eat it before the Grape Nuts got soggy in the yogurt. Tasty and healthy, I guess. Better than a mid-morning vodka martini with lemon twist or the ever-popular bacon with whatever else is lying around.

My taste test coincided with cooking dinner so in a nutshell (or custard cup, as shown here), the results were:



Yoplait Light - No fat, 110 calories, NO lemon of any kind in the actual yogurt. Citrus-y flavor derived from ascorbic acid. OK, not great. Consistency runny. Grade after adding the Grape Nuts: B-



Yoplait Whips - First of all, Yoplait's website says eating this is an extraordinary experience and it certainly was. I spit this crapola out into my sink right on top of a bowl of froot loops one of my little darlings had not emptied out (you know who you are). The website would not give me any nutritional facts and I threw the cup away but there was actual LEMON JUICE in the yogurt, which might sound like a good thing except it tasted like a big squirt of that nasty bottled lemon juice we all hide in our refrigerator went in there yesterday. Also, "Whips" means there are 4 ounces in this, not 6, to lessen the agony for the same cost. Consistency: Floating in the froot loops milk. Grade: F.

And the winner



Yoplait Thick & Creamy - Fat 3.5 gm, 190 calories, lemon puree in the yogurt. It had a nice creamy, pudding-like consistency and held the Grape Nuts in place as if they had been in the yogurt to begin with.
Everything melded together nicely. Consistency very good. Grade A-



Yes, I know there are yogurt cups out there now with mix-ins already packaged up nicely. I am an old-fashioned girl, and doing it this way takes me back to 1980 when I wanted to be that girl who drank vodka martinis for breakfast and being very glad now that I ate lemon yogurt and Grape Nuts instead.

Update: I sort of remember eating lemon yogurt recently from Walmart that had actual lemon pulp in it, but since I technically don't eat lemon yogurt without Grape Nuts, I can't really disclose this until I formally taste test this with the Grape Nuts. I'll try it again this weekend and let you know how it stands up against the Yoplait.

Also, stay tuned for corned beef and rutabagas.