Is Fro-Yo the next to go?

The appeal of the cupcake was always a certain youthfulness -- yo momma made them when you were a kid, and the nostalgia of eating one as an adult was key to it's trending powers. Frozen Yogurt, on the other hand, has been ascendant and on trend for a while, but it's gotten there by a very different mechanism.

Yo momma never celebrated your birthday with cake and frozen yogurt, unless you had a very, very sad childhood. Frozen yogurt is assumed to be "healthy" -- it is lower in fat and has live pro-biotic cultures in it. This is, of course, a lie by stretching the truth. Yogurt is simply diary that is curdled and preserved with bacteria, making what would otherwise be spoiled milk a thick, tangy delight. There is only one on the market worth eating:

Ingredients: Milk & cream, live active cultures. Done.

Truth be told, it is not very low fat, though it has less fat than a scoop of Ben & Jerry's. It does have pro-biotic cultures. However, it does NOT have an ass-load of added sugar, thickeners, stabilizers and additives to make it into something it is not.

Any thick, custardy liquid can be put into an ice cream machine and something with the consistency of ice cream will come out. However, the reason ice cream is loved all over the world for 100s of years is the fact that the power of fat to retard crystallization, deliver silky mouth feel and amplify flavor is unrivaled. Frozen yogurt, in it's attempt to imitate ice cream's fatty goodness, packs in the gums and seaweed derivatives, along with corn syrup, dextrose and many other forms of sugar. Unsurprisingly, many "low fat" frozen yogurts have as many, if not more, calories than classic ice cream.

As with any food that banks a lot of cash, there is a an industry trade group there that extorts money from the producers to create websites and lobby congress. Lots of dumb stuff, lots of scary stuff (most chains offer their franchises either freshly made base that goes bad in a week under refrigeration, or a dry powder mix that is shelf stable -- guess which one tastes better and is better for you?) They also have a nice little summary of the history of froyo:

The word yogurt means to curdle in Turkish. It was likely invented around 5000 BC and is one of the world’s oldest man-made foods. Surprisingly, frozen yogurt is a relatively new food, invented in the early 1970’s as a soft serve dessert marketed as “Frogurt” by H.P. Hood, a New England dairy operator. Frozen yogurt in the 1970’s was marketed as a healthier, lowfat alternative to ice cream and had a tart taste that lacked mainstream appeal in the US. The company known today as YoCream International got its start as Yogurt Stand in 1976. Honey Hill Farms was founded in 1978.
The first wave of frozen yogurt popularity occurred in the US during the 1980’s. Frozen yogurt in the 1980’s was still marketed as a healthier alternative to ice cream but the difference was that the product was formulated to taste more like soft serve ice cream. Frozen yogurt shops opened up across the US, starting on the East Coast. TCBY opened its first shop in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1981, grew rapidly during the 1980s, and became the largest frozen yogurt store chain in the world with 1,665 locations in 1990. By the early 90’s many frozen yogurt shops had closed. Frozen yogurt production reached its height in 1995 at 152.1 million gallons. By 2007, frozen yogurt production had fallen to 61 million gallons.
The second coming of frozen yogurt in the U.S. can be attributed to the cult like popularity of Pinkberry, opened its first store in West Hollywood in 2005. Unlike the frozen yogurt that was popular in the 1980s, the new Korean style soft serve frozen yogurt was tart and tangy. This new style of frozen yogurt had already become popular in Seoul, South Korea several years before Pinkberry opened in the US. Red Mango opened in Seoul in 2002 and quickly gained popularity. Pinkberry inspired shops popped up throughout the US. Frozen yogurt’s popularity continued to grow as with the US consumers became enamored with the self-serve frozen yogurt shop format.

Pinkberry, 16 Handles and Red Mango are just a few of the brands that have popped up in recent years to try to get in on people's desire for "better-for-you" ice cream. Before them, something called Tasti-D-Lite was all the rage, but no one was quite sure what it was - nondairy fat-free sugar-free something or another? What the hell IS in Tasti-D-Lite anyway?

Tasti D-Lite products are made from two different dairy-based mixes, upon which additional flavors can be added.
The vanilla dairy base is made with: water, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, cream, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, vanilla, and lactase.
The chocolate dairy base, used for chocolate flavors, replaces vanilla with chocolate and is made with: water, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, cream, cocoa (processed with alkali), guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, and lactase

Huh, not actually yogurt, but marketed as "healthier for you" in anticipation of the 2nd coming of the froyo trend. Still, "lite" ice cream, grrrrossssss! Not only did it taste kinda terrible if you weren't addicted to the sweetness of it, but it was actually full of calories anyway. Unlike the soylent green of Tasti-D-Lite, the new places have the integrity and familiarity of 'yogurt' to define itself.

There was a Seinfeld episode where everyone goes crazy for a non-fat frozen yogurt and decide to eat it exclusively. When they all start having a hard time fitting in to there clothes, it is revealed that what they are eating is not low calorie, or even low-fat. All you suckers gobbling up Red Berry and 16 Mangoes, it's all the badness of dairy minus the fat, all the calories of ice cream minus the pleasure, and all the ill health effects of indulging a childish palate minus the sweet nostalgia.

EPILOGUE:
Wednesday through Friday of this week ended up making two frozen confections, inspired partly by researching this post. I'm attending a get together of the HVS, and most of her friends roll vegan or vegetarian and I wanted to bring something to the party, so I made two very different ice creams.

First is a simple vegan chocolate ice cream:

• 28 ounce full-calorie coconut milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup ducted cocoa
• 3 vanilla beans, scraped
• 1 heavy pinch salt
• 1 shot of homemade vanilla extract

Refrigerated cans of coconut milk, opened and drained off the water, as less water = less big crystals. Cooked it with the sugar, cocoa, vanilla and salt while whisking constantly until on the edge of a boil. Cooled overnight, mixed in extract, churned. Didn't take a lot of air, gelato-style, but packs a surprisingly assertive chocolate taste, not too coconutty.

Second is a not so simple cherry sorbet, from the c-school run-down

• 2 lbs cherries, pitted
• 2oz sugar
• pinch of salt
• 11 oz sugar
• 3 oz corn syrup
• .25 oz vegetarian gelatin
• 4 egg whites
• 8oz sugar
• 1 shot cherry liquor

Anything fruit-based is going to be a bear, as the water is going to want to make big, crunchy crystals. 
1. Fruit. Pitted cherries are cooked down with 2oz sugar and salt until it releases it's liquid and cooks down to about half. Blend until it is an undifferentiated slurry. Chill over night

2. Water-Ice syrup. Place 11oz sugar, corn syrup, gelatin and a quart of water in a clean pan, bring to a boil. Cool to room temp then chill overnight

3. Meringue. Whip egg whites and 8oz sugar over a hot water bath until it starts to turn solid, smooth white. Transfer to electric mixer with whisk attachment and whisk the holy hell out of that mother. Transfer to a closed container and refrigerate overnight.

4. Mix all three components together along with liquor. Treat as ice cream custard in ice cream maker. Transfer to freezer immediately, as it will be softer and looser than soft serve ice cream. Chill over night.
-----

Oh mah gawd I want one.

It's exciting because the science sounds, uh, sound. Take a plate of food, put the thingy over it, it weighs it, determines what is water, fat and inedible, then give you a (hopefully) highly accurate of the exact calorie count on the plate. There undoubtedly will be a mini pocket version where you can whip it out in a restaurant and get the real truth about what you're eating. It'll be like the google-glass of food obsessives!!

-----

WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2530

Bike riding is feeling strong, something is clicking. Maybe it's the height of the summer season. Wonder how it's going to effect my weigh in in a few weeks.

-----

MONDAY COUNT: 2615

SLEPT: 9pm-12:45am, 1:45am-4am. 1:30pm-2:30pm, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, falafel, spit pea & ham soup, health salad, pickles, 885 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox nut mix , 300 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, broiled flounder, roasted asparagus, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 520 cal


EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, homemade popcorn, +/- 300 cal

-----

TUESDAY COUNT: 2530

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, noon-1:45pm, 8.75 hrs
Finally catching up on the awful sleep I've been getting the past week or so. Thank goodness for the 'wellness' room at the office!

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, madras lentils,  pickles, 680 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox seed mix , 300 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, grilled chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, poppa salad with Italian dressing, 640


EVENING SNACK: 9:45pm, peanut butter, +/- 300 cal

-----

WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2610

SLEPT:10pm-4am, 6 hrs
A good friend from out of town and her French family came today to stay until Saturday, took them to Nom Wah, a really good time. Enjoyed the food, fun to order and sample a lot of dishes (chicken feet, haaaaw) and not need to pile in the quantity. The kids got ice cream, but I felt no urges to get some, too, which was nice.

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, sautéed chicken, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa,  pickles,720 cal 

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, Grazebox nut mix , 300 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30 pm, poppa salad with Italina dressing, 180 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, misc meaty dim sum at Nom Wah, water, a small spoonful of ice cream, +/- 800 cal

-----

BIKE CREDIT: 730 cal
THURSDAY COUNT: 2265

SLEPT: 10pm - 3am, 1pm-3pm, 7 hrs
Really strong ride out to Coney this morning. Zipped through churning coconut chocolate vegan ice cream and making syrup and meruenge for cherry sorbet. Had ze French do me a solid and pitted the pounds and pounds of cherries I got from the CSA, hope to cook them tonight and mix everything and churn tomorrow AM.

AM SNACK: 3:15am, iced green tea, granola bar, 150mg caffeine, 320 cal

BIKE SNACK: 4:45am, granola bar, 320 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, vanilla and almonds, 500 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, soy 'meat' balls, black beans, roasted broccoli & shitake mushrooms, pickles, 620 470 cal
Left my veg at home, dammit! First time in the history of recorded eating I did that! Will eat tomorrow, I suppose.

PM SNACK: 3pm, momma salad,  grazebox crackers and dip, 180 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with Italian, 180 cal

DINNER: 8pm, chipotle burrito, 865 cal

-----

FRIDAY COUNT: 2630

SLEPT: 10pm - 4am, 6 hrs
Solid day. Almost had ice cream at work, but someone unplugged the freezer and it all turned to soup.

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea,

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9am, fruit smoothie, 500 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, almond butter and grape jelly on wholewheat, roasted broccoli & shitake mushrooms, pickles, 660 cal

PM SNACK: 3pm, momma salad,  cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, hotdog, fries, water, ice cream, +/- 1000 cal

-----