Archive for April, 2008

What’s the deal about all this craziness about Pinkberry?  Granted, I’m a little biased since I love tangy Korean frozen yogurt (the verdict is still out on Yoforia).  But people are acting like Pinkberry fro-yo should be banished from the food world for its use of ingredients that the dumb American public – yes, the same dumb American public who gets bamboozled by Pizza Hut’s Tuscani pasta – can’t pronounce.  It even struck the attention of the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/dining/23yogurt.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin

“There is, it turns out, a great deal more than yogurt in those costly white cups.

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 by Dr. Gary A. Reineccius, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and an expert in food additives.”

It’s not like they’re putting toxic waste in it.  Since when did people freak out about eating corn syrup and emulsifiers and *gasp* “fillers”?  Steer clear from packaged foods then, my friends, because you’re going to be in for a huge shock.  Yes, I know the argument is about it being “all-natural”, but the fact of the matter is that all that stuff that is in there is synthesized and extracted from naturally occurring things.  No one used black magic to create “emulsifiers”.

News flash: mustard is an emulsifier.  Better steer clear from that Grey Poupon.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that it has to be made off-site to qualify as actual approved “frozen yogurt” under California law.

With all that said, Pinkberry and Red Mango, whoever opens first here in Atlanta (and I mean Atlanta ITP – I’m looking at you, Juicy Green) gets the official georgechang.net endorsement.  Believe me, it’s a higher honor than that AmEx Plum commercial.

Has anyone else seen that new Pizza Hut commercial where they bring all these people into this new “restaurant” called Tuscani? They bring all these urbanites in this restaurant space, serve them pasta in large-lipped shallow bowls (it’s the sign of a fancy restaurant), then after they’re all done raving about how great the pasta is, they reveal that the pasta is actually from Pizza Hut.

I hate that commercial.

This means one of two things:

a) Pizza Hut’s pasta is actually really, really good.
b) A lot of people pretend they know about food but can be so easily deceived – and yet have no qualms in giving their meaningless opinion.

Call me crazy, but I’m going to go with the latter. Bunch of kids.