Park Ridge East Park

Today Adam, Jessica, Kaela, Siarra, and I ventured to the park in Park Ridge East to test out some more Greek yogurt as well as several new Cascade Fresh flavors. It was a reasonably nice day, and Siarra brought her dog, Trask, to share in our yogurt-fueled festivities. Trask entertained us all by consistently wrapping his leash around poles and other similar objects so that he was unable to move. These weather- and pet-related occurrences meant that this yogurt session was one to be remembered.

Cascade Fresh delivered a few winners this session, including Green Apple Pie, which tasted exactly as it should have and was pretty tasty, to boot. Mostly, however, Cascade Fresh's ratings were fairly mediocre across the board, but this could have been due to the fact that some of them had been sitting outside in the heat for a while before we tried them. Still, I think we could all say there are better options in different brands for many of the flavors that we tested today.

We also tried two stray flavors from brands that we thought we had already exhausted: one from Archer Farms (Cherry Vanilla) and one from Chobani (Vanilla). Cherry Vanilla brought in fair to good ratings from all of us, but we were disappointed by Chobani's Vanilla, which was too bitter for all of us.

Finally, we tried Fage yogurt, which got good ratings for each of us. Both the cherry and the peach were delicious. Most of preferred the cherry, but the peach was also very good. We also thought that, although this yogurt was delicious, it would also be good spread on a bagel!

All in all, a pretty good day for yogurt and clumsy dogs! Hope your day has been just as great, too, and thanks again for reading!

Ratings:

Cascade Fresh

Fat Free

Key Lime- 10.6

Green Apple Pie- 13.2

Vanilla- 8.2

Raspberry- 11.4

Peach- 11.2

Marionberry- 11.6

Strawberry- 11.2

Orange Cream- 9.6

Apricot Mango- 11.6

Low Fat

Cherry- 10.2

Blackcap- 11

Strawberry- 11.2

Raspberry- 9.8

Archer Farms

Cherry Vanilla- 12

Chobani

Vanilla- 5.8

Fage

Cherry- 14

Peach- 13.4

Olcott Park!

For our third round of EAFYIDPET this summer, Jessica, Hannah, Adam, and I ventured to Target where we bought 14 cups of the house brand, Archer Farms (actually only 13 flavors, we accidentally purchased two cups of Apple Raisin Bread), and 6 flavors of Chobani Greek yogurt. We then relocated to Olcott Park to eat and rate.

In the past we haven’t had great luck with Greek yogurts. However, we realized that this might have something to do with the fact that we always save them for last, meaning that they’re a not-so-pleasant room temperature when we finally get around to eating them. So today we switched things up and ate our Chobani yogurt first while it was still cold. This turned out to be an excellent decision, as our highest rated yogurt of the day was Chobani Nonfat Pomegranate. I’m picky about my Greek yogurt. I’m not a fan of the chalky, thick texture found in some brands, but I was impressed with Chobani. The fruit pieces seemed fresh and the texture was highly palatable. The Lemon was a bit of a letdown for me, though. I’m usually a fan of lemon yogurts, but this one was a little strange. Adam commented that it had “too much lemon zest”, and I think he might be right.

The Target brand (Archer Farms) pulled in some pretty mediocre ratings across the board. Most of the averages fall between 8 and 11, though the Fat Free Boston Cream Pie clocked in as the worst of the day at 6.5. It was super sour and left a lot to be desired in the flavor department. We also bought a few of the flavors in both the fat free and low fat styles and ate them side by side to optimize our comparisons. Our findings were not what we expected, however. We observed drastic changes in the taste of the Apple Cobbler and Strawberry Cheesecake flavors between the fat free and low fat versions. It was a surprising discovery that led to a few puzzled looks and some label reading. Overall it was a pretty middling brand, and I much preferred the Chobani.

Now that Jessica has returned from South Africa we should be on a more regular schedule, so be on the lookout for updates! Thanks for reading!

Ratings:

Archer Farms

Fat Free

Apple Cobbler - 9.5

Banana Cream Pie - 7.25

Black Cherry - 8.25

Blueberry - 8.5

Blueberry Pomegranate - 10

Boston Cream Pie - 6.5

Honey Almond - 8.75

Strawberry Cheesecake - 10.25

Vanilla - 10.5

Low Fat

Apple Raisin Bread - 8.75

Apple Cobbler - 8.75

Blueberry Pomegranate - 9.25

Strawberry Cheesecake - 9.5

Chobani

Nonfat

Blueberry - 12.5

Lemon - 10.5

Pomegranate - 14.75

Raspberry - 12.25

LowFat

Mango - 11

Pineapple – 11

Hello New World!

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back to a brand new summer of yogurt ratings! Kaela, Adam and I kicked off the summer with a rating session last Sunday with yogurts from Bloomingfoods. This is yogurt we've never eaten before and that has come on the market since we last rated yogurt. This summer, we will work our way through these new yogurts (or in some cases, newly discovered yogurt) at a sort of haphazard pace. As various members of our group trickle in and out of town, we will be fitting in a rating session when we can get the chance. Hope you all can stick with us as we soldier through new yogurts in different places every time.

This time, we didn't journey too far away from Bloomingfoods because it was raining. We sat outside the storefront at the tables that were sheltered from the rain. We were pleased that so many people approached us about the yogurt and I hope that we can eat yogurt in more public places from now on.

As for the yogurt, we ate 11 new kinds of yogurt from Brown Cow, Wallaby and Kalona Super Natural. The Brown Cow yogurts all rated very highly, with Boysenberry (my favorite) and Lemon Twist (Adam and Kaela's preferred yogurt of the brand) as the frontrunners of deliciousness. Wallaby garnered more, excellent ratings with its new line of Down Under yogurts. These are very similar in concept to fruit on the bottom yogurts, but were only slightly more difficult to eat due to the elongated shape of the container. The Caramel Apple was very true to its name and would hold up respectably to anyone looking for a caramel apple in convenient yogurt form . However, I am told that if you love grapefruit (something that I don't) then Wallaby's Pink Grapefruit is the yogurt to end all yogurts. Adam and Kaela practically devoured this yogurt and I admit that this yogurt certainly was grapefruit-y, if that's your thing. Finally, both Peach and Strawberry Guava were very good but were outshined by the Pink Grapefruit yogurt and the Boysenberry yogurt (Brown Cow).

And, oh, what shall I write about the mysterious, new Kalona Super Natural yogurt? Well, what can I say that would be kind and place this yogurt in a not bad light? I shouldn't mention that this yogurt tasted of soured milk. And I shouldn't mention that it had a grainy texture. Perhaps I could say that this yogurt might have been better when it was fresher -- we bought it in the sale section for 29 cents. Though, I probably shouldn't mention that this yogurt wasn't worth the 29 cents and that its rating was a 4, which falls between Complete Crap and Slightly Better Than Crap on our rating scale.

All in all, we had a very excellent time eating these yogurts and it was a nice way to start the summer. Check out the list below for the full ratings and click on over to our picture gallery to check out the latest images from our sessions. As always, you can find us on twitter and facebook (see the sidebar for links) or you can drop us an email at eafyidpet@gmail.com if you have any questions. Stick with us this summer as we round up those pesky, new yogurts and compare your ratings with ours!

Ratings

Kalona Super Natural
Vanilla - 6.67

Brown Cow
Low Fat
Strawberry - 11.67
Black Cherry - 10.33
Boysenberry - 13.67
Lemon Twist - 13

Wallaby
Down Under
Caramel Apple - 11
Pink Grapefruit - 13.67
Low Fat
Dulce de Leche - 9.33
Peach - 13.67
Non-fat
Strawberry Guava - 13.67
Mango Lime - 11.33