Greek Yogurt: So Hot Right Now

Apparently Greek yogurt—the thicker, tangier cousin to, uh, American yogurt—is all the rage these days, with sales going up by a whopping 2500% over the past six years. Who's driving this dairy-fueled revolution? Why, rich East Coast women, of course!

NPR talks to a food analyst to get a handle on who's suddenly buying all this yogurt: "You know, sort of what I would envision to be the Starbucks crowd," he says. "It's a higher-educated, higher-income user that resides in the Northeast." And they're usually a member of the fairer sex, because women are attracted to the purported health benefits and air of cosmopolitanism that Greek yogurt holds over plebeian regular yogurt. Or, wait—no!— says The Atlantic— it's actually because Americans now want foods that are considered "purer, simpler, and more natural—not yogurts purporting to taste like key lime pie or strawberry cheesecake."

Of course, the real reason that Greek yogurt is suddenly so popular has nothing to do with any of the aforementioned social or economic reasons, and everything to do with this new commercial of sexy hunk of man meat John Stamos charming the ladies with Oikos:

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By Jamie Feldmar in Food on August 24, 2011 3:04 PM

Comments [rss]

Anita Jane Saw

This is suddenly news now?
I eat Greek yogurt almost every day. Never liked the overly processed, HFCS-loaded American-style yogurts - just always found the texture gross and thought they were too sweet, and that the fruit taste was too fake. The awesome thing about Greek yogurt getting so popular is that now you can also find it for cheaper.

Also, if you stir a cherry Chobani, freeze it for a while, and repeat, you will get cheesecake-tasting frozen bliss.

Heatherbk

Fage and Chobani are so delicious. Once you try greek yogurt, there's no going back. Dannon and Yoplait cannot compare

angry_pickle

Many popular American yogurts (I'm looking at you Danon) are infested with high fructose corn syrup and cheezy gimmicks. Greek style yogurt is thicker, tastes better, and tends to be made without all that other junk. But my current favorite is
Siggi's Icelandic yogurt.

Rocknrope

That Stamos is a handsome motherfucker.

Matthijs van Guilder

Cabot's plain 10% milk fat Greek yogurt spooned onto pink grapefruit sections, drizzled with Forest Honey (the dark, aromatic, not so gaggy sweet stuff) is like having an ice cream sundae for breakfast. Zap.

Logan

I buy Greek yogurt because I'm not going to strain the water out of regular yogurt to make tzatziki.

diablofreak

can greece get out of their financial problems if the govt just concentrate on exporting their googurt onto the rich american sheeps?

Samantha_Ga

I like Greek yogurt because it has a lot more protein in it...so it's good for a post workout snack! Oh yeah, and because it's not "boston cream pie" flavored.

Sara G

Love me some Chobani

robingee

Chobani is THE STUFF.

Professor Von Nostren

I love Greek yogurt because it tastes good. Had no idea it was some kind of status thing.

Guest

reminds me of my skateboarding daze...

i skate because i love skateboarding, and not because it makes you look super-cool or anything.

god i was such a poser.

robingee

Skateboarding, eatin' yogurt... man, the summer of '94, am I right? Like the corners of my mind.

Guest

(looks at self, and the screen name) OMG, i'm still a poser.

Gwinny

let's not forget your avatar! ;-)

Guest

no... no. nothing beats Bleach.

did i just type that? yes, i did. i really did.

ronin

waiting for a Naruto fan to chime in here... ;-p

Guest

uh... uhm....... i... watch.... Naruto.... too........

eh, fuck it -- the anime is going really slow right now, and i'm enjoying the manga series at the moment and i really can't wait until the final showdown between Naruto and Sasuke. and Naruto vs Madara (most likely). i'm guessing that Naruto has to master his Jinchuriki training to take complete control of his Kyubi.

there. i feel better now. now i really need some whiskey.

TheOtherBob

Same here -- the one that comes with the honey is tasty as hell. Just smear the honey all the way across the top, so you get some honey in each bite, and...yummie.

I wasn't aware that it made me rich and female, though.

Gwinny

Seconded. I've been eating the one with honey for several years.

But I also really, really love this Quebecois yogurt called Liberte. Amazing. (they have it at Fairway and Westside Market, but I haven't seen it anywhere else)