Eating all flavors of yogurt so you don't have to.

Friday, July 8, 2011

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

Friday, July 1, 2011

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