Which Yogurt?

Do you ever find yourself standing in front of the vast assortment of yogurts at the supermarket, wondering which is the healthiest, which the most environmentally friendly, or which came from the happiest cow and farmer? Maybe I'm just weird, but when we run out and I have to run to Smith's in the middle of the night for our yogurt fix, these are the thoughts that go through my mind.

I just listened to a really interesting podcast here and was introduced to the GoodGuide and how it ranks products for their environmental friendliness. It looks like it is a very useful tool, but I did have one problem with it (prompted by their discussion of different yogurts). Here's the comment I left:

"This is really great. I have an issue with the GoodGuide's yogurt rankings (and I suspect food rankings in general) though...

If you incorporate what Goleman is saying about the relation between number of steps and embedded energy, ranking low-fat yogurt products above whole milk/yogurt products because of "nutrition" is flawed (see here). Commercially dehydrated skim milk is added to milk to make it "low-fat" (i.e. more steps).

And lets consider moving beyond the industry driven low-fat diet concept - fats from ecologically happy (non-industrially farmed) animals are beneficial for people and planet without subjection to industrial food processing (ultra-pasteurization, homogenization, dehydration, "nutritional enrichment", etc, etc).

I am disappointed that these food rankings are tainted by the food industry's take on nutrition. I appreciate the sub rankings and will use those though."

Join the discussion here.

Now, you may not know that I have at times been so obsessed with the wondorous world of milk related foods that I am known in some circles as the "milk man". I've read many books, done much research and networking with local farmers, and have even run the odd semi-legal raw milk cartel! But I'm also extremely concerned about the threefold ethic - care of earth, care of people, and fair share. So what, you may ask, is the solution we've come to at home for the most feel good yogurt?
This:

Re-useable glass jar of home cultured yogurt and companion jar of homemade jam courtesy of my lovely GrittyPretty, made from unpasteurized milk, given by very happy 100% pasture fed heritage breed dairy cows under the care of a very kind farmer named Brandon Foote of Redmond Heritage Farms (109 miles away). (Milk now legal and available here).