Walking through The Village School’s school store, you’re bombarded by choices. Packagings with bright colors catch your eye. From candies to pastries, The Village School’s Campus Store offers numerous snacks and meals for when you’re hungry. However, these products tend to be unhealthy. Providing sickeningly sweet snacks to high schoolers and underclassmen is a negative look for the health of our school. Looking for more nutritious options when walking through the aisles, we find fruit, kind bars, and something more ambiguous: yogurt. Rich in protein, calcium, and probiotics, yogurt seems like a good approach, but is this sweetened, processed yogurt healthy? Does it even taste good to justify eating?
The campus store has two distinct yogurt brands: Chobani Greek yogurt and YoCrunch. Starting with the former, Chobani Flip contains two compartments, one with the yogurt and the other with toppings. These come in several flavors mimicking desserts such as S’mores, Boston Cream Pie, and Key Lime. These flavors are low in calories (around 150) and high in protein with 8 grams per serving. While still high in sugar, around 18 grams is significantly lower than other sweet alternatives. Chobani also offers yogurt with fruit, which has marginally more nutrients and fiber. However, not all yogurt is built equal. YoCrunch is presented with bright visuals and maximalist packaging to catch the attention of young kids looking for something sweet. With either M&M’s or Oreos, Yocrunch is filled with 22 to 26 grams of sugar! With a measly five grams of protein, what makes these two brands so vastly different?
Yogurt is created by putting live cultures (types of bacteria) in milk which ferments the lactose sugar to produce lactic acid. This lactic acid coagulates milk proteins and creates a thick, creamy substance. The lactic acid can make a tart, sour flavor that may not appeal to some people. To get around this, companies can achieve a similar texture using thickeners like pectin, gelatin, or, most commonly, modified food starch. This reduces live probiotics which many claim to have health benefits like digestion.
But health is not a main priority for many adolescents, so the better question is; how do these yogurts taste? After buying both Chobani and YoCrunch brands in the Cookie & Cream flavors and the Oreo flavor respectively, Celine Liu, a sophomore at The Village School, and I tried the brands with and without the toppings. The Chobani yogurt was mildly sweet with a very thick texture. The toppings were more crunchy yet less plentiful than the competition. YoCrunch tasted significantly sweeter with a thinner consistency. We also noticed a very slight grainy aftertaste which could be a sign that it was heat treated too quickly. The Oreo pieces were also ground finely and got soggy quickly. However, due to not being Greek yogurt, YoCrunch highlighted the taste of the toppings better and overall tasted better. However, both yogurts were scrumptious and neither were wasted.
So is yogurt a healthier option in the Campus Store? Chobani seems to offer a lot as a quick healthy snack and YoCrunch is still much better than other indulgent items such as ice cream or cookies. Yogurt is certainly one of the more underrated items in the store and should be a staple of The Village School students. I give Chobani an 8/10 and YoCrunch a 6/10. While some might prioritize the sweetness of the yogurt, Chobani offers so much more in nutrition, texture, and variety; I can’t help but pick a side.
References –
New Scientist. (2021, June 23). Where did the bacteria that turn milk into yogurt come from?. New Scientist. https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg25033401-500-where-did-the-bacteria-that-turn-milk-into-yogurt-come-from/#:~:text=Yogurt%20cultures%20are%20mainly%20composed,milk%20and%20coagulates%20milk%20proteins.
