FatFree frozen yogurt-the real story
Jim Davis
Over the past week or so there were several posts about frozen yogurt
and the fat content, or more appropriately the lack of fat content. A
lot of wrong and misleading information was posted.
One post claimed that the Redwood City Yumi Yogurt shop used to list
all flavors as nonfat and now list none. That is wrong. Because of
the new law going into effect August 8, 1994, the Peanut Butter flavor
is no longer listed as fatfree but ALL the other 51 flavors remain
fatfree!
Nothing is changed in the frozen yogurt. Prior to the August 8th law
the milk fat content as a percentage of weight determined the measured
fat content. The new law calls for a measure based on total fat
content. 51 of the 52 flavors of yogurt available to Yumi Yogurt
remain totally fatfree. There has been no deception except in the
minds of some paranoid people.
I think the misleading posts about this were irresponsible and
malicious. I hope this adequately sets the record straight.
Brad Templeton
Jim Davis <jda...@ssf-sys.DHL.COM> wrote:
>That is wrong. Because of
>the new law going into effect August 8, 1994, the Peanut Butter flavor
>is no longer listed as fatfree but ALL the other 51 flavors remain
>fatfree!
>
>Nothing is changed in the frozen yogurt. Prior to the August 8th law
>the milk fat content as a percentage of weight determined the measured
>fat content. The new law calls for a measure based on total fat
>content. 51 of the 52 flavors of yogurt available to Yumi Yogurt
>remain totally fatfree. There has been no deception except in the
>minds of some paranoid people.
>
>I think the misleading posts about this were irresponsible and
>malicious. I hope this adequately sets the record straight.
It certainly does. I'm astounded at the audacity of a claim that
anything with peanut butter in it could have been honestly called
non-fat because "the law only required us to measure the weight of
milk fat." Does anybody accept this as an excuse?
This is a common practice, alas. The law allows packages to claim
non-fat, 0 grams of fat and worse, 0 calories from fat on products
that have less than one gram of fat "per serving" where the servings
are often silly things like "one cookie." (Though I think they recently
put in a rule against 'unrealistic serving sizes')
I suppose that some of these vendors do it "because everybody else is
doing it" and they wouldn't want to be penalized for being the only
honest one.
The truth is that no natural food (other than honey, as far as I know)
is fat-free. Most have at least 5% of their calories from fat. Even
celery and apples have levels in this range. Some processed foods are also
truly non-fat.
But what really is disturbing is people who have a lot more fat than
that claiming they weren't lying or misleading because "the law allowed
them to call it nonfat."
--
Brad Templeton, publisher, ClariNet Communications Corp.
The net's #1 electronic newspaper (circulation 65,000) -- in...@clarinet.com
Michael C. Grant
Nothing is changed in the frozen yogurt. Prior to the August 8th law
the milk fat content as a percentage of weight determined the measured
fat content. The new law calls for a measure based on total fat
content. 51 of the 52 flavors of yogurt available to Yumi Yogurt
remain totally fatfree. There has been no deception except in the
minds of some paranoid people.
What a load of crap. Honey Hill Farms, and possibly the yogurt
vendors who have been distributing the stuff (that depends on
their foreknowledge) have willfully deceived its customers.
Period. It's just that it was legal before the 1st of the month,
that's all. But, as we all know, legal and ethical mean entirely
different things.
Yes, I've learned to read labels. But when I see the words "Nonfat
Peanut Butter" as the flavor label, I don't assume that means "Fatty
Peanut Butter in a Nonfat Yogurt Base." Yes, I was curious as to how
they could separate the peanut oil in peanuts from a realistic peanut
butter taste... But keep in mind that some commerical peanut butters
remove some peanut oil and substitute a less expensive oil, so perhaps
the taste has little to do with the fat---and the attraction of yogurt
is its creamy, fatty consistency without the fat. And hey, Snapple
Peach has no fruit juice but tastes like peach, right?
Now that's not quite enough, though, so I decided to check the
brochures that Honey Hill Farms provides your yogurt store for the
scoop. OK, fine. It lists three flavors in the "nonfat" category, all
of which are purported to contain 0g fat. Then they list a flavor in
the "lowfat" category, containing some reasonable amount of
fat. Peanut butter is not listed; yet, since it says "nonfat peanut
butter" it seems to be safe to assume it would be in the first
category.
Wrong. We've been had. They can't get away with it in the grocery
stores, where they're required to put full nutritional info on the
package. But in yogurt shops, they knew they were deceving us and did
it anyway.
--
Michael C. Grant Information Systems Laboratory, Stanford University
mcg...@isl.stanford.edu http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~mcgrant
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"When you get right down to it, your "Long hair, short hair---what's
average pervert is really quite the difference once the head's
thoughtful." (David Letterman) blowed off?" (Nat'l Lampoon)
Michael Olivier
: Over the past week or so there were several posts about frozen yogurt
: and the fat content, or more appropriately the lack of fat content. A
: lot of wrong and misleading information was posted.
: One post claimed that the Redwood City Yumi Yogurt shop used to list
: all flavors as nonfat and now list none. That is wrong. Because of
: the new law going into effect August 8, 1994, the Peanut Butter flavor
: is no longer listed as fatfree but ALL the other 51 flavors remain
: fatfree!
We posted the original message about this, and the day we were at Yumi Yogurt
they did indeed list no flavors as nonfat. Please don't tell us we're
wrong -- we were there, in the shop, had been there many times before, and
that's the first time they ever took down all the "nonfat" signs. They may
have changed the signs since, but those signs disappeared for a reason.
Our original post was asking if anyone had seen the KPIX (channel 5) expose
on "nonfat" frozen yogurt. We haven't yet heard from anyone who saw it, but
expect that pressure from that or a similar venue may have caused YY and
other shops to at least consider honesty and ethics over legal loopholes.
: Nothing is changed in the frozen yogurt. Prior to the August 8th law
: the milk fat content as a percentage of weight determined the measured
: fat content. The new law calls for a measure based on total fat
: content. 51 of the 52 flavors of yogurt available to Yumi Yogurt
: remain totally fatfree. There has been no deception except in the
: minds of some paranoid people.
52 flavors? Aug 8? It sounds like you're an owner/investor. What's the scoop
(swirl)?
: I think the misleading posts about this were irresponsible and
: malicious. I hope this adequately sets the record straight.
We adamantly agree with Michael Grant that the irresposibility falls squarely
with the yogurt shops. They knew they were deceiving us and did it
anyway.
Michael & Kasey
--
Curtis Jackson
}We adamantly agree with Michael Grant that the irresposibility falls squarely
}with the yogurt shops. They knew they were deceiving us and did it
}anyway.
And I adamantly assert that the irresponsibility was equally shared
between the yogurt shops and the people who believed that their
peanut butter yogurt was fatfree. A reasonable yogurt shop owner
would have noted that it was not really fatfree, and explained the
labelling law to his/her now-grateful-for-the-honesty customers.
A reasonable customer would question a fatfree claim that made no
sense. Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
tasty fatfree peanut butter? Of course not.
Just as the yogurt purveyors are in an extremely competitive
market where the "market checkbox" mentality is pervasive amongst
the potential customer base, so the customers in that customer
base are well aware that "truth in advertising" is a very relative
term. It cuts both ways.
Hell, if you want to carry it to extremes (and why not, this is
Usenet):
The majority of *both* the customers and the yogurt shop owners
(who bothered to get off their butts and vote) voted for the folks
who passed the misleading laws in the first place. And there are
a lot more voting customers in absolute terms than voting yogurt
shop owners, so in that sense the customers are *more* responsible.
--
Curtis Jackson cjac...@mv.us.adobe.com (preferred) or dod...@aol.com
"I finally figured out why I don't watch baseball...BECAUSE I HAVE A PULSE!
If baseball were any slower it would be farming." -- Brad Stolar (sp?)
Michael Olivier
: And I adamantly assert that the irresponsibility was equally shared
: between the yogurt shops and the people who believed that their
: peanut butter yogurt was fatfree. A reasonable yogurt shop owner
: would have noted that it was not really fatfree, and explained the
: labelling law to his/her now-grateful-for-the-honesty customers.
: A reasonable customer would question a fatfree claim that made no
: sense. Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
: if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
: tasty fatfree peanut butter? Of course not.
We assumed that it was an artifical flavor. As an earlier poster mentioned,
Peach Snapple has no peach in it, yet it tastes like peach. IMHO, it's
reasonable to assume that they could have an artificial flavor that tastes
like peanut butter. It's not like you crunch down little peanut pieces --
that would make me wonder.
I don't think at this point peanut butter is the only flavor in question,
either, since _all_ the FF labels at the shop we went to simultaneously
disappeared...
Michael
--
Michael C. Grant
In article <1994Aug6.2...@adobe.com>
And I adamantly assert that the irresponsibility was equally shared
between the yogurt shops and the people who believed that their
peanut butter yogurt was fatfree.
Go to hell! It's not like I trust a man with a loaded gun in his hand
when he says he never uses it. I did more than enough investigative
work to support my belief that Honey Hill Farms' yogurt is labeled
honestly. I made the perfectly VALID AND REASONABLE ASSUMPTION
that they didn't just mix a big dollop of raw peanut butter but
somehow processed a "peanut butter extract" just like they do
with all sorts of flavorings these days.
Milk doesn't come out of the cow nonfat, but we now have skim milk,
nonfat yogurt, nonfat cottage cheese.... Fig Newtons taste as good
without the fat as they do with it. We have nonfat protein powder
made out of soy, a vegetable product which in its raw form is
full of fat. Cookbooks contain recipies for astronomically-low-fat
versions of desserts which, in their original form, would exceed
most people's fat quotas for a WEEK.
You damn well better believe I can understand that a nonfat peanut
butter FLAVOR is possible to achieve, and that I did more than enough
research to satisfy my skepticism that Honey Hill Farms' NONFAT yogurt
was indeed NONFAT.
Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
tasty fatfree peanut butter?
I would if it sayd "NonFat Peanut Butter", and the required
nutritional labelling supported it. That's exactly what I did
in this case too.
Curtis Jackson
}
}In article <1994Aug6.2...@adobe.com>
}cjac...@adobe.com (Curtis Jackson) writes:
} And I adamantly assert that the irresponsibility was equally shared
} between the yogurt shops and the people who believed that their
} peanut butter yogurt was fatfree.
}
}Go to hell!
Assertion(A) --> contradiction(B) --> abuse(A). The classic path of
all Usenet "debate".
}I did more than enough investigative
}work to support my belief that Honey Hill Farms' yogurt is labeled
}honestly.
Sorry I pushed such a hot button. You must be feeling quite
betrayed at the moment. Mea culpa.
Just so I know the depth of the crime, what did the ingredients
list say?
} Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
} if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
} tasty fatfree peanut butter?
}
}I would if it sayd "NonFat Peanut Butter", and the required
}nutritional labelling supported it. That's exactly what I did
}in this case too.
My generic objection is in regards to people who throw common
sense and caution to the wind in a massive self-deception
effort, and then whine about the effects later and blame it on
other parties. It appears from your statements that you do not
fall into this category of person, and it is very understandable
that you are angry at being lumped in with those folks.
But I still have a burning curiosity about that ingredients
list....
Jason Durbin
: Go to hell! It's not like I trust a man with a loaded gun in his hand
Michael: You _really_ need to relax!
Does absolutely non-fat yoghurt have negative side effects?
Jason
--
Jason Durbin jdu...@netcom.com
Michael C. Grant
In article <1994Aug7.2...@adobe.com>
In article <MCGRANT.94...@rascals.stanford.edu>
mcg...@rascals.stanford.edu (Michael C. Grant) writes:
}In article <1994Aug6.2...@adobe.com>
}cjac...@adobe.com (Curtis Jackson) writes:
} And I adamantly assert that the irresponsibility was equally shared
} between the yogurt shops and the people who believed that their
} peanut butter yogurt was fatfree.
}Go to hell!
Assertion(A) --> contradiction(B) --> abuse(A). The classic path of
all Usenet "debate".
More like Assertion(A)-->mindless overgeneralization and
categorization of A(B)-->Abuse(A), but close enough. Not
feeling particularly bad about it... certainly follows
the rule "if you wouldn't say it, don't post it" idea.
(And actually I'm not all THAT bad a person to argue with)
Just so I know the depth of the crime, what did the ingredients
list say?
As I mentioned in the previous post, the best information I had on
hand was nutritional information for two categories of yogurt. The
kind they labeled "nonfat" and the kind labeled "lowfat".
Unfortunately, peanut butter was not one of the three examples of
"nonfat". However, if memory serves, chocolate and butter pecan and
vanilla were. And, curiously, the lowfat example was strawberry---and
heck that one's easy to make fat free, while the other three are much
more difficult, wouldn't you think?
Somewhere between that curious juxtaposition and the fact that all
three "nonfat" flavors had 0g fat content allowed me to invoke a
little mechanism that it sounds like you suggest I
shouldn't---TRUST. I assumed that they managed to pull it off with
butter pecan, chocolate, etc. then peanut butter wasn't much of a
stretch. I took in all the info I had and made an educated guess.
} Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
} if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
} tasty fatfree peanut butter?
}I would if it sayd "NonFat Peanut Butter", and the required
}nutritional labelling supported it. That's exactly what I did
}in this case too.
My generic objection is in regards to people who throw common
sense and caution to the wind in a massive self-deception
effort,
I simply find it quite unbelievable that someone can call it
"self-deception" when the other party so actively deceives.
It wasn't all THAT difficult to believe that this stuff was
as it was represented to be.
and then whine about the effects later and blame it on
other parties. It appears from your statements that you do not
fall into this category of person, and it is very understandable
that you are angry at being lumped in with those folks.
Nobody's saying that such people weren't sucked in by this too. But
I happen to think those people still get to whine in this case.
But I still have a burning curiosity about that ingredients
list....
Well here's the best I can do. One quart of that stuff has
as much fat as a large order of french fries!
Jim OLaughlin
cjac...@adobe.com (Curtis Jackson) writes...
>A reasonable customer would question a fatfree claim that made no
>sense. Would you blindly buy tasty "Jif Free" fatfree peanut butter
>if such a thing existed, without finding out how they could make
>tasty fatfree peanut butter? Of course not.
Just wondering. How exactly would an average consumer go about finding out about
the processes by which such a food is made? Your assumptions about the equality
of owners and consumers in the marketplace fly in the face of reality.
>Just as the yogurt purveyors are in an extremely competitive
>market where the "market checkbox" mentality is pervasive amongst
>the potential customer base, so the customers in that customer
>base are well aware that "truth in advertising" is a very relative
>term.
Sorry, Curtis. A competitive marketplace is no excuse for misleading nutritional
claims (even if that might provide an _explanation_). If anything, this would
seem to suggest that the most competitive segments of the market need to be the
most tightly regulated.
>The majority of *both* the customers and the yogurt shop owners
>(who bothered to get off their butts and vote) voted for the folks
>who passed the misleading laws in the first place. And there are
>a lot more voting customers in absolute terms than voting yogurt
>shop owners, so in that sense the customers are *more* responsible.
This is a really lame conception of power. Let me suggest the organized capital
might have more influence than unorganized voters. Making this kind of
determination based solely on numbers of voters is misleading and should earn
Curtis the title of "Scummy Yogurt Shop Owner Apologist," SYSOA, for short. :)
Sorry to hop up on a politico soapbox here, but I think it is important to
recognize the limitations and frustrations of trying to eat healthy when
companies mislead (if not outright lie) about their products. In no way is it an
unreasonable expectation to expect a product which is labeled to be good for you
actually be good for you. It's called "truth in advertizing," and it should be
more than an oxymoron.
Jim O'Loughlin
Philip F. Wight
such products. I have subscribed to Consumer Reports for more than 20
years and have always enjoyed their test reports. They carefully advise
you how the test was set up, what they were looking for, and then they
honestly rate the products. They don't mind at all doing a dump on very
famous names, either. Also, they will immediately sue any company that
advertises their review by CR. Anyone interested in what the're eating,
travelling in, sleeping on, etc., should read that magazine.
--------------------------------
Jim OLaughlin
(ji...@ics.com) wrote:
: cjac...@adobe.com (Curtis Jackson) writes...
: Jim O'Loughlin
--
Philip F. Wight <pwi...@rahul.net>
Byong Pak
the Honey Hill Farms N/F Penut Butter. There have been several heated
discussions about who is to blame in this matter. Many people blame Honey
Hill Farms, others blame the owners of yogurt shops. If you stop and take a
look at it from my point of view, all the information I have comes from
Honey Hill Farms. I cannot spend the resources in sending samples of yogurt
to labs and have them analyzed for fat content. What I can do is to answer
questions about the yogurt that I serve as best as I can and to let customers
know how to contact Honey Hill Farms in case they have any further in-depth
questions. I actually, never thought about the true non-fat label that
Honey Hill farms put on their yogurt since I had to make the assumption that
they used some sort of flavoring or extract or such. Questions I have
investigated were things such as caffine content of the coffee flavors and
nutrasweet content vs sugar content.
While HHF(Honey Hill Farms) Penut Butter has been singled out as a mislabeled
product (this has been fixed by the way, HHF now put's it in the low-fat
catagory), KPIX did not look heavily into other flavors or brands. Some of the
things they talked about was yogurt with fine bits of cookies and candybars
blended into the yogurt itself. This are plainly NOT non-fat. I also asked
the health department about this and they did mention to me that adding
crumbs no matter how small is unsafe for the machine. These yogurts are
definatly in the mis-labeled catagory.
I'll be the first to admit that I do not know everything about the labeling
laws and practices. I feel that it should be up to the Companies such as
Honey Hill Farms to let people know what is non-fat. Honey Hill Farms
is not the only company out there though. There are many other yogurts
such as Gise, Je Mari's, Fruiticcino Light, St. Moritz, and Continental
that we have at our store. Double Rainbow also makes a non-fat Sorbet
in addition to thier premium Ice cream that we also carry. The point is
that there are many alternatives to HHF. Unfortunatly, KPIX did not and
probably could not run test on all the flavors of all the brands to get
get a comprehensive list of fat content. This causes the public to think
that all yogurt is mislabeld. If you watched carefully to the newscast, you'll
note that there were true non-fat flavors, unfortunatly, they did not tell
you which ones..... Of course, if you look at the fat content of yogurt compared
to ice cream....
I hope I have given you a flavor (sorry for the pun) of what the other
side of the fence is like. If you would like to discuss this some more, feel
free to drop by, email, or the shop if you would like....
Byong Pak
Yogurt Farm
462 E. El Camino Real
Sunnyvale
Mark Laventhal
versions of frozen yogurt in flavors such as chocolate, peanut butter, etc.
because I doubted their ability to make these flavors really fatfree.
I figured that they could be either using some sort of loophole in the
legal definition of "fatfree" or else using ingredients which I would
probably prefer not getting into my system. And please no responses
regarding the use of cocoa as a nonfat chocolate flavoring--I'd rather
do without, thank you very much.
My personal favorite is Dreyer's Nonfat Black Cherry Vanilla Swirl,
which tastes so rich that you (like I) would probably feel compelled
to go over the ingredients list with a fine tooth comb, to convince
yourself that they weren't sneaking in some fat somehow.
Mark