October 10, 2016 • 62 mins
Yogurt is one of the most gendered foods in the grocery store -- but why? Cristen and Caroline cook up the uncanny marketing history of how the soured dairy product sweetened up to women.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about
women's favorite food, yogurt. I now, uh it's you really
(00:24):
can't be a true woman, is what I've learned, Um,
if you don't eat yogurt. Yeah. It reminds me of
one time I was at Costco and uh, we went
to the dairy issle, my husband and I, and you know,
I just saw just cases and cases, you know, Costco style,
(00:44):
massive cases of yogurt. And I looked at the yogurt
and I looked at him, and I was like, I
don't know which to choose. You know, they're both a
little bit sour and a little bit sweet, if you
know what I mean. Boy do I You know what?
I went through a period where I was eating, um,
at least one cup of yogurt a day, sometimes too,
because again I had learned that yogurt was also like
(01:08):
the healthiest thing you could put in your body. Looking back,
I have to question my decision because it's not like
I was eating you know, like plain Greek yogurt with
maybe some fruit nuts in it like a forest animal. Um.
I was just eating like the super sugary, pink, like
unnaturally pink yogurt, the kind that's supposed to trick you
(01:30):
into thinking that you're eating dessert when it's actually yogurt. Yeah.
I don't think I ever went for like the key
Lime Pie Ladies type of yogurt, but um, yeah, just
like the hot, pink, fruity kind of stuff. I did
have a key Lime Pie kind. I remember distinctly for
some reason in high school having yo Play key Lime Pie.
(01:55):
And you know what I gotta say, it was not
to sound like a yogurt commercial, but it was pretty good.
Was it a treat? It was a little bit of
a treat, a little sweet treat. Um. And for the record,
that Costco story never did happen. That was fiction. To
illustrate how much yogurt commercials suggests that women really do
want yogurt that more than anything else in our life. Which,
(02:19):
speaking again of yo Play, it reminds me of that
older yo Play campaign featuring two women eating yo Play
yogurt and talking about how it is so so good.
This is this is getting a raise good, this is
(02:44):
getting cat called good, This is getting cat called when
you're not even wearing any makeup? Good? Yeah? I I
who are these women? And and who was in charge
of that ad campaign that they were like, you know,
this is how women talk. I've never met any women
in real life, but I imagine if they could talk
(03:06):
and express opinions, they would talk like this about yogurt. Also,
they would be eating yogurt at wedding. Yeah why okay,
Like I get the joke. They're wearing like horrific bridesmaid
stresses ha ha funny um, but yeah, who brings Like
do you think they just brought cups of yogurt? And
do you think they have like a clutch bag that
(03:26):
they brought and they like put yogurts in it. Well,
they're probably suggesting that women can't even eat the wedding
cake because such an indulgence once on lips, forever on
the hips. Well do you think? Okay, So then that
should probably be a new campaign. We're giving people ideas.
We've got like key lime, we've got blueberries, have wedding
cake flavor, wedding cake flavor seasoned with tears. There always
(03:47):
a bridesmaid. Uh, but at least you have that those
yogurt lids that you can lick and then putting a
bag somewhere. That was also another weird when I was like,
you'll even want to lick it off the lid? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yogurt is so weird and so gendered, and really, from
all of the reading we've done, because fair listeners, there's
(04:10):
a lot of yogurt literature out there, it seems like
it's always sort of historically been connected with this idea
of it's the healthier option, and it's gonna help you
live longer, and then that overtime or not even really
over time, but very quickly actually escalated into and it's
going to keep you beautiful. Yes, women eat all of
(04:31):
the yogurt. Uh. For my personal yogurt past, though I
did grow up in a yogurt eating household. My mom
had a yogurt making machine, so she was all about
making the natural yogurt. I still eat yogurt almost every day,
not to brag. And you are a true woman, you know. Uh.
(04:52):
And I've also really enjoyed ever since my then boyfriend
and I moved in together, watching him adopt my yogurt
habit um. So it's not that I don't enjoy the food.
I just I am have always been so mesmerized really
(05:12):
by the hyper gendering of yogurt. I mean it's really
one of the most gendered foods in the grocery store,
like second only maybe two hungry man dinners. Yeah, and
I'm trying to think my boyfriend does not eat yogurt,
But when I lived with dude roommate, he was a
yogurt eater because it's a it's a perfectly healthy and
(05:34):
delicious snack, lots of protein, lots of protein, and it's
also a cash cow dairy pun intended. It's a seven
billion dollar industry in the US alone. Yeah, and it's
actually expected to rise to more than nine billion. We
hear yogurt fanatics here. What is going on? Well John Stamos,
(05:55):
for one, you know, people are like, what are you
talking about? Of those Greek yogurt commercials where he appears,
and all of the women then like think about how
their husbands are completely inadequate next to John Stamos. They're
just all these commercials are so loaded with so many messages.
Is he holding yogurt or is he yogurt? Maybe a
(06:15):
little bit of both, And you know. Um, but if
if we're talking about what yogurt is figured, we should
be precise about this. The Food and Drug Administration classifies
yogurt as quote a food produced by John Stamos Nope
by culturing one or more of the optional dairy ingredients,
(06:40):
namely cream milk, partially skimmed milk, and skim milk used
alone or in combination with a characteristic bacterial culture that
contains lactic acid producing bacteria lacto basilist bulgaris and Streptococcus thermophilius.
And don't forget the most important part what it's usually
made from cow, water buffalo or sheep milk. I only
(07:05):
eat the finest water buffalo when when yak milk is
not available the water buffalo route, well, you gotta make
do sometimes. Um. And the funny thing about the current
popularity of yogurt is just how old it is. You
(07:26):
know where we treat a lot of these these yogurt
innovations like this is some new kind of food that
we've come up with. But culinary historians trace it back
as far as six thousand b c E. In the
Neolithic era when they figure that Central Asian people wisened
(07:47):
up and began milking their animals first of all, and
then yogurt was probably an accidental discovery because they were like, oh,
left the milk out too long. Oh wait, what this
is delicious? But see, like I feel like, okay, if
I had never been exposed to a yogurt like substance
in the milk that I got from my yack soured,
(08:08):
I don't know if eating it would be my first thing.
But maybe I'm just too like twenty five century jemaphobe. Yeah,
I would imagine that the first person who ever taste
tested yogurt must have really been the daredevil of the
of the troop or the tribe, or the weirdo like
what is Jim doing? Uh say, from that soured milk again?
(08:29):
But then, do you think? I wonder how quickly then
it turned into like cave ladies laughing over yogurt, probably
as soon as we could get our hands on it,
because you know, you really feel it in your ovaries
once you once you make contact with yogurt. I thought
this was a pretty cool fact, though, especially since yogurt
(08:50):
is so feminine gendered. Genghis Khan and his armies are
said to have subsisted on yogurt, which helped spread its
popularity across Europe. Like word word of Genghis Khan's yogurt
habit was actually some hot gossips and people like, oh, well,
if it's good enough for Gegas Genghis, so yogurt went viral.
(09:13):
That's manly. Manly yogurt at the time went viral. And
I mean it's been used in so many different cultures cuisines.
It's featured in Indian, Greek, Lebanese, Turkish, and other Middle
Eastern cuisines. And it's popularity here in the United States
is thanks to its popularity in particular in the Balkans region. Yeah,
(09:35):
and we're we'll get back to the Balkans, because that
was a major curveball for me as I was reading
through the marketing history of yogurt. But don't worry, dear listeners,
we will get back to the Balkans per capita though.
Any folks in Sweden or Saudi Arabia listening, you all
eat the most and you're probably healthier for it, that's right. Yeah,
(09:57):
yogurt is really good for digest in uh things like
ib s or you know, just general gastro intestinal issues.
It also helps immune function and weight control. It replenishes
those natural flora in your digestive track. And I was
actually thinking about this UM when I was so super
(10:18):
sick for two weeks and was on antibiotics, and you know,
antibiotics can really upset your stomach, and I was like, oh,
I'm I'm not I'm not lactics intolerant, I'm lactose sensitive slash.
You don't want to be around me when I eat terry.
But it turns out that I should have just gone
ahead and eaten the yogurt, bitten the yogurt bullet, because
people with lactose issues can eat it. I had no idea.
(10:41):
So I'm learning all sorts of things well. And it's
myriad health benefits or something that we in the Western
world really started figuring out in the sixteenth century when
in fifteen forty two, allegedly Charles the First in France
was cured of a vere diarrhea with yogurt. I think
(11:02):
it was goat smelk yogurt. And even though the gendering
of our yogurt consumption is obviously a construct, it is
really good for biologically female bodies. UM. There are studies
which have suggested that there are sex differences in yogurt's
(11:24):
health benefits since it helps curb vaginal infections and gastro
intestinal issues, which women experience way more often than men.
Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with irritable
bowel syndrome, and we're three times likelier to experience constipation. Huh,
(11:45):
I didn't know these things. I learned that this week
thanks to Mom Never told you for video on whether
women are too stressed to poop? Are we a little
bit okay? So we need to relax meets and oh god,
the commercials are right. Relaxed meets and yogurt. Have a
laugh with your girlfriend. You know, yo play was right
(12:07):
the whole time. It's better than ending the wage gap.
It's even better than reproductive rights and some something else
that I didn't realize. Uh. You know yogurt is so
frequently now considered to be part of like a diet lifestyle.
You eat it to be healthy, maybe you eat it
(12:28):
to lose weight, so you don't eat the key lime pie. Um.
But in a study in the British Journal of Nutritions
suggested that probiotics are actually helpful for women's weight loss
but not men's. So there's some gendering of of weight
loss going in going on, possibly because women's probiotic intake
(12:49):
is correlated to a drop in obesity related gut bacteria. Yeah,
but researchers cautioned that yogurt bacteria is completely different from
our naturally occurring human gut bacteria. So even though Activia
might suggest that it will magically make you thin, it
(13:11):
will not. Yeah, and that's another thing we'll touch on
here in a second, but that's absolutely part of the
marketing campaigns for most of these products, right, and even
if it's indirect marketing, where with Activitia, for instance, the
first thing I think of is Jamie Lee Curtis and
(13:32):
thinking about the digestive issues. But one of our sources
we were reading noted how print ads for it are
just this torso, this very thin, idealized white ladies torso,
like washboard ads type of thing. Yeah, that's just without words,
(13:53):
just visually advertising you know, the thinness potential in in
a little tub a yogurt. But before we get back
into the gendering, we're going to back up a little
bit and talk about how yogurt even arrived in the
United States and from there really achieved the American dream.
(14:14):
And I'm not being facetious at all. It's it's kind
of an incredible success story. So are you telling me
that it like showed up on our shores with a
little suitcase and was like looking around for where to
live and then finally like built a house and got
a family. Yeah. Well, at first it showed up and
(14:34):
the Statue of Liberty was like, oh, I'm a lady,
come on in. You know, there's the whole poem of
like give me your tired, your poor, and your and
your yogurt cover. The torch she's holding used to be
a spoon. Yeah, yeah, so she's like, come on in,
cultured dairy product. So the first bit of the story
(14:55):
starts with some science, because, like you said, Caroline, it's
always been touted in modern history as a healthy food
and that's actually what got it to the United States.
So at the turn of the century in Europe, there
is a Russian Nobel Prize winning bacteriologist, Elie Metschnikov, who
(15:17):
becomes really scientifically obsessed with Bulgarians yogurt habits and the
specific thing. Yes, and he really thinks that they're uh,
their long longevity what could be attributed to yogurt, because
what Matshnikov did was isolate that so called good bacteria
(15:40):
in the yogurt that we still eat today, which is
one of the reasons why he names one of those
bacteria lacto Basilis bulgaricus for Bulgaria. And this really stokes
yogurt popularity in Western Europe as a really healthy food. Yeah.
And I mean it's no surprise that at a scientist saying, hey,
(16:02):
this product, this food helps extend life, and so therefore
people would want to buy it and eat it. I mean,
we've always been looking for the fountain of youth. That's
why I spend too much money. It's before every month.
But I mean Matshnikov himself only lived to seventy one.
It's not like he lived to a hundred. Yeah, but
that was quite a ripe old age for a turn
(16:23):
of the century because the life expectancy back then was
about half of what it is today. Lord alright, well,
I mean okay, then, so maybe Mashnikov was onto something yeah,
or at least a tasty snack exactly. Um. And speaking
of tasty snacks, that's how the very first yogurt company.
(16:45):
The first American yogurt brand came about was because immigrants
brought over tasty snacks from their homeland, which included yogurt. Yeah.
And in nineteen nine, I mean, not a great year
for the stock market, but a fabulous year for cultured
dairy we get Armenian immigrants Rose and Sarkas, Columbosian who
(17:10):
start America's first yogurt brand, Columbo Yogurt and and over Massachusetts.
And and they shortened their last name because people who
were already here in the States were like, what is
your last name? I can't say all those syllables. Um,
But basically, their dairy farm that they had, they were
producing way more milk than they could even drink. So
they're like, oh, I guess we'll just make yogurt with it.
(17:33):
And that that's you know, when life hands your extra milk,
you make yogurt, You make yogurt. And and this was,
you know, again during a great depression, So it's not
like they were trying to strike it rich with their
brilliant Columbo Yogurt marketing campaign. They were trying to survive
and help their neighbors survive too. And they mostly sold
this food to working class Syrian, Lebanese, Greek, and fellow
(17:57):
Armenian immigrants, because I mean those were people who would
have already been familiar with this product that otherwise would
have been much to foreign for people born in the
United States. And even though that Columbo yogurt only came
in plain flavor, it was popular in the nineteen sixties
(18:18):
and became even more popular when they added fruit in
nineteen seventy one. But not to get to ahead of ourselves,
there's kind of a sad ending Colombo yogurt um by
nineteen seventy one when they started adding fruit and people
were like, oh, this is even better than it was before.
By then, Dannon had become such a major competitor that
(18:41):
they ended up selling Columbo yogurt in ninetie, which, through
a series of acquisitions, ended up in the hands of
General Mills, which shuddered the brand in to focus on
yo play. I feel like, you know, play is sort
of the the nemphasis in this whole yogurt narrative that
we've created big big yogurt, Yeah, big yogurt, this big
(19:06):
yogurt scheme. Yeah, Bob Columbo Sian who is what is
he the grandson or the son? I thought he was
the son. Okay, so the son of our original yogurt makers. Uh.
Was quoted as saying it is a big part of
my life. It is all of it. Really. Yeah. He
(19:26):
was super bummed out when General Mills shut the brand
down because he's like, well, that's my family history, all right. Yeah,
and I mean but ten, like that's that's more than
you can say for a lot of brands that started
in the nies. That's yogurt cup half full. Yeah yeah. Um.
(19:50):
But since we're talking about big Yogurt, Gannon and yo Play,
we gotta get into how that even happened, because how
did we go from the is Armenian immigrants making the
first commercial yogurt in the United States and selling it
really to their friends, and then growing from there all
the way to you know, Dannon fruit on the bottom
(20:12):
Over that, we gotta hop back in time to nineteen
nineteen in Spain. Yeah, that's right. We get this guy,
Daniel Carrosso in Spain who opens the world's first industrialized
yogurt operation, whose name I presume was dan on A. Yes,
it looks like dan on A d A N O
(20:33):
N E and it's in Spain that sounds Spanish. Yes,
says the American. I minored in Spanish in college, so
I should be far surer about this pronunciation than I am.
But thankfully in old Carrasso comes over to New York
(20:55):
and americanizes the name to Dannon, so you know, white
girls like us don't have to sit around wondering whether
it's Dennone Dan Dan One, just Dan and but Ino
son of Dan and co owner Jan E. Metzker, has
(21:17):
what he thinks is a brilliant idea because we're in
the thick of World War two and food is being rationed.
Meat is hard to come by, and what has a
ton of protein in it that isn't meat, answered Tofu,
also yogurt. So his idea is to pitch yogurt as
(21:38):
a meat substitute. But of course Americans were like, what, no,
I don't think so, alright, but this was a bit
too radical of an idea for Americans at the time. Sure,
I mean, you can't chew yogurt. I get it. You
want something satisfying, I mean, just give somebody a raw
(21:59):
hide to chew on. If if you've got to have
a meat substitute, surely rawhide is available. Okay, I am
not living with you during wartime rationing should have ever
happened again. Okay, but in a terrific pivot, do you
use some corporate speak? Metzker is like, all right, Americans
(22:21):
don't want to substitute yogurt for meat. Okay. Five years
later he's like, well, one thing that Americans don't really
the American palette doesn't appreciate about yogurt is how sour
it is a strong taste. But they really love sweets.
So he invented fruit on the bottom yogurt. All right, Um,
(22:42):
I was never as a child, I I could not
eat the fruit on the bottom yogurt. I didn't I
didn't like chunks in my yogurt. I I wanted it
to be smoothed. So if I was going to eat
fruity yogurt, much like when I was a grown per
sun out of college, my first job, eating so much
yogurt all the time, I just wanted it to be
(23:05):
the unnaturally already sweet fruity yogurt. Technically that's Swiss style yogurt.
It's the smoother, sweeter kind of yogurt. Whereas the original
fruit on the bottom. They referred to as Sunday Style.
I thought was kind of cute because they were trying
to pitch it still even back then as a dessert
(23:25):
ish kind of treat. Listen, if you promise Caroline Irvin
a Sunday style dessert, their better be chocolate sauce. There
could be period. I, as a child, guarantee you. I
ate yogurt with chocolate sauce on it, and I guarantee
you it did not taste very good. Were you just
(23:47):
in the kitchen like mixing random things together? When you're
home schooled, you know you have you have some extra
time on your hands for culinary experience experiments. Um, but
we honestly cannot emphasize enough how much this fruit on
the bottom innovation just revolutionized the yogurt industry. This is
really what allowed it to take off because you still
(24:13):
have the healthy focus that they could market to mothers
who they knew were doing the grocery store shopping. So
he even back then, we start to see it being
marketed at women, but at women at this point for
buying for their whole family rather than just themselves and
other fellow bridesmaids. I suppose. Um, but now with the
(24:36):
sweetness too, they could get kids involved, and by nineteen
sixty three they had figured out how to make fro
yo happen, and frow yo for a while was the
hottest school treat on the block. Yeah. It was like
the green juice of the early sixties, right, I mean,
there's froyo places popping up on every corner. And there
(24:56):
were there were reports in the New York Times about
how Dannon or Done opened up a fro yo shop
UM in like a prominent street in New York. I
forget which one it is, um in Manhattan, and there
was a line out the door, and it was essentially
(25:16):
just like shutting down all of the surrounding ice cream
parlors because Americans were just gaga or froyo. Yeah, there
was some article that you sent me that even Hoggin
DAWs felt compelled to get in on the fro yo
game because they were they were seeing, you know, people
across the street lining up outside of Donne. Yeah, and
(25:37):
we have to attribute a lot of this deeper research
from of the sixties, seventies, and eighties yogurt trends to
New York Magazine, which y'all they have been on the
yogurt beat for decades. You're not She's not kidding. I yeah,
I was just blown away by the depth of their
(25:58):
yogurt coverage. Not even joking, um, because once we get
into the seventies, there's really a lot to talk about,
because Americans have yogurt fever, especially those who are really
into the whole health food and fitness crazes going on.
Yogurt becomes a staple of that. And it's probably when
my mom bought her yogurt maker. Well sure, I mean,
(26:20):
but then you see that interesting aspect of how it's tied.
It becomes even more tied in thanks to like, oh
it's a health food. Uh, and it's gendered for women.
And it's also part of like a fashionably thin lifestyle
because in nineteen two, Vogue recommends it as a diet food.
So that like Vogue, you know, being the bible of
(26:42):
fashion lovers, is telling you, now, oh, well, you know,
here's all of these you know, fashions and body types
to aspire to. Oh and you know, yogurt is your
aspirational snack food. Well then five years later, in seven,
yogurt went mainstream out of you know, the more niche
health food stores and the pages of Vogue onto our
(27:06):
televisions with Danen's Yes, Dana Yogurt, Dannon's famous Georgians over
one hundred AD campaign, which when I was reading about it,
I scratched my head wondering what it was. But then
once I saw it, I remembered seeing these commercials on
TV Land way back in the day because they play
vintage commercials. So the whole Georgians over one hundred bit
(27:30):
is what takes us back to the Balkans and the Caucuses,
because Dannon finds this group of people, these Georgians living
in the Caucuses, who eat a ton of yogurt. They're
always eating yogurt, and they have an extremely high life expectancy,
like a lot of them are living in a triple digits,
so kind of like a repeat of Matshnikov. Absolutely it's
(27:53):
Meshnikov all over again, only this time we have TV
and uh it's just scenes of these very very very
old villagers like breaking yeah in Georgia, like a very
unsexy film footage with a voiceover of this this Dannon
(28:13):
guy going these Georgians need a lot of yogurt, and
they also live a long time. We're not saying it's
because of the yogurt, but we're not not saying it's
not because of the yogurt. And then you have this
guy at the end eating yogurt and they're like, and
then this fellow likes yogurt so much he ain't duke ups.
(28:38):
And people loved it. People loved it. I mean like
even today, if you take advertising courses, like this is
one of the core campaigns that's still considered one of
the best of the twentieth century. Yeah, well, I wonder
if that gets to like Americans perspective on other cultures
in terms of like, oh, there's there's much simpler people. Uh.
(29:01):
They they must be more in touch with history and
their bodies and healthy things that are all natural. So
I trust them and their yogurt consumption, Oh totally. And
you could argue that there's a similar kind of thing
in the marketing of Greek yogurt today. Um, but it
was such a success. In surprise surprisal. New York Magazine
(29:27):
reports on the yogurt trend, leading with quote, yogurt has
gone legitimate. When I read that, Caroline, I just I
wanted to just stand up and give a snovation to
whoever wrote that, Well, thank god, because we've been eating
nothing but illegitimate yogurt this whole time. True, it's true. Um.
(29:50):
But one other line that jumped out to me in
that very in depth ninety report in New York mag
was that they also noted that it quote doesn't engender
the guilt associated with consuming most snack foods. So we're
already seeing this positioning of yogurt as a guiltless kind
of snack where it's super healthy but it'll still fill
(30:14):
you up and you get a little sweetness with that
brute yeah, which leads us perfectly into the diet fads
of the nineteen eighties. You've got Jane Fonda, you've got
leotards and fitness videos and arobicizing and such, and you've
got your cupsy yogurt. Oh yeah. Sales have not soured.
(30:35):
In two The New York Times declared yogurt is chic.
That's a quote, y'all. Yogurt is chic. Yeah. They reported
that yogurt was seeing sales rates growing by nineteen percent
a year, and they wrote that an indication of yogurt's
images that it is frequently mentioned as an ideal diet food,
(30:57):
so already not only is it being associated with diet,
but people are reporting on the fact already that it
is strongly associated with diets. And that's exactly ten years
after Vogue was like, oh hey, ladies, say fan uh
what I really love? Though, the most in this New
York Times piece was it mentioning that the industry was
(31:19):
growing so much that Kellogg's at the time was test
marketing a premium yogurt that they were calling Whitney. Who's
Who's Whitney. I'm hoping that they were like, maybe Whitney Houston.
I'll rep this Whitney. But I guess isn't that also
like an old school New York surname, the Whitney's. Yes,
(31:43):
there's there's a Whitney museum. Oh, there's a Whitney museum.
Eat Whitney's at Whitney's with Whitney triple threat. And you know, honestly,
when I picture an eighties Whitney, I picture a fluffy
side ponytail with the scrunchy and like a sweater that's
maybe you know, multi colored with patches on it, white
(32:06):
white sneakers. You know, I have a sweater like that
at home, and I'm wearing white sneakers right now, Caroline, Well,
too close to home. Maybe I just start my own
yogurt brand, That's all I'm saying. Um, But I just
love how this front and center is like, oh, yeah,
we're definitely getting into some gendering, because I doubt that
(32:27):
they were really gunning for men to be eating Whitney yogurt.
Well yeah, and it turns out, and we'll talk about
this when we come right back from a quick break,
but it turns out that, yeah, they totally weren't marketing
to men at all. So we'll talk more about that
in just a second. So once we get into the
(33:01):
early nineties, yogurt, no surprise, it's still going strong, except
for Whitney. I think Kellogg's had retired Whitney by that point.
But this is when yogurt goes all in for the ovaries.
And really it is a distinct shift in marketing tactics
(33:22):
led by Dannon Um because they figured out that by
that point of their consumers we're women. Well yeah, because
women have heard, whether directly or indirectly, that yogurt is chic,
it's an it's the ultimate diet food, it's guilt free, uh,
it's healthy. So like, yeah, I mean, of course, I
(33:47):
mean women are, whether they're consciously or subconsciously picking up
what you're putting down, they're certainly picking it up. And
this has been happening for twenty years too, so I
mean those messages are pretty firmly ingrained by this way.
And of course we have yet another amazing New York
Magazine friend piece saying that quote yogurt had been a
(34:09):
health nut, fringe fitness food, but now it's user friendly,
easy to eat, and very nineties. I love the user
friendly things, I know. I just imagine, you know, those
um infomercial things where like the woman opens the cabinet
and all of the tup ofware falls on her, or
like she can't open the milk and so the milk
(34:30):
goes everywhere. I just imagine that happening with like yogurt.
But don't worry, ladies. Now around the nineties, it's super
user friendly. It has a really good interface to really
simple interface. Yes, And in that saying article, they talked
to the associate creative director for Gray Advertising, and this
was the outside advertising agency that handled a lot of
(34:51):
dan and stuff back in the day. And this guy
not only is it user friendly now, but this guy
says that yogurt can even help older people feel like
they're reclaiming lives that have spun out of control. WHOA, yeah,
so if you feel and that's I think the subtext
(35:11):
there is specifically is about weight. Um, but like, oh,
maybe your life isn't going the way you thought it would.
Maybe you've been eating too much bad stuff and your
kids are acting up and you're feeling out of control. Well,
here's a yogurt that's so weird. That logic is so strange. Yeah,
(35:32):
I mean, I can only imagine that the subtext there
must be getting control over your physique, your sloppy eating habits. Yeah, well,
thank goodness, it's so user friendly people can finally eat
it without getting it everywhere apparently. Well. They also talked
to this marketing veep with Dannon, who said that what
(35:55):
they were trying to do for their their future direction
was establishing what they called the yogurt habit, and he
compared it to how orange juice is the breakfast juice. Like,
we we have our orange juice habit. In the morning,
you get your banana, your coffee, and your o J.
And he was like Okay, the next thing we want
(36:15):
to do is make the yogurt habit happen. And that's
why it started being positioned as a dessert replacement. I
also picked up on that o j statement, and I
wrote the quote down because I was so tickled by it.
May I um, he said, we're not at the stage,
(36:36):
and I like to imagine that he sounded really concerned.
I'm sure he did. We're not at the stage unlike
orange juice, where we can say that we're not just
for breakfast anymore. So all these people just willy nilly
drinking orange juice now at any time of the day. Yes,
it's a breakfast beverage, but you can enjoy an orange
(36:59):
juice six a clock at night if you like, with dinner.
And we're just not there yet. So he wanted to
make yogurt and any time it was too niche than
as a breakfast food. But but he he I don't think,
you know. I think he just saw in the future
what was to come for yogurt, that it too could
(37:19):
be enjoyed as an all day snack, yes indeed, or
a dessert replacement. Well, and the messaging that hey, yogurt
can be eaten at any time of day was going
to be pitched from that point directly to women, because
they're like, you know what of our consumers or women,
We're not going to waste our time trying to convert
(37:40):
non yogurt eaters and said, we're just gonna get yogurt
eaters to eat even more yogurt and eat it whenever
they want, so this thing can be breakfast, it can
be snacks, it can be dessert. And this is when
you really start seeing not only a proliferation of all
of these more niche yogurt brands that are clearly targeted
(38:03):
at women who are watching their waistlines, but also the
taglines that go with it, such as light and lively yogurt.
Who said that you can eat smart and look it.
But I think by looking smart they don't mean intellectually smart.
They mean smart as than you've been making smart eating choices,
which is why you're so thin, you know. And then
(38:25):
of course you have weight watchers. They had to get
in the game too. They described their yogurt as total indulgence,
zero guilt. I don't feel like I'm indulging when I
eat yogurt, but oh yeah, whatever makes me feel less guilty.
I guess um yo plays is also hilarious. Their their
(38:45):
tagline was do it for you, Do it for you,
honey lady, you deserve it and well and what a
shift from the original yogurt marketing, which was, hey, women,
buy yogurt for your family. Now we're in the nineties
and like sisters doing it for themselves. Henny, eat your yogurt.
(39:09):
It doesn't matter if you're not married. We're so like
post feminism, choose your choice, choose your yogoose your yogurt,
because we are getting into that, you know, feminism backlashy period.
And also just the whole diet craze of the nineties,
which was very focused on how fat was bad. Oh
(39:30):
my god, do I remember? Jeez? So my father had
a heart attack in so that was like in the
throes of all of this, like what I call the
snack Wells era of my household. So yeah, I am
hyper familiar with how like we have demonized fat in
our culture and ignored sugar. So was yogurt prominent in
(39:53):
in your house too during I wouldn't be surprised. I
just don't really remember, because the snack Wells boxes were overwhelming.
I could have built an entire separate house out of
snack wells boxes, you know, speaking of our our home,
our home life, and yogurt. Reading up on this did
make me think of how throughout my life my mom
(40:16):
was always touting the benefits of yogurt. I mean, it
was a healthy food. Of course, she made her own
so it made it even healthier whatever. But she would
always talk to you, my sisters, and me about how
it was especially important for women to eat yogurt, partly
for weight control reasons, but also partly for vaginal health. Yeah,
(40:37):
did she ever say anything like that or was it
more of like a wink wink, nudge nudge thing. I
don't think she ever used the phrase vaginal health, but
I mean it was clear enough that I knew what
she was talking about. Yeah, yeah, you know. Um and
all of those taglines though, and the pivot straight for
our ovaries really worked. Yogurt sales but to alone jumped
(41:03):
one hundred, But yogurt was not done growing. You know.
We get through the nineties and okay, well, I think
that the Danan Veep's dream had come true. People were
eating yogurt whenever they wanted to so what's the next
phase probiotics. I had no idea before this episode of
(41:28):
what a blockbuster Activityo was. Yeah, it was a one
billion dollar global brand by two thousand and six, and
it it didn't even launch that much earlier than that. Yeah. Yeah,
that was a figure that I found in a Slate
article and I read it two or three times because
it seemed too high. But that was what they reported. No,
(41:50):
I mean, this is this is an admittedly weird thing
that's about to come out of my mouth. But Activitia
was really a perfect storm of all of our lady concerns, right, like, Okay,
so it's marketed by Jamie Lee Curtis, whom, of course
we can trust. She's Jamie Lee Curtis, Jamiely Curtis, she
(42:12):
has that sensible cut, she's salt and pepper. Yeah, she's
married to Christopher Guest, so you know she's funny. I
didn't know. You didn't know. Yes, but here's this food
product that we already associate with health and diets and
thinness and reasonable choices and being guilt free, and then
(42:34):
it's supposed to make us even thinner and more regular.
And I was activity ashamed again going back to my
first job. I had been eating a lot of like
the sugary fruity yogurt or whatever already and ACTIVITYO. I
come across activity and I'm like, oh, well that you
(42:56):
know this seems I hadn't yet discovered my dairy sensitivity.
I'll just say that. So I was like, I don't
know what my body's doing, but activity a promise, and
Jamie Lee Curtis says I'll feel better. Um. So I
got a lot of Activia, put it in the refrigerator
at work, and a colleague of mine made fun of
me so much like every day for eating Activia and
(43:19):
talking about like poop and Jamie Lee Curtis and stuff.
And I was like, God, I don't think I can
bring activity off. Are It's unnecessary? That is unnecessary. Also,
leave your poop jokes at home. I don't need them
in the workplace unless you're recording a podcast. Of course. Well,
in the new layer to that Activia and the whole
(43:40):
probiotics craze brings in is this science ish uh pitch
where they're claiming that probiotics, which sound you know, very
science e that these are the quote beneficial bacteria, but
(44:00):
they're they're never really clear on what exactly it does.
They're just saying that um there, that they contain all
of these live organisms that are gonna help your digestion
and also help with weight control. But the American Society
of Microbiologists has weighed in saying, quote, at present, the
(44:23):
quality of probiotics available to consumers in food products around
the world is unreliable. Well, and um Activitiya pulled this
really brilliant marketing move. Uh. There there was this um
bacteria in the yogurt already, and it was called Biffido
(44:43):
Bacterium animalist. That's its name in the world of science,
that's what it's called. And Activita renamed it and trademarked
it as Biffitist regularist. So like wink wink, nudge, nudge,
You're gonna poop better and therefore be thinner. Oh my gosh.
(45:05):
So that so they weren't actually offering anything new, they
were just renaming bacteria to sound better. Yeah, And and
clearly what it does is it forms and this is
according to the advertisements, Kristen, it forms into a yellow
arrow that points the poop out of you. Oh that's good.
(45:26):
It's an arrow down and not up. We're out to
the side. We don't know where it's going. It sounds
like it's also user friendly. Well, of course, we also
have to mention the most recent yogurt trend, right on
the heels of the probiotics craze, which started in eleven
when America was all about some Greek yogurt. Yeah, and
(45:49):
it really seems like at this point it is part
of sort of a trend away from those more sugary,
hot pink yogurts. People want to get more natural and
Greek yogurt with names like fi a to to consumers
just sounds like, oh, that's clearly right off the farm.
It must be. It looks like page but it's fine.
(46:13):
You know it's good then. Uh. The Wall Street Journal, though,
described its popularity is quote nothing short of astronomical. And yeah,
they attributed it to partly the slow food movement and
us being like, maybe we don't need all of this
added stuff in our food, but also the whole Mediterranean
(46:35):
diet obsession that my parents were also really into, where
it was like, all we need are just nuts and
olive oil and yogurt and a fish and a fish
a lean protein, and we'll be fine, not that any
of those things are are unhealthy. I hate a lot
of all of those actually. Um. But again, like with
(46:57):
the case of probiotics, there's all this like murky, not
necessarily scientifically sound claims about how all of these yogurts
are really the key to you know, having the body
you want. Well, I mean, apparently they are the key
(47:19):
to having the body you want if you're a man.
So you know, obviously there is ah And I say
obviously because this is just how this happens. It happens
with body wash, it happens with shampoo, It even happens
with the very shower poof you put the body wash on.
But eventually, in the marketing world, men are gonna need
(47:42):
their own thing. There's always a turning point when somebody's like,
what about the men's Well yeah, well, I mean it's
the same way that Gillette back in the day got
hopped on the women's razors and shaving trend because they
were like, we need to grow our market. So I mean,
if you've tapped out all the women, when pretty much
(48:03):
everyone eating your product as women, of course you're going
to pivot too. Dudes, Well, what's so funny though, is
what that entails, because I mean, I look at the
yogurt in the yogurt asal and I don't necessarily think
of it as like hyper gendered to look at it.
It's not like it's all in pink glitter packages, although
again I would love that um My Bison more yogurt,
(48:26):
just saying, if you're trying to appeal to me, make
the container glittery anyway to appeal to men. You've got
these companies that are starting to put their yogurt in
like black packaging, again, the same thing you see with
body wash and men shampoo. It's like it's got to
be in like a black or a dark gray container.
And in addition to the color scheme, you have to
(48:48):
put the protein front and center that it's all about
the protein. Um. So, in two thousand thirteen, as many
of our listeners I'm sure have kind of been waiting for,
in this episode, Brogert happened. Powerful Yogurt, which is a
Miami yogurt company. A started marketing yogurt directly to men.
(49:12):
Um and Powerful was the name of it. It was
just nicknamed Brogert because what a fun portmanteau. Um around
the same time. You also have pro yo and yo
play masculinizing a Greek one hundred campaign with its men
of yogurt starring Beefcake Dominic Purcell, who I did have
(49:33):
to google, had to google too, And yeah, I mean
he's just he's he's a big dude. He's like a
Vin Diesel type. Yeah, and yogurt and it's supposed to
be it's supposed to be funny, like, look at this
big beefy man who's doing something that was that has
been considered so girly, but you can do it to men.
(49:53):
Look at how muslie he is. Yeah. I I don't
know of many guys who have wormed at the thought
of eating yogurt that I know of. Maybe I just
haven't even yogurt around a lot of guys. Um, But
I'm not sure how many would would feel like openly
eating just regular yo play would really be threatening their masculinity. UM.
(50:14):
Darren Cipher, though, who was an mp D Group analyst,
told NBC News that men have been underrepresented in yogurt consumption,
so quote, these companies are trying to man up yogurt
and it didn't really work because it was so overtly gendered.
(50:36):
And so obviously a brogurt hail Mary that people you know,
weren't that into it. Stop trying to make fetch happen
kinda yeah, And I mean that's also assuming that women
don't want super protein benefits either, right, Whereas I specifically
(50:58):
eat Greek yogurt for the cotein, you know, again, not
to prack my yogurt habit um. And uh, I made
a stuff I've never told you video encapsulating this hour
long conversation into two and a half minutes. And uh.
Someone on Twitter helpfully reminded me of one of my
(51:18):
favorite television shows, Brooklyn nine nine and how Terry Crews
is on it. And he is just this huge, muscle
bound man and he's always eating yogurt. It's one of
his favorite foods. And it's never a joke in the
show of the way of like, oh, Terry, you're so
girly for eating yogurt. He's just like a big man
(51:40):
carrying around a little yogurt container in the sand. Yeah,
so's less about the yogurt itself, right, and just to
have like he is the most like overtly dudely dude
on the show. And he also talks about himself and
the third person, which is really charming. UM, and you
know here he is that kind of also shows his
(52:01):
more sensitive side because he's a very caring husband and
father and nothing is going to threaten Terry's masculinity and
certainly not some yogurt because that just makes him stronger
for his muscles and his muscles. Thank him, you know
what else, Thanks us for eating yogurt. Do tell our vaginas.
(52:23):
It's true. It's true, it's true. Nancy was right. Yeah. UM.
One thing we haven't mentioned is how there are a
lot of people this is going back to a second
wave feminism. I mean, I'm sure people were doing it
before then, but second waivers are really all about this
using yogurt for d I y ust infection treatments and UM.
(52:46):
I was watching a Lacey Green YouTube video not too
long ago where she talks about UM using yogurt on
EUSt infections as well. I have never personally tried the
yogurt method, but I know people who have and who
it's worked for. Obviously, it doesn't work as quickly as
(53:07):
and over the counter treatment, UM, but for people who
aren't interested in whatever kind of chemicals might be in
monastat there's yogurt, and I'm assuming you should probably go
with just like plain. Yeah, I don't think you need
the fruit on the bottom for this one, or like
the kinds with the sprinkles. Yeah, yeah, no sprinkles needed.
(53:28):
But you've got to make sure that it has live
active cultures. That is stuff my mom did tell me.
She was always about the live active cultures, especially what
if we ever went on antibiotics as well. Um. But
speaking of moms too, I was curious when we were
searching for this um weather, not really weather, but how
many and how often women made breast milk yogurt. Oh,
(53:52):
it's out there. It's so out there. There are recipes,
videos and any info you want about breast yogurt. Well,
I mean, you know, mix it up for your baby,
I guess yeah, some some women do. UM. By far,
the most extreme yogurt was made by a University of
(54:13):
Wisconsin PhD student named Cecilia Westbrook who as an experiment.
She was a scientist, and she was like, I wonder
if I could make my own yogurt using my own
lacto basilist bacteria naturally produced by my vagina. And you
(54:36):
know what, it worked, yeah, and um, any potential weirdness
or squeamishness aside. She had a really great point that
she said, I was actually surprised to know that we
really don't know a lot about vaginal flora. There's really
been only one or two big studies, and interestingly, most
of the information that we do know about it is
(54:57):
from white women, and so we need more studies. We
need more information to get in touch with our own
bodies and our own health, but also to like maybe
potentially help women get better medical treatment in general. Um.
And so she made a couple a couple of bowls
of it, and the FDA was like, nope, yeah, yeah,
(55:18):
don't worry, vaginal yogurt will not be coming to any
health food store near you anytime soon because the FDA
doesn't consider vaginal secretions to be food and because of
the risk of disease transmission. Yeah. Um, but she did
in case you were wondering like I was, she didn't
(55:40):
taste it twice and she said it tasted sour like
Indian yogurt. So, I mean, what a great icebreaker though
she's got. Because you know, when you're in like a
group situation, and sometimes they'll have you like go around
and say your name and like an unexpected fact about you.
You know she can be like him. My named Cecilia. Surprise, surprise,
(56:02):
I made yogurt out of my own vaginal secretions. There
you know, there you go. I I never come up
with anything I was like and I'm left handed. I
don't know. Yeah, I got nothing. My mind is a
complete blank. I've got nothing on Cecelia. No, there is
nowhere else to go, I think in this conversation except
(56:24):
to just leave mic drop style listeners with with Cecilia
Westbrooks um science experiment that did go viral m thankfully,
uh internet wise, not bacteria wise. And listeners, Oh, we
hope you enjoyed this yogurt info as much as we
(56:47):
obviously did. And we want to know your yogurt stories
and listen. By no means, was this episode about yogurt shaming.
We're poking about of the yogurt marketing, which is ridiculous. Um,
but I love yogurt. I'll say it. I love yog
I love yogurt. I eat it almost every day. UM,
So we want to know from you. Have you ever
(57:08):
been activity ashamed? Guys? Have you ever been yogurt shamed
and what are your thoughts on yogurt? Moms Stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address. You
can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages this
year with you when we come right back from a
quick break. Well, Kristen and I have a couple of
(57:33):
letters in response to our period tracking app episode from
women who have realized that there are benefits beyond just
being able to track your period. This one's from Brittany.
She says in response to the period Tracker podcast. I
first downloaded I period back in because my husband and
I were ready to start trying for baby number one.
(57:55):
I really enjoyed not having to write my period flow
in the same planner that I took to work meetings,
for fear someone would glance and see all my personal
notes when I was having my men, see when we
had intercourse, how I felt, et cetera. We were fortunate
to get pregnant after three months of trying, but then
we lost the pregnancy at the end of the first trimester.
Shout out to your miscarriage episodes. So relieved to hear
(58:18):
others talk about a topic that too so many is taboo.
I began reusing the period app once we decided it
was time to start trying again. It was devastating to
look at the app and see that I should have
had my period weeks ago, but wasn't pregnant. After eight
months of tracking a not so regular period, which, by
the way, I had always been regular, I decided to
go see my O b G. I n The tracker
(58:39):
helped since I was able to print a calendar for
each month and write all of my notes off of
the app to give the doctor. There, she was able
to see that my period really wasn't consistent and that maybe,
after a year of trying, we should start looking into
fertility testing. Long story short, after a year of trying,
the doctor determined that I had developed an ad anoma
on my pituitary gland, causing my body to make a
(59:00):
pregnancy hormone that it shouldn't have been making, which in result,
made my body think it was already pregnant and wouldn't
allow me to ovulate. No ovulation, no babies. With taking
charge of my own health tracking, I was able to
get answers that I desperately needed. I just started medication
to help with my hyper pro lactinemia condition and with
(59:22):
using my tracker. Last month, for the first time in
over a year, I had a normal cycle. I had
never been that happy to have a period. Weird, right
to me, it means I'm one step closer to being
able to conceive again. She's Brittany, that's amazing, and I'm
sorry for your loss, but it's incredible what really being
(59:42):
in touch with your health and your body processes like
that can do. So I'm really happy for you. And
Miriam also has a story or two to share about that,
so she writes, first of all, I have to share
that my second waiver Mom was definitely a charter and
when and little seven year old me asked her what
her menstrual cup was, she went on into full descriptions
(01:00:07):
of what our whole cycle is like, egg, white, mucus
descriptions and all, and that our period is only one
part of this incredible cycle our body does every month
or so. She successfully used the fertility awareness method to
conceive each of my sisters when she wanted and avoided
any unwanted pregnancies for decades by charting. Fast forward twenty
(01:00:28):
years and my husband and I decided we wanted to
have a baby. I decided to take out my manuver
ring and started charting using Fertility Friend, a very statistics
driven app and website before apps existed. That's cut and dry,
with no cute ce crap. Nine months later, no pregnancy
and lots of data. I went to the obie who
browsed quickly through my app and said I probably have
(01:00:50):
polycystic ovarian syndrome. They ran tests, so they normally wouldn't
have run on a thin, twenty seven year old woman
trying to conceive for less than a year had I
not had these charts handy alas, I had quote unquote
thin picos and was given let's resolve to opulate and
became pregnant that month. These apps don't replace our docs,
(01:01:12):
but they help our docs. Thanks ladies, been listening since
the beginning and enjoy every episode. Well, thanks so much
for sharing, Miriam, and I am really happy to hear
that there are these uses for these period and fertility
tracking apps beyond tracking our menstruation. Just remember read privacy
(01:01:35):
claims before you download them. So with that, if you
have stories to share with us, mom stuff at how
stuff Works dot com is where you can send them
and for links to all of our social media as
well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts with
our sources so you can learn even more if it's possible.
About yogurt head on over to stuff Mom Never Told
(01:01:56):
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told You from how stup
works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline, and today we are talking about
women's favorite food, yogurt. I now, uh it's you really
(00:24):
can't be a true woman, is what I've learned, Um,
if you don't eat yogurt. Yeah. It reminds me of
one time I was at Costco and uh, we went
to the dairy issle, my husband and I, and you know,
I just saw just cases and cases, you know, Costco style,
(00:44):
massive cases of yogurt. And I looked at the yogurt
and I looked at him, and I was like, I
don't know which to choose. You know, they're both a
little bit sour and a little bit sweet, if you
know what I mean. Boy do I You know what?
I went through a period where I was eating, um,
at least one cup of yogurt a day, sometimes too,
because again I had learned that yogurt was also like
(01:08):
the healthiest thing you could put in your body. Looking back,
I have to question my decision because it's not like
I was eating you know, like plain Greek yogurt with
maybe some fruit nuts in it like a forest animal. Um.
I was just eating like the super sugary, pink, like
unnaturally pink yogurt, the kind that's supposed to trick you
(01:30):
into thinking that you're eating dessert when it's actually yogurt. Yeah.
I don't think I ever went for like the key
Lime Pie Ladies type of yogurt, but um, yeah, just
like the hot, pink, fruity kind of stuff. I did
have a key Lime Pie kind. I remember distinctly for
some reason in high school having yo Play key Lime Pie.
(01:55):
And you know what I gotta say, it was not
to sound like a yogurt commercial, but it was pretty good.
Was it a treat? It was a little bit of
a treat, a little sweet treat. Um. And for the record,
that Costco story never did happen. That was fiction. To
illustrate how much yogurt commercials suggests that women really do
want yogurt that more than anything else in our life. Which,
(02:19):
speaking again of yo Play, it reminds me of that
older yo Play campaign featuring two women eating yo Play
yogurt and talking about how it is so so good.
This is this is getting a raise good, this is
(02:44):
getting cat called good, This is getting cat called when
you're not even wearing any makeup? Good? Yeah? I I
who are these women? And and who was in charge
of that ad campaign that they were like, you know,
this is how women talk. I've never met any women
in real life, but I imagine if they could talk
(03:06):
and express opinions, they would talk like this about yogurt. Also,
they would be eating yogurt at wedding. Yeah why okay,
Like I get the joke. They're wearing like horrific bridesmaid
stresses ha ha funny um, but yeah, who brings Like
do you think they just brought cups of yogurt? And
do you think they have like a clutch bag that
(03:26):
they brought and they like put yogurts in it. Well,
they're probably suggesting that women can't even eat the wedding
cake because such an indulgence once on lips, forever on
the hips. Well do you think? Okay, So then that
should probably be a new campaign. We're giving people ideas.
We've got like key lime, we've got blueberries, have wedding
cake flavor, wedding cake flavor seasoned with tears. There always
(03:47):
a bridesmaid. Uh, but at least you have that those
yogurt lids that you can lick and then putting a
bag somewhere. That was also another weird when I was like,
you'll even want to lick it off the lid? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yogurt is so weird and so gendered, and really, from
all of the reading we've done, because fair listeners, there's
(04:10):
a lot of yogurt literature out there, it seems like
it's always sort of historically been connected with this idea
of it's the healthier option, and it's gonna help you
live longer, and then that overtime or not even really
over time, but very quickly actually escalated into and it's
going to keep you beautiful. Yes, women eat all of
(04:31):
the yogurt. Uh. For my personal yogurt past, though I
did grow up in a yogurt eating household. My mom
had a yogurt making machine, so she was all about
making the natural yogurt. I still eat yogurt almost every day,
not to brag. And you are a true woman, you know. Uh.
(04:52):
And I've also really enjoyed ever since my then boyfriend
and I moved in together, watching him adopt my yogurt
habit um. So it's not that I don't enjoy the food.
I just I am have always been so mesmerized really
(05:12):
by the hyper gendering of yogurt. I mean it's really
one of the most gendered foods in the grocery store,
like second only maybe two hungry man dinners. Yeah, and
I'm trying to think my boyfriend does not eat yogurt,
But when I lived with dude roommate, he was a
yogurt eater because it's a it's a perfectly healthy and
(05:34):
delicious snack, lots of protein, lots of protein, and it's
also a cash cow dairy pun intended. It's a seven
billion dollar industry in the US alone. Yeah, and it's
actually expected to rise to more than nine billion. We
hear yogurt fanatics here. What is going on? Well John Stamos,
(05:55):
for one, you know, people are like, what are you
talking about? Of those Greek yogurt commercials where he appears,
and all of the women then like think about how
their husbands are completely inadequate next to John Stamos. They're
just all these commercials are so loaded with so many messages.
Is he holding yogurt or is he yogurt? Maybe a
(06:15):
little bit of both, And you know. Um, but if
if we're talking about what yogurt is figured, we should
be precise about this. The Food and Drug Administration classifies
yogurt as quote a food produced by John Stamos Nope
by culturing one or more of the optional dairy ingredients,
(06:40):
namely cream milk, partially skimmed milk, and skim milk used
alone or in combination with a characteristic bacterial culture that
contains lactic acid producing bacteria lacto basilist bulgaris and Streptococcus thermophilius.
And don't forget the most important part what it's usually
made from cow, water buffalo or sheep milk. I only
(07:05):
eat the finest water buffalo when when yak milk is
not available the water buffalo route, well, you gotta make
do sometimes. Um. And the funny thing about the current
popularity of yogurt is just how old it is. You
(07:26):
know where we treat a lot of these these yogurt
innovations like this is some new kind of food that
we've come up with. But culinary historians trace it back
as far as six thousand b c E. In the
Neolithic era when they figure that Central Asian people wisened
(07:47):
up and began milking their animals first of all, and
then yogurt was probably an accidental discovery because they were like, oh,
left the milk out too long. Oh wait, what this
is delicious? But see, like I feel like, okay, if
I had never been exposed to a yogurt like substance
in the milk that I got from my yack soured,
(08:08):
I don't know if eating it would be my first thing.
But maybe I'm just too like twenty five century jemaphobe. Yeah,
I would imagine that the first person who ever taste
tested yogurt must have really been the daredevil of the
of the troop or the tribe, or the weirdo like
what is Jim doing? Uh say, from that soured milk again?
(08:29):
But then, do you think? I wonder how quickly then
it turned into like cave ladies laughing over yogurt, probably
as soon as we could get our hands on it,
because you know, you really feel it in your ovaries
once you once you make contact with yogurt. I thought
this was a pretty cool fact, though, especially since yogurt
(08:50):
is so feminine gendered. Genghis Khan and his armies are
said to have subsisted on yogurt, which helped spread its
popularity across Europe. Like word word of Genghis Khan's yogurt
habit was actually some hot gossips and people like, oh, well,
if it's good enough for Gegas Genghis, so yogurt went viral.
(09:13):
That's manly. Manly yogurt at the time went viral. And
I mean it's been used in so many different cultures cuisines.
It's featured in Indian, Greek, Lebanese, Turkish, and other Middle
Eastern cuisines. And it's popularity here in the United States
is thanks to its popularity in particular in the Balkans region. Yeah,
(09:35):
and we're we'll get back to the Balkans, because that
was a major curveball for me as I was reading
through the marketing history of yogurt. But don't worry, dear listeners,
we will get back to the Balkans per capita though.
Any folks in Sweden or Saudi Arabia listening, you all
eat the most and you're probably healthier for it, that's right. Yeah,
(09:57):
yogurt is really good for digest in uh things like
ib s or you know, just general gastro intestinal issues.
It also helps immune function and weight control. It replenishes
those natural flora in your digestive track. And I was
actually thinking about this UM when I was so super
(10:18):
sick for two weeks and was on antibiotics, and you know,
antibiotics can really upset your stomach, and I was like, oh,
I'm I'm not I'm not lactics intolerant, I'm lactose sensitive slash.
You don't want to be around me when I eat terry.
But it turns out that I should have just gone
ahead and eaten the yogurt, bitten the yogurt bullet, because
people with lactose issues can eat it. I had no idea.
(10:41):
So I'm learning all sorts of things well. And it's
myriad health benefits or something that we in the Western
world really started figuring out in the sixteenth century when
in fifteen forty two, allegedly Charles the First in France
was cured of a vere diarrhea with yogurt. I think
(11:02):
it was goat smelk yogurt. And even though the gendering
of our yogurt consumption is obviously a construct, it is
really good for biologically female bodies. UM. There are studies
which have suggested that there are sex differences in yogurt's
(11:24):
health benefits since it helps curb vaginal infections and gastro
intestinal issues, which women experience way more often than men.
Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with irritable
bowel syndrome, and we're three times likelier to experience constipation. Huh,
(11:45):
I didn't know these things. I learned that this week
thanks to Mom Never told you for video on whether
women are too stressed to poop? Are we a little
bit okay? So we need to relax meets and oh god,
the commercials are right. Relaxed meets and yogurt. Have a
laugh with your girlfriend. You know, yo play was right
(12:07):
the whole time. It's better than ending the wage gap.
It's even better than reproductive rights and some something else
that I didn't realize. Uh. You know yogurt is so
frequently now considered to be part of like a diet lifestyle.
You eat it to be healthy, maybe you eat it
(12:28):
to lose weight, so you don't eat the key lime pie. Um.
But in a study in the British Journal of Nutritions
suggested that probiotics are actually helpful for women's weight loss
but not men's. So there's some gendering of of weight
loss going in going on, possibly because women's probiotic intake
(12:49):
is correlated to a drop in obesity related gut bacteria. Yeah,
but researchers cautioned that yogurt bacteria is completely different from
our naturally occurring human gut bacteria. So even though Activia
might suggest that it will magically make you thin, it
(13:11):
will not. Yeah, and that's another thing we'll touch on
here in a second, but that's absolutely part of the
marketing campaigns for most of these products, right, and even
if it's indirect marketing, where with Activitia, for instance, the
first thing I think of is Jamie Lee Curtis and
(13:32):
thinking about the digestive issues. But one of our sources
we were reading noted how print ads for it are
just this torso, this very thin, idealized white ladies torso,
like washboard ads type of thing. Yeah, that's just without words,
(13:53):
just visually advertising you know, the thinness potential in in
a little tub a yogurt. But before we get back
into the gendering, we're going to back up a little
bit and talk about how yogurt even arrived in the
United States and from there really achieved the American dream.
(14:14):
And I'm not being facetious at all. It's it's kind
of an incredible success story. So are you telling me
that it like showed up on our shores with a
little suitcase and was like looking around for where to
live and then finally like built a house and got
a family. Yeah. Well, at first it showed up and
(14:34):
the Statue of Liberty was like, oh, I'm a lady,
come on in. You know, there's the whole poem of
like give me your tired, your poor, and your and
your yogurt cover. The torch she's holding used to be
a spoon. Yeah, yeah, so she's like, come on in,
cultured dairy product. So the first bit of the story
(14:55):
starts with some science, because, like you said, Caroline, it's
always been touted in modern history as a healthy food
and that's actually what got it to the United States.
So at the turn of the century in Europe, there
is a Russian Nobel Prize winning bacteriologist, Elie Metschnikov, who
(15:17):
becomes really scientifically obsessed with Bulgarians yogurt habits and the
specific thing. Yes, and he really thinks that they're uh,
their long longevity what could be attributed to yogurt, because
what Matshnikov did was isolate that so called good bacteria
(15:40):
in the yogurt that we still eat today, which is
one of the reasons why he names one of those
bacteria lacto Basilis bulgaricus for Bulgaria. And this really stokes
yogurt popularity in Western Europe as a really healthy food. Yeah.
And I mean it's no surprise that at a scientist saying, hey,
(16:02):
this product, this food helps extend life, and so therefore
people would want to buy it and eat it. I mean,
we've always been looking for the fountain of youth. That's
why I spend too much money. It's before every month.
But I mean Matshnikov himself only lived to seventy one.
It's not like he lived to a hundred. Yeah, but
that was quite a ripe old age for a turn
(16:23):
of the century because the life expectancy back then was
about half of what it is today. Lord alright, well,
I mean okay, then, so maybe Mashnikov was onto something yeah,
or at least a tasty snack exactly. Um. And speaking
of tasty snacks, that's how the very first yogurt company.
(16:45):
The first American yogurt brand came about was because immigrants
brought over tasty snacks from their homeland, which included yogurt. Yeah.
And in nineteen nine, I mean, not a great year
for the stock market, but a fabulous year for cultured
dairy we get Armenian immigrants Rose and Sarkas, Columbosian who
(17:10):
start America's first yogurt brand, Columbo Yogurt and and over Massachusetts.
And and they shortened their last name because people who
were already here in the States were like, what is
your last name? I can't say all those syllables. Um,
But basically, their dairy farm that they had, they were
producing way more milk than they could even drink. So
they're like, oh, I guess we'll just make yogurt with it.
(17:33):
And that that's you know, when life hands your extra milk,
you make yogurt, You make yogurt. And and this was,
you know, again during a great depression, So it's not
like they were trying to strike it rich with their
brilliant Columbo Yogurt marketing campaign. They were trying to survive
and help their neighbors survive too. And they mostly sold
this food to working class Syrian, Lebanese, Greek, and fellow
(17:57):
Armenian immigrants, because I mean those were people who would
have already been familiar with this product that otherwise would
have been much to foreign for people born in the
United States. And even though that Columbo yogurt only came
in plain flavor, it was popular in the nineteen sixties
(18:18):
and became even more popular when they added fruit in
nineteen seventy one. But not to get to ahead of ourselves,
there's kind of a sad ending Colombo yogurt um by
nineteen seventy one when they started adding fruit and people
were like, oh, this is even better than it was before.
By then, Dannon had become such a major competitor that
(18:41):
they ended up selling Columbo yogurt in ninetie, which, through
a series of acquisitions, ended up in the hands of
General Mills, which shuddered the brand in to focus on
yo play. I feel like, you know, play is sort
of the the nemphasis in this whole yogurt narrative that
we've created big big yogurt, Yeah, big yogurt, this big
(19:06):
yogurt scheme. Yeah, Bob Columbo Sian who is what is
he the grandson or the son? I thought he was
the son. Okay, so the son of our original yogurt makers. Uh.
Was quoted as saying it is a big part of
my life. It is all of it. Really. Yeah. He
(19:26):
was super bummed out when General Mills shut the brand
down because he's like, well, that's my family history, all right. Yeah,
and I mean but ten, like that's that's more than
you can say for a lot of brands that started
in the nies. That's yogurt cup half full. Yeah yeah. Um.
(19:50):
But since we're talking about big Yogurt, Gannon and yo Play,
we gotta get into how that even happened, because how
did we go from the is Armenian immigrants making the
first commercial yogurt in the United States and selling it
really to their friends, and then growing from there all
the way to you know, Dannon fruit on the bottom
(20:12):
Over that, we gotta hop back in time to nineteen
nineteen in Spain. Yeah, that's right. We get this guy,
Daniel Carrosso in Spain who opens the world's first industrialized
yogurt operation, whose name I presume was dan on A. Yes,
it looks like dan on A d A N O
(20:33):
N E and it's in Spain that sounds Spanish. Yes,
says the American. I minored in Spanish in college, so
I should be far surer about this pronunciation than I am.
But thankfully in old Carrasso comes over to New York
(20:55):
and americanizes the name to Dannon, so you know, white
girls like us don't have to sit around wondering whether
it's Dennone Dan Dan One, just Dan and but Ino
son of Dan and co owner Jan E. Metzker, has
(21:17):
what he thinks is a brilliant idea because we're in
the thick of World War two and food is being rationed.
Meat is hard to come by, and what has a
ton of protein in it that isn't meat, answered Tofu,
also yogurt. So his idea is to pitch yogurt as
(21:38):
a meat substitute. But of course Americans were like, what, no,
I don't think so, alright, but this was a bit
too radical of an idea for Americans at the time. Sure,
I mean, you can't chew yogurt. I get it. You
want something satisfying, I mean, just give somebody a raw
(21:59):
hide to chew on. If if you've got to have
a meat substitute, surely rawhide is available. Okay, I am
not living with you during wartime rationing should have ever
happened again. Okay, but in a terrific pivot, do you
use some corporate speak? Metzker is like, all right, Americans
(22:21):
don't want to substitute yogurt for meat. Okay. Five years
later he's like, well, one thing that Americans don't really
the American palette doesn't appreciate about yogurt is how sour
it is a strong taste. But they really love sweets.
So he invented fruit on the bottom yogurt. All right, Um,
(22:42):
I was never as a child, I I could not
eat the fruit on the bottom yogurt. I didn't I
didn't like chunks in my yogurt. I I wanted it
to be smoothed. So if I was going to eat
fruity yogurt, much like when I was a grown per
sun out of college, my first job, eating so much
yogurt all the time, I just wanted it to be
(23:05):
the unnaturally already sweet fruity yogurt. Technically that's Swiss style yogurt.
It's the smoother, sweeter kind of yogurt. Whereas the original
fruit on the bottom. They referred to as Sunday Style.
I thought was kind of cute because they were trying
to pitch it still even back then as a dessert
(23:25):
ish kind of treat. Listen, if you promise Caroline Irvin
a Sunday style dessert, their better be chocolate sauce. There
could be period. I, as a child, guarantee you. I
ate yogurt with chocolate sauce on it, and I guarantee
you it did not taste very good. Were you just
(23:47):
in the kitchen like mixing random things together? When you're
home schooled, you know you have you have some extra
time on your hands for culinary experience experiments. Um, but
we honestly cannot emphasize enough how much this fruit on
the bottom innovation just revolutionized the yogurt industry. This is
really what allowed it to take off because you still
(24:13):
have the healthy focus that they could market to mothers
who they knew were doing the grocery store shopping. So
he even back then, we start to see it being
marketed at women, but at women at this point for
buying for their whole family rather than just themselves and
other fellow bridesmaids. I suppose. Um, but now with the
(24:36):
sweetness too, they could get kids involved, and by nineteen
sixty three they had figured out how to make fro
yo happen, and frow yo for a while was the
hottest school treat on the block. Yeah. It was like
the green juice of the early sixties, right, I mean,
there's froyo places popping up on every corner. And there
(24:56):
were there were reports in the New York Times about
how Dannon or Done opened up a fro yo shop
UM in like a prominent street in New York. I
forget which one it is, um in Manhattan, and there
was a line out the door, and it was essentially
(25:16):
just like shutting down all of the surrounding ice cream
parlors because Americans were just gaga or froyo. Yeah, there
was some article that you sent me that even Hoggin
DAWs felt compelled to get in on the fro yo
game because they were they were seeing, you know, people
across the street lining up outside of Donne. Yeah, and
(25:37):
we have to attribute a lot of this deeper research
from of the sixties, seventies, and eighties yogurt trends to
New York Magazine, which y'all they have been on the
yogurt beat for decades. You're not She's not kidding. I yeah,
I was just blown away by the depth of their
(25:58):
yogurt coverage. Not even joking, um, because once we get
into the seventies, there's really a lot to talk about,
because Americans have yogurt fever, especially those who are really
into the whole health food and fitness crazes going on.
Yogurt becomes a staple of that. And it's probably when
my mom bought her yogurt maker. Well sure, I mean,
(26:20):
but then you see that interesting aspect of how it's tied.
It becomes even more tied in thanks to like, oh
it's a health food. Uh, and it's gendered for women.
And it's also part of like a fashionably thin lifestyle
because in nineteen two, Vogue recommends it as a diet food.
So that like Vogue, you know, being the bible of
(26:42):
fashion lovers, is telling you, now, oh, well, you know,
here's all of these you know, fashions and body types
to aspire to. Oh and you know, yogurt is your
aspirational snack food. Well then five years later, in seven,
yogurt went mainstream out of you know, the more niche
health food stores and the pages of Vogue onto our
(27:06):
televisions with Danen's Yes, Dana Yogurt, Dannon's famous Georgians over
one hundred AD campaign, which when I was reading about it,
I scratched my head wondering what it was. But then
once I saw it, I remembered seeing these commercials on
TV Land way back in the day because they play
vintage commercials. So the whole Georgians over one hundred bit
(27:30):
is what takes us back to the Balkans and the Caucuses,
because Dannon finds this group of people, these Georgians living
in the Caucuses, who eat a ton of yogurt. They're
always eating yogurt, and they have an extremely high life expectancy,
like a lot of them are living in a triple digits,
so kind of like a repeat of Matshnikov. Absolutely it's
(27:53):
Meshnikov all over again, only this time we have TV
and uh it's just scenes of these very very very
old villagers like breaking yeah in Georgia, like a very
unsexy film footage with a voiceover of this this Dannon
(28:13):
guy going these Georgians need a lot of yogurt, and
they also live a long time. We're not saying it's
because of the yogurt, but we're not not saying it's
not because of the yogurt. And then you have this
guy at the end eating yogurt and they're like, and
then this fellow likes yogurt so much he ain't duke ups.
(28:38):
And people loved it. People loved it. I mean like
even today, if you take advertising courses, like this is
one of the core campaigns that's still considered one of
the best of the twentieth century. Yeah, well, I wonder
if that gets to like Americans perspective on other cultures
in terms of like, oh, there's there's much simpler people. Uh.
(29:01):
They they must be more in touch with history and
their bodies and healthy things that are all natural. So
I trust them and their yogurt consumption, Oh totally. And
you could argue that there's a similar kind of thing
in the marketing of Greek yogurt today. Um, but it
was such a success. In surprise surprisal. New York Magazine
(29:27):
reports on the yogurt trend, leading with quote, yogurt has
gone legitimate. When I read that, Caroline, I just I
wanted to just stand up and give a snovation to
whoever wrote that, Well, thank god, because we've been eating
nothing but illegitimate yogurt this whole time. True, it's true. Um.
(29:50):
But one other line that jumped out to me in
that very in depth ninety report in New York mag
was that they also noted that it quote doesn't engender
the guilt associated with consuming most snack foods. So we're
already seeing this positioning of yogurt as a guiltless kind
of snack where it's super healthy but it'll still fill
(30:14):
you up and you get a little sweetness with that
brute yeah, which leads us perfectly into the diet fads
of the nineteen eighties. You've got Jane Fonda, you've got
leotards and fitness videos and arobicizing and such, and you've
got your cupsy yogurt. Oh yeah. Sales have not soured.
(30:35):
In two The New York Times declared yogurt is chic.
That's a quote, y'all. Yogurt is chic. Yeah. They reported
that yogurt was seeing sales rates growing by nineteen percent
a year, and they wrote that an indication of yogurt's
images that it is frequently mentioned as an ideal diet food,
(30:57):
so already not only is it being associated with diet,
but people are reporting on the fact already that it
is strongly associated with diets. And that's exactly ten years
after Vogue was like, oh hey, ladies, say fan uh
what I really love? Though, the most in this New
York Times piece was it mentioning that the industry was
(31:19):
growing so much that Kellogg's at the time was test
marketing a premium yogurt that they were calling Whitney. Who's
Who's Whitney. I'm hoping that they were like, maybe Whitney Houston.
I'll rep this Whitney. But I guess isn't that also
like an old school New York surname, the Whitney's. Yes,
(31:43):
there's there's a Whitney museum. Oh, there's a Whitney museum.
Eat Whitney's at Whitney's with Whitney triple threat. And you know, honestly,
when I picture an eighties Whitney, I picture a fluffy
side ponytail with the scrunchy and like a sweater that's
maybe you know, multi colored with patches on it, white
(32:06):
white sneakers. You know, I have a sweater like that
at home, and I'm wearing white sneakers right now, Caroline, Well,
too close to home. Maybe I just start my own
yogurt brand, That's all I'm saying. Um, But I just
love how this front and center is like, oh, yeah,
we're definitely getting into some gendering, because I doubt that
(32:27):
they were really gunning for men to be eating Whitney yogurt.
Well yeah, and it turns out, and we'll talk about
this when we come right back from a quick break,
but it turns out that, yeah, they totally weren't marketing
to men at all. So we'll talk more about that
in just a second. So once we get into the
(33:01):
early nineties, yogurt, no surprise, it's still going strong, except
for Whitney. I think Kellogg's had retired Whitney by that point.
But this is when yogurt goes all in for the ovaries.
And really it is a distinct shift in marketing tactics
(33:22):
led by Dannon Um because they figured out that by
that point of their consumers we're women. Well yeah, because
women have heard, whether directly or indirectly, that yogurt is chic,
it's an it's the ultimate diet food, it's guilt free, uh,
it's healthy. So like, yeah, I mean, of course, I
(33:47):
mean women are, whether they're consciously or subconsciously picking up
what you're putting down, they're certainly picking it up. And
this has been happening for twenty years too, so I
mean those messages are pretty firmly ingrained by this way.
And of course we have yet another amazing New York
Magazine friend piece saying that quote yogurt had been a
(34:09):
health nut, fringe fitness food, but now it's user friendly,
easy to eat, and very nineties. I love the user
friendly things, I know. I just imagine, you know, those
um infomercial things where like the woman opens the cabinet
and all of the tup ofware falls on her, or
like she can't open the milk and so the milk
(34:30):
goes everywhere. I just imagine that happening with like yogurt.
But don't worry, ladies. Now around the nineties, it's super
user friendly. It has a really good interface to really
simple interface. Yes, And in that saying article, they talked
to the associate creative director for Gray Advertising, and this
was the outside advertising agency that handled a lot of
(34:51):
dan and stuff back in the day. And this guy
not only is it user friendly now, but this guy
says that yogurt can even help older people feel like
they're reclaiming lives that have spun out of control. WHOA, yeah,
so if you feel and that's I think the subtext
(35:11):
there is specifically is about weight. Um, but like, oh,
maybe your life isn't going the way you thought it would.
Maybe you've been eating too much bad stuff and your
kids are acting up and you're feeling out of control. Well,
here's a yogurt that's so weird. That logic is so strange. Yeah,
(35:32):
I mean, I can only imagine that the subtext there
must be getting control over your physique, your sloppy eating habits. Yeah, well,
thank goodness, it's so user friendly people can finally eat
it without getting it everywhere apparently. Well. They also talked
to this marketing veep with Dannon, who said that what
(35:55):
they were trying to do for their their future direction
was establishing what they called the yogurt habit, and he
compared it to how orange juice is the breakfast juice. Like,
we we have our orange juice habit. In the morning,
you get your banana, your coffee, and your o J.
And he was like Okay, the next thing we want
(36:15):
to do is make the yogurt habit happen. And that's
why it started being positioned as a dessert replacement. I
also picked up on that o j statement, and I
wrote the quote down because I was so tickled by it.
May I um, he said, we're not at the stage,
(36:36):
and I like to imagine that he sounded really concerned.
I'm sure he did. We're not at the stage unlike
orange juice, where we can say that we're not just
for breakfast anymore. So all these people just willy nilly
drinking orange juice now at any time of the day. Yes,
it's a breakfast beverage, but you can enjoy an orange
(36:59):
juice six a clock at night if you like, with dinner.
And we're just not there yet. So he wanted to
make yogurt and any time it was too niche than
as a breakfast food. But but he he I don't think,
you know. I think he just saw in the future
what was to come for yogurt, that it too could
(37:19):
be enjoyed as an all day snack, yes indeed, or
a dessert replacement. Well, and the messaging that hey, yogurt
can be eaten at any time of day was going
to be pitched from that point directly to women, because
they're like, you know what of our consumers or women,
We're not going to waste our time trying to convert
(37:40):
non yogurt eaters and said, we're just gonna get yogurt
eaters to eat even more yogurt and eat it whenever
they want, so this thing can be breakfast, it can
be snacks, it can be dessert. And this is when
you really start seeing not only a proliferation of all
of these more niche yogurt brands that are clearly targeted
(38:03):
at women who are watching their waistlines, but also the
taglines that go with it, such as light and lively yogurt.
Who said that you can eat smart and look it.
But I think by looking smart they don't mean intellectually smart.
They mean smart as than you've been making smart eating choices,
which is why you're so thin, you know. And then
(38:25):
of course you have weight watchers. They had to get
in the game too. They described their yogurt as total indulgence,
zero guilt. I don't feel like I'm indulging when I
eat yogurt, but oh yeah, whatever makes me feel less guilty.
I guess um yo plays is also hilarious. Their their
(38:45):
tagline was do it for you, Do it for you,
honey lady, you deserve it and well and what a
shift from the original yogurt marketing, which was, hey, women,
buy yogurt for your family. Now we're in the nineties
and like sisters doing it for themselves. Henny, eat your yogurt.
(39:09):
It doesn't matter if you're not married. We're so like
post feminism, choose your choice, choose your yogoose your yogurt,
because we are getting into that, you know, feminism backlashy period.
And also just the whole diet craze of the nineties,
which was very focused on how fat was bad. Oh
(39:30):
my god, do I remember? Jeez? So my father had
a heart attack in so that was like in the
throes of all of this, like what I call the
snack Wells era of my household. So yeah, I am
hyper familiar with how like we have demonized fat in
our culture and ignored sugar. So was yogurt prominent in
(39:53):
in your house too during I wouldn't be surprised. I
just don't really remember, because the snack Wells boxes were overwhelming.
I could have built an entire separate house out of
snack wells boxes, you know, speaking of our our home,
our home life, and yogurt. Reading up on this did
make me think of how throughout my life my mom
(40:16):
was always touting the benefits of yogurt. I mean, it
was a healthy food. Of course, she made her own
so it made it even healthier whatever. But she would
always talk to you, my sisters, and me about how
it was especially important for women to eat yogurt, partly
for weight control reasons, but also partly for vaginal health. Yeah,
(40:37):
did she ever say anything like that or was it
more of like a wink wink, nudge nudge thing. I
don't think she ever used the phrase vaginal health, but
I mean it was clear enough that I knew what
she was talking about. Yeah, yeah, you know. Um and
all of those taglines though, and the pivot straight for
our ovaries really worked. Yogurt sales but to alone jumped
(41:03):
one hundred, But yogurt was not done growing. You know.
We get through the nineties and okay, well, I think
that the Danan Veep's dream had come true. People were
eating yogurt whenever they wanted to so what's the next
phase probiotics. I had no idea before this episode of
(41:28):
what a blockbuster Activityo was. Yeah, it was a one
billion dollar global brand by two thousand and six, and
it it didn't even launch that much earlier than that. Yeah. Yeah,
that was a figure that I found in a Slate
article and I read it two or three times because
it seemed too high. But that was what they reported. No,
(41:50):
I mean, this is this is an admittedly weird thing
that's about to come out of my mouth. But Activitia
was really a perfect storm of all of our lady concerns, right, like, Okay,
so it's marketed by Jamie Lee Curtis, whom, of course
we can trust. She's Jamie Lee Curtis, Jamiely Curtis, she
(42:12):
has that sensible cut, she's salt and pepper. Yeah, she's
married to Christopher Guest, so you know she's funny. I
didn't know. You didn't know. Yes, but here's this food
product that we already associate with health and diets and
thinness and reasonable choices and being guilt free, and then
(42:34):
it's supposed to make us even thinner and more regular.
And I was activity ashamed again going back to my
first job. I had been eating a lot of like
the sugary fruity yogurt or whatever already and ACTIVITYO. I
come across activity and I'm like, oh, well that you
(42:56):
know this seems I hadn't yet discovered my dairy sensitivity.
I'll just say that. So I was like, I don't
know what my body's doing, but activity a promise, and
Jamie Lee Curtis says I'll feel better. Um. So I
got a lot of Activia, put it in the refrigerator
at work, and a colleague of mine made fun of
me so much like every day for eating Activia and
(43:19):
talking about like poop and Jamie Lee Curtis and stuff.
And I was like, God, I don't think I can
bring activity off. Are It's unnecessary? That is unnecessary. Also,
leave your poop jokes at home. I don't need them
in the workplace unless you're recording a podcast. Of course. Well,
in the new layer to that Activia and the whole
(43:40):
probiotics craze brings in is this science ish uh pitch
where they're claiming that probiotics, which sound you know, very
science e that these are the quote beneficial bacteria, but
(44:00):
they're they're never really clear on what exactly it does.
They're just saying that um there, that they contain all
of these live organisms that are gonna help your digestion
and also help with weight control. But the American Society
of Microbiologists has weighed in saying, quote, at present, the
(44:23):
quality of probiotics available to consumers in food products around
the world is unreliable. Well, and um Activitiya pulled this
really brilliant marketing move. Uh. There there was this um
bacteria in the yogurt already, and it was called Biffido
(44:43):
Bacterium animalist. That's its name in the world of science,
that's what it's called. And Activita renamed it and trademarked
it as Biffitist regularist. So like wink wink, nudge, nudge,
You're gonna poop better and therefore be thinner. Oh my gosh.
(45:05):
So that so they weren't actually offering anything new, they
were just renaming bacteria to sound better. Yeah, And and
clearly what it does is it forms and this is
according to the advertisements, Kristen, it forms into a yellow
arrow that points the poop out of you. Oh that's good.
(45:26):
It's an arrow down and not up. We're out to
the side. We don't know where it's going. It sounds
like it's also user friendly. Well, of course, we also
have to mention the most recent yogurt trend, right on
the heels of the probiotics craze, which started in eleven
when America was all about some Greek yogurt. Yeah, and
(45:49):
it really seems like at this point it is part
of sort of a trend away from those more sugary,
hot pink yogurts. People want to get more natural and
Greek yogurt with names like fi a to to consumers
just sounds like, oh, that's clearly right off the farm.
It must be. It looks like page but it's fine.
(46:13):
You know it's good then. Uh. The Wall Street Journal, though,
described its popularity is quote nothing short of astronomical. And yeah,
they attributed it to partly the slow food movement and
us being like, maybe we don't need all of this
added stuff in our food, but also the whole Mediterranean
(46:35):
diet obsession that my parents were also really into, where
it was like, all we need are just nuts and
olive oil and yogurt and a fish and a fish
a lean protein, and we'll be fine, not that any
of those things are are unhealthy. I hate a lot
of all of those actually. Um. But again, like with
(46:57):
the case of probiotics, there's all this like murky, not
necessarily scientifically sound claims about how all of these yogurts
are really the key to you know, having the body
you want. Well, I mean, apparently they are the key
(47:19):
to having the body you want if you're a man.
So you know, obviously there is ah And I say
obviously because this is just how this happens. It happens
with body wash, it happens with shampoo, It even happens
with the very shower poof you put the body wash on.
But eventually, in the marketing world, men are gonna need
(47:42):
their own thing. There's always a turning point when somebody's like,
what about the men's Well yeah, well, I mean it's
the same way that Gillette back in the day got
hopped on the women's razors and shaving trend because they
were like, we need to grow our market. So I mean,
if you've tapped out all the women, when pretty much
(48:03):
everyone eating your product as women, of course you're going
to pivot too. Dudes, Well, what's so funny though, is
what that entails, because I mean, I look at the
yogurt in the yogurt asal and I don't necessarily think
of it as like hyper gendered to look at it.
It's not like it's all in pink glitter packages, although
again I would love that um My Bison more yogurt,
(48:26):
just saying, if you're trying to appeal to me, make
the container glittery anyway to appeal to men. You've got
these companies that are starting to put their yogurt in
like black packaging, again, the same thing you see with
body wash and men shampoo. It's like it's got to
be in like a black or a dark gray container.
And in addition to the color scheme, you have to
(48:48):
put the protein front and center that it's all about
the protein. Um. So, in two thousand thirteen, as many
of our listeners I'm sure have kind of been waiting for,
in this episode, Brogert happened. Powerful Yogurt, which is a
Miami yogurt company. A started marketing yogurt directly to men.
(49:12):
Um and Powerful was the name of it. It was
just nicknamed Brogert because what a fun portmanteau. Um around
the same time. You also have pro yo and yo
play masculinizing a Greek one hundred campaign with its men
of yogurt starring Beefcake Dominic Purcell, who I did have
(49:33):
to google, had to google too, And yeah, I mean
he's just he's he's a big dude. He's like a
Vin Diesel type. Yeah, and yogurt and it's supposed to
be it's supposed to be funny, like, look at this
big beefy man who's doing something that was that has
been considered so girly, but you can do it to men.
(49:53):
Look at how muslie he is. Yeah. I I don't
know of many guys who have wormed at the thought
of eating yogurt that I know of. Maybe I just
haven't even yogurt around a lot of guys. Um, But
I'm not sure how many would would feel like openly
eating just regular yo play would really be threatening their masculinity. UM.
(50:14):
Darren Cipher, though, who was an mp D Group analyst,
told NBC News that men have been underrepresented in yogurt consumption,
so quote, these companies are trying to man up yogurt
and it didn't really work because it was so overtly gendered.
(50:36):
And so obviously a brogurt hail Mary that people you know,
weren't that into it. Stop trying to make fetch happen
kinda yeah, And I mean that's also assuming that women
don't want super protein benefits either, right, Whereas I specifically
(50:58):
eat Greek yogurt for the cotein, you know, again, not
to prack my yogurt habit um. And uh, I made
a stuff I've never told you video encapsulating this hour
long conversation into two and a half minutes. And uh.
Someone on Twitter helpfully reminded me of one of my
(51:18):
favorite television shows, Brooklyn nine nine and how Terry Crews
is on it. And he is just this huge, muscle
bound man and he's always eating yogurt. It's one of
his favorite foods. And it's never a joke in the
show of the way of like, oh, Terry, you're so
girly for eating yogurt. He's just like a big man
(51:40):
carrying around a little yogurt container in the sand. Yeah,
so's less about the yogurt itself, right, and just to
have like he is the most like overtly dudely dude
on the show. And he also talks about himself and
the third person, which is really charming. UM, and you
know here he is that kind of also shows his
(52:01):
more sensitive side because he's a very caring husband and
father and nothing is going to threaten Terry's masculinity and
certainly not some yogurt because that just makes him stronger
for his muscles and his muscles. Thank him, you know
what else, Thanks us for eating yogurt. Do tell our vaginas.
(52:23):
It's true. It's true, it's true. Nancy was right. Yeah. UM.
One thing we haven't mentioned is how there are a
lot of people this is going back to a second
wave feminism. I mean, I'm sure people were doing it
before then, but second waivers are really all about this
using yogurt for d I y ust infection treatments and UM.
(52:46):
I was watching a Lacey Green YouTube video not too
long ago where she talks about UM using yogurt on
EUSt infections as well. I have never personally tried the
yogurt method, but I know people who have and who
it's worked for. Obviously, it doesn't work as quickly as
(53:07):
and over the counter treatment, UM, but for people who
aren't interested in whatever kind of chemicals might be in
monastat there's yogurt, and I'm assuming you should probably go
with just like plain. Yeah, I don't think you need
the fruit on the bottom for this one, or like
the kinds with the sprinkles. Yeah, yeah, no sprinkles needed.
(53:28):
But you've got to make sure that it has live
active cultures. That is stuff my mom did tell me.
She was always about the live active cultures, especially what
if we ever went on antibiotics as well. Um. But
speaking of moms too, I was curious when we were
searching for this um weather, not really weather, but how
many and how often women made breast milk yogurt. Oh,
(53:52):
it's out there. It's so out there. There are recipes,
videos and any info you want about breast yogurt. Well,
I mean, you know, mix it up for your baby,
I guess yeah, some some women do. UM. By far,
the most extreme yogurt was made by a University of
(54:13):
Wisconsin PhD student named Cecilia Westbrook who as an experiment.
She was a scientist, and she was like, I wonder
if I could make my own yogurt using my own
lacto basilist bacteria naturally produced by my vagina. And you
(54:36):
know what, it worked, yeah, and um, any potential weirdness
or squeamishness aside. She had a really great point that
she said, I was actually surprised to know that we
really don't know a lot about vaginal flora. There's really
been only one or two big studies, and interestingly, most
of the information that we do know about it is
(54:57):
from white women, and so we need more studies. We
need more information to get in touch with our own
bodies and our own health, but also to like maybe
potentially help women get better medical treatment in general. Um.
And so she made a couple a couple of bowls
of it, and the FDA was like, nope, yeah, yeah,
(55:18):
don't worry, vaginal yogurt will not be coming to any
health food store near you anytime soon because the FDA
doesn't consider vaginal secretions to be food and because of
the risk of disease transmission. Yeah. Um, but she did
in case you were wondering like I was, she didn't
(55:40):
taste it twice and she said it tasted sour like
Indian yogurt. So, I mean, what a great icebreaker though
she's got. Because you know, when you're in like a
group situation, and sometimes they'll have you like go around
and say your name and like an unexpected fact about you.
You know she can be like him. My named Cecilia. Surprise, surprise,
(56:02):
I made yogurt out of my own vaginal secretions. There
you know, there you go. I I never come up
with anything I was like and I'm left handed. I
don't know. Yeah, I got nothing. My mind is a
complete blank. I've got nothing on Cecelia. No, there is
nowhere else to go, I think in this conversation except
(56:24):
to just leave mic drop style listeners with with Cecilia
Westbrooks um science experiment that did go viral m thankfully,
uh internet wise, not bacteria wise. And listeners, Oh, we
hope you enjoyed this yogurt info as much as we
(56:47):
obviously did. And we want to know your yogurt stories
and listen. By no means, was this episode about yogurt shaming.
We're poking about of the yogurt marketing, which is ridiculous. Um,
but I love yogurt. I'll say it. I love yog
I love yogurt. I eat it almost every day. UM,
So we want to know from you. Have you ever
(57:08):
been activity ashamed? Guys? Have you ever been yogurt shamed
and what are your thoughts on yogurt? Moms Stuff at
how stuff works dot com is our email address. You
can also tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages
on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages this
year with you when we come right back from a
quick break. Well, Kristen and I have a couple of
(57:33):
letters in response to our period tracking app episode from
women who have realized that there are benefits beyond just
being able to track your period. This one's from Brittany.
She says in response to the period Tracker podcast. I
first downloaded I period back in because my husband and
I were ready to start trying for baby number one.
(57:55):
I really enjoyed not having to write my period flow
in the same planner that I took to work meetings,
for fear someone would glance and see all my personal
notes when I was having my men, see when we
had intercourse, how I felt, et cetera. We were fortunate
to get pregnant after three months of trying, but then
we lost the pregnancy at the end of the first trimester.
Shout out to your miscarriage episodes. So relieved to hear
(58:18):
others talk about a topic that too so many is taboo.
I began reusing the period app once we decided it
was time to start trying again. It was devastating to
look at the app and see that I should have
had my period weeks ago, but wasn't pregnant. After eight
months of tracking a not so regular period, which, by
the way, I had always been regular, I decided to
go see my O b G. I n The tracker
(58:39):
helped since I was able to print a calendar for
each month and write all of my notes off of
the app to give the doctor. There, she was able
to see that my period really wasn't consistent and that maybe,
after a year of trying, we should start looking into
fertility testing. Long story short, after a year of trying,
the doctor determined that I had developed an ad anoma
on my pituitary gland, causing my body to make a
(59:00):
pregnancy hormone that it shouldn't have been making, which in result,
made my body think it was already pregnant and wouldn't
allow me to ovulate. No ovulation, no babies. With taking
charge of my own health tracking, I was able to
get answers that I desperately needed. I just started medication
to help with my hyper pro lactinemia condition and with
(59:22):
using my tracker. Last month, for the first time in
over a year, I had a normal cycle. I had
never been that happy to have a period. Weird, right
to me, it means I'm one step closer to being
able to conceive again. She's Brittany, that's amazing, and I'm
sorry for your loss, but it's incredible what really being
(59:42):
in touch with your health and your body processes like
that can do. So I'm really happy for you. And
Miriam also has a story or two to share about that,
so she writes, first of all, I have to share
that my second waiver Mom was definitely a charter and
when and little seven year old me asked her what
her menstrual cup was, she went on into full descriptions
(01:00:07):
of what our whole cycle is like, egg, white, mucus
descriptions and all, and that our period is only one
part of this incredible cycle our body does every month
or so. She successfully used the fertility awareness method to
conceive each of my sisters when she wanted and avoided
any unwanted pregnancies for decades by charting. Fast forward twenty
(01:00:28):
years and my husband and I decided we wanted to
have a baby. I decided to take out my manuver
ring and started charting using Fertility Friend, a very statistics
driven app and website before apps existed. That's cut and dry,
with no cute ce crap. Nine months later, no pregnancy
and lots of data. I went to the obie who
browsed quickly through my app and said I probably have
(01:00:50):
polycystic ovarian syndrome. They ran tests, so they normally wouldn't
have run on a thin, twenty seven year old woman
trying to conceive for less than a year had I
not had these charts handy alas, I had quote unquote
thin picos and was given let's resolve to opulate and
became pregnant that month. These apps don't replace our docs,
(01:01:12):
but they help our docs. Thanks ladies, been listening since
the beginning and enjoy every episode. Well, thanks so much
for sharing, Miriam, and I am really happy to hear
that there are these uses for these period and fertility
tracking apps beyond tracking our menstruation. Just remember read privacy
(01:01:35):
claims before you download them. So with that, if you
have stories to share with us, mom stuff at how
stuff Works dot com is where you can send them
and for links to all of our social media as
well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts with
our sources so you can learn even more if it's possible.
About yogurt head on over to stuff Mom Never Told
(01:01:56):
You dot com. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com
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