2/22/08

Truth in Advertising

We went out on a limb this week and tried the "Super Yogurt" at Wegmans.



After all, who am I to dismiss a product called Super-anything?
After a few lunches worth of these, I can say that they taste pretty good, although a bit "zingier" than their other sour milk offerings. I will leave the long-winded reviews to people who know more about yogurt than I. (yogurt-savvy, if you will)

The packaging is a welcome departure from most staid Wegman's branded products, with it's vacuum shrunk plastic casing, made popular by the revolutionary one-off milk bottles in the late nineties.

But it's what's on the top label that is a little disconcerting.

That's right....BILLION, as in three commas and ten digits.
There are 1,430,000,000 of these -whatever they are- swimming around in an 8-ounce tank. This makes sea-monkeys look like a home-school glee club.
It's ok if don't trust me, you can count them.... i'll wait.

This number seems terrifyingly specific to me. After all, once you're over a million, wouldn't it suffice to simply state: "we stopped counting, trust us though, there's a crap-load!"

Not only do six of these containers contain more wigglies than the human race, they only counted the "Live and Active" cultures. So all of the cultures that were too lazy to get up from their recliners and turn off their X-boxes are not on the list.

In fact, I just recently got ahold of the recent micro-biotic census form that was used to calculate this cess-pool. Here are some interesting excerpts:

Question #245:
How long have you been a culture?
Question #654:
Have you recently relocated from another 8-ounce container?
Question #689:
How long have you been in yogurt?
Question #750:
Are you pro-biotic or anti-biotic?
Question #904:
How many thousands of children do you have?
Question #904b:
Are they all in yogurt? (this could really save us alot of time)
Question #1042:
Do you consider yourself "active"?
Question #1042b:
If yes, when was the last time you touched your toes?
Question #1042c:
If no, do you even have toes?

Upon closer inspection, I think that I have traced the source of the afore mentioned "zingy-ness". It can in all likely-hood be attributed to the "beef gelatin" and "fish oil" additives. That sure is "Super!"