Keep the yogurt away, and we shall be fine

Sweet and innocent child being forced to consume yogurt

Has it struck you that there is an inordinate amount of television advertising for yogurt/yoghurt (your spelling of the substance will depend on your provenance)?

I do. I’d go so far as to call it wretched excess. I mean, it’s only yogurt, it’s not as if it were something important like coffee, beer, or Swiffer dusters.

I don’t much like yogurt, but normally, about three times every half hour of broadcasting I am bound to hear the expression ‘probiotic’ and to see a number of women reaching virtual orgasmic heights over the virtues of one brand over another. Rarely men in the dialogue, you may have noticed.

A particularly disgusting advert has a woman in the yogurt section of the supermarket – arguably the most boring section of any market after catfood – clandestinely guzzling down (with revolting gurgling noises) a mini-container of her favorite milk-bacteria concoction in the manner of a crackhead who cannot wait to stoke up after he has scored.

Now, don’t get me wrong about yogurt and indict me for not savoring a particular confection that is also ‘good for me.’ Just because something is good for me doesn’t mean I have to favor it.

Popular mythology holds that yogurt – a perfect substance for our fear-of-death obsessed society – has huge life-giving and longevity encouraging properties. We are all familiar with the tales of venerable Azherbaijanis or some other trans-Caucasus sorts who exist on diets consisting exclusively of yogurt and who live to remarkable ages, like 523 or something.

In fact, some proponents maintain that a diet high enough in yogurt – a gallon or so a day – will override all your other health-destroying habits so that you can know go back to smoking 3 or 4 packs a day and maybe take up heroin if you’ve always been curious.

Of course much of what I just wrote is balderdash, but I do known that yogurt fanatics swear to its amazing properties and I suspect that much like anything that tastes evil being remarkably good for one, the claims for yogurt hold water – or putrefying milk at least. Funny how things that taste wonderful like crème caramel or strawberry shortcake are merely coronaries in a dish.

So, yogurt is good for you. This leaves me with a couple of questions. In the first place, if it is so excellent, why is it necessary to advertise the crud so much? I mean, shouldn’t everybody just know that? Secondly, if it is so good, why is there any necessity to have more than one brand? Isn’t yogurt just yogurt? I mean, nobody pretends one brand of 2 percent milk is better than another, so why with yogurt?

I said two questions, but actually I have a third. That is, if yogurt is so goddamn wonderful, why is it necessary to disguise it with all sorts of fruit flavours – you know, to ‘candify’ it? This leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that a lot more people than me think it is sour and evil to the palate and nobody would touch the stuff unless they disguise it. You know, it’s sort of like fancy-ass cocktails designed to disguise the taste of plain old booze.

Anyway, I am unrepentant in my aversion to the stuff. I don’t care what you tell me about its virtues, I will never like it and refuse to consume it. I’ve tried, but it was a failed experiment. I eat all my fruit and veggies, and keep red meat to a minimum. I hardly use any salt, and butter is just a dab for me, and transfats are taboo in our house. I’ve paid the price. So keep damn yogurt away from me.

And cut down on the TV advertising, can’t ya? Or, at least create some with imagination and honesty that suggest: “We know it tastes horrible, but it’s so good for you!”