# I don't like Greek yogurt. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 10, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510 "2013-09-10T18:38:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FallingLeaves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/54ee81/32.png) [@FallingLeaves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallingLeaves)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/21 "2013-09-11T02:45:07Z")
I don’t like my yogurt to have the consistency of sour cream. I’ve tried different brands and different flavors, but I just can’t get used to it. I don’t hate it, but I spend the entire time going - um, this is weird, not bad, but odd, do I like it, maybe, maybe not… I want to enjoy my food, not struggle over whether I like it or not. ---
**Author:** ![typoink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/22 "2013-09-11T02:47:39Z")
> [@Alpine](#): > > Putting in a plug for homemade yogurt. So cheap and no crap in it. I can’t really eat store bought anymore, especially not the flavored kind. I know it’s probably too much bother for busy people, but I like the results enough to do it. Plus, a gallon of yogurt for less than $4? > > Oh, and it is actually a little runny, but could be strained for those that like it thicker. Came in here to say this. Homemade is cheap, easy, delicious, and you can adjust it to your preferences. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/23 "2013-09-11T02:52:04Z")
> [@Alpine](#): > > Yes, the double boiler is my friend. I usually put it in a large jar, and then put the jar in a Crock Pot on high. Works just fine! I then incubate it on a heating pad. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/24 "2013-09-11T11:37:37Z")
I really like Greek yogurt, but it doesn’t like me. TMI Eating it isn’t worth not pooping for the next three days. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/25 "2013-09-11T13:03:46Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > But for og’s sake, stop eating that Yoplait crap. I think the number of people who eat yogurt from the Yoplait and GoGurt shelves because it’s “healthy” have never checked the sugar levels. A GoGurt tube may be better nutritionally than, say, a Snickers bar, but not by a whole lot. I, too, am puzzled by the Greek invasion. There’s something driving this market besides customer preference. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/26 "2013-09-11T13:16:46Z")
The greek is too thick. Good for recipes, as has been previously noted. But then I like full fat, unflavored yogurt, and I like to put the fruit and bran in it myself. Fresh frozen strawberries, and bran buds. Crunchy-creamy… But it becomes inedible paste if I use the greek stuff. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/27 "2013-09-11T13:40:20Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I, too, am puzzled by the Greek invasion. There’s something driving this market besides customer preference. A greek yogurt conspiracy? I’m in! ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/28 "2013-09-11T13:45:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I, too, am puzzled by the Greek invasion. There’s something driving this market besides customer preference. Yeah, nobody eats that stuff anymore, it’s too popular. :dubious: But yes, I don’t like it either. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/29 "2013-09-11T14:02:07Z")
I tried Greek yogurt once and was very disappointed. yuck. I haven’t seen Activia light in the stores lately. I think the new Activia Greek replaced it. So far regular Activia is available and thats what I buy. This thread has me worried. I sure hope the stores don’t stop stocking regular Activia. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/30 "2013-09-11T14:08:08Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Yeah, nobody eats that stuff anymore, it’s too popular. :dubious: Popularity - the death of any product. :smack: What I meant was that the rise of the greek yogurt products seems all out of proportion to anything that could be driven by a market preference change. They went from a niche option to crowding out long-established brands and types in something less than a year - something you don’t see very often even in snack products. I wonder if there are manufacturing or sales factors driving the rise - cheaper production, longer shelf life, greater temperature variance, etc. I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet but will be unsurprised to find a consumer-irrelevant reason we’ve all been turned into greeks. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/31 "2013-09-11T14:09:42Z")
As I said in a [thread from last month](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=699999), > [@Food trends that can stop right now](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-trends-that-can-stop-right-now/666740/121): > > I _like_ yogurt, but I’ve never quite _trusted_ it, and I find Greek yogurt even more suspicious, looking all congealed as it does, like what you would get if you left a bowl of milk sitting out for a couple of weeks. And no one’s ever been able to explain to me what Greek yogurt _is_—what makes it Greek, what’s different about it—except that doesn’t “Greek” mean “anal”? So I’ve never been able to give it a fair trial. Plus, the way some people spell it “yoghurt” just adds to my suspicion. I want to pronounce it “yog” (rhymes with “dog”) + “hurt” (as in Ouch!), but I’m not sure that’s right. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/32 "2013-09-11T14:21:16Z")
Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom for me, forever and always. I don’t like any other brand and that includes home-made yogurt. I did like the Fage Greek, have tried other brands of Greek and don’t care for them. Too thick and … I don’t know, chalky? not smooth? Maybe it’s just me, but it’s like super thick sour cream, thickened with flour. Probably OK in a smoothie, I’ll try that. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/33 "2013-09-11T18:58:21Z")
Greek yogurt is yogurt that’s had the liquid strained out of it. You can make it yourself with non-Greek yoghurt. Empty a tub of yogurt into cheesecloth and then suspend the cheesecloth over the a stock pot if you want to catch the liquid (or just over the sink if you don’t). Hence why it’s thicker and more concentrated in its flavor than “regular” yogurt. Hence also why it’s better in recipes than un-strained, runny, yoghurt. > **[Strained yogurt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strained_yogurt)** > > Strained yogurt, Greek yogurt, yogurt cheese, sack yogurt, or kerned yogurt is yogurt that has been strained to remove most of its whey, resulting in a thicker consistency than normal unstrained yogurt, while still preserving the distinctive sour taste of yogurt. Like many types, strained yogurt is often made from milk enriched by boiling off some water content, or by adding extra butterfat and powdered milk. In Europe and North America, it is often made from low-fat or fat-free cow's milk. In... The spelling of yogurt/yoghurt is because it’s a Turkish word, and transliterating it into English has changed over time. > **[Yogurt | Etymology and spelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#Etymology_and_spelling)** > > The word is derived from Turkish: yoğurt, and is usually related to the verb yoğurmak, "to knead", or "to be curdled or coagulated; to thicken". It may be related to yoğun, meaning thick or dense. The sound ğ was traditionally rendered as "gh" in transliterations of Turkish from around 1615–1625. > In English, spelling variations include yogurt, yoghurt, and to a lesser extent yoghourt or yogourt. In the United Kingdom, the word is usually spelled yoghurt while in the United States the spelling is... I have never met a yoghurt product of any sort that wouldn’t eat by the barrel full. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/34 "2013-09-11T19:10:57Z")
Coming back to this thread made me crave some good old Dannon yogurt. I just went down to my hospital’s cafeteria, and sure enough, all they sell now is Greek. Angry. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Helena330](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/helena330/32/531_2.png) [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/35 "2013-09-12T08:30:53Z")
I haven’t liked Greek yogurt either, but I found that Yoplait Greek 100 is pretty close to regular yogurt. If you’re not pretentious about eating Yoplait. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/36 "2013-09-12T13:21:16Z")
> [@Merneith](#): > > Greek yogurt is yogurt that’s had the liquid strained out of it. I think that sentence should be prefaced with “Traditional” or “Traditionally,”… I suspect that commercially mass-produced “greek yogurt” is something else entire. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/37 "2013-09-12T13:56:10Z")
Well, commercial greek yogurt producers strain off enough whey that they’re trying to figure out what to do with the surplus. Someone mentioned it in a different thread recently. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/38 "2013-09-12T14:21:05Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Well, commercial greek yogurt producers strain off enough whey that they’re trying to figure out what to do with the surplus. Someone mentioned it in a different thread recently. I wouldn’t argue that the product is strained, just that the entire process of putting super-thick yogurt on grocery shelves likely differs notably from traditional or home processing - and not just in scale. Very little commercial food is produced in ways that would be recognizable to a home cook. I do find it hard to sympathize with the dairy processing industry’s problem of excess whey. The last time it had an excess of heavily-subsidized byproduct, it turned us into a nation of cheese gluttons. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/39 "2013-09-12T14:22:29Z")
Now that I’ve had greek yogurt, I can’t go back to the runny stuff! Part of it is that I don’t mix it in with granola, cereal or anything else like a lot of people do. I’m limiting my carbs, so I’ve ditched those. If you’re just having the yogurt on its own, having a thicker base is nice. I do Source or Silhouette greek yogurt because they’re low in sugar (back to limiting the carbs!). ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510/40 "2013-09-12T15:16:50Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > I wouldn’t argue that the product is strained, just that the entire process of putting super-thick yogurt on grocery shelves likely differs notably from traditional or home processing - and not just in scale. Very little commercial food is produced in ways that would be recognizable to a home cook. I have no idea how they make it. All I know is that they start with some kind of yogurt that is then strained to increase thinkness, and that the active cultures in Fage work great as a starter for homemade yogurt. Otherwise, your guess is as good as mine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-dont-like-greek-yogurt/668510.md?page=3)