Libertiste

Pouty? Really?

I’ve never tried Pinkberry, the magic frozen yogurt that has all the trendsters buzzing in New York and L.A., but I still have to smirk when a company that touts its absurdly expensive product as an “all natural” health food — all the while refusing for years to reveal its ingredients — gets taken down a peg. Ever since I read last year that the yogurt is actually a concoction involving some mysterious white powder, I knew something was up. Turns out it’s full of the usual:

The ingredients list for Original Pinkberry has 23 items. Skim milk and nonfat yogurt are listed first, then three kinds of sugar: sucrose, fructose and dextrose. Fructose and maltodextrin, another ingredient, are both laboratory-produced ingredients extracted from corn syrup. The list includes at least five additives defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as emulsifiers (propylene glycol esters, lactoglycerides, sodium acid pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides); four acidifiers (magnesium oxide, calcium fumarate, citric acid, sodium citrate); tocopherol, a natural preservative; and two ingredients — starch and maltodextrin — that were characterized as fillers … Some of them can be characterized as natural, while others are clearly not.

Yep, the yogurt chain that’s “targeting neighborhoods where people care about their health and body” is serving up the same stuff you can find down the aisle of any 7-11. You’d get pretty much the same deal with one of those Skinny Cow ice-cream sandwiches — except you could get 12 of them for the cost of one large Pinkberry yogurt (7.45, according to that L.A. Times article … and that was two years ago!). Better yet, make your own, with three ingredients — and if I can just get my hands on an ice-cream maker, I think that’s what I’ll do.