Organic Dead-Ani-Gurt... BLECHHH!

I've once again decided against eating any meat products and I now have a response to the question as to "why?" that my students and family can more fully understand. Last week in the mail my wife received a coupon on the mail from our local "family-market-cum-megalo-mart" announcing both their new "organic" yogurt and the fact that, as favored customers, we could have six free cups of the stuff. (Yes, I mean "stuff.")

While shopping two evenings ago, Anne selected six flavors of the organic yogurt and brought them home, and as I often do, I brought one with me to work yesterday morning to eat just before my first class of the day. I always enjoy eating well in front of my students as for many of them it is the only opportunity they have to inquire about the exotic things I eat: fresh vegetables, fruits with skin, yogurts, beans, etceteras. I shared proudly that these organic yogurts had recently found their way to our house and that they (the yogurts) were great tasting (at least the raspberry one I was eating was).

Gosh, was I misinformed. When my wife educated later that evening, I'm not so sure I'm glad she did...

It pays to read the nutrition labels, as the devil is in the details. Apparently the lovely tasting organic yogurt was in fact dead-animal-gurt, which is to say among the ingredients included in the "yogurt" were BEEF, TILAPIA, ANCHOVIES AND SARDINES. I may be completely overreacting but the organic raspberry yogurt included as part of its ingredients BEEF, TILAPIA, and ANCHOVIES AND SARDINES.

When she shared this information with me, all I could envision was a big blender within which was dropped the remains from previously processed animals, which would then be processed into yogurt for sale. I could not eat dinner that evening until I was sure that whatever we did eat was clean of animal product and NOT slimy or gelatinous in texture.

In retrospect, the fine people at my local mega-lo-mart may just be followng the totally normal recipe and procedures for processing organic yogurt, but this tiny piece of info on the nutrition label has pretty much assured that I'll never knowingly eat yogurt again... unless I know it to be real yogurt (whatever that is)!

Breathe in, breathe out… YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!