Frozen Yogurt: A Returning Trend and Friend

Childhood summers bring me back to my white bike helmet with neon stickers, matching skinned knees from too-eager starts or stops, and riding a few blocks away with friends to the local frozen yogurt shop. Between licks of refreshing flavors that would inevitably melt down my fingers and settle in the web of my hand making the ride home that much stickier, it was well worth it. Memories of carefree days were captured in those flavors and since adulthood, every time I drove by the shop I felt a wave of nostalgia for the light, cool, tang of frozen yogurt settling on my tongue. Not long ago, I turned into my favorite local shopping center and noticed a white "For Lease" sign covering where the hours of the shop should have been. My frozen yogurt shop was closed for good and has yet to be replaced. I got to thinking, is frozen yogurt dead?

Far from being dead, within the boom of the green movement, reduce, reuse and recycle is trendy again. The New Millennium has had its share of recycled fads over the years. The sixties came back in long hair with braids, the seventies re-emerged with flared jeans, patchwork bags, and fondue restaurants, and the eighties is now skipping back with plastic sandals called jellies, and a new hype surrounding an old favorite: frozen yogurt—affectionately called "fro-yo"—and its chain shops.

Frozen yogurt has always been the dieting, skinny friend to ice cream's full figure but with a new emphasis on some products containing probiotics—the active cultures such as the bacterias Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus which help to maintain a healthy digestive track—fro-yo popularity is continuing to blossom. According to MayoClinic.com, probiotics are defined as, "supplements or foods that contain beneficial, or "good," bacteria that are similar to those normally found in your body....[probiotics] may provide some of the same health benefits that the bacteria already existing in your body do, such as assisting with digestion".

Every other week, a celebrity is photographed walking around Los Angeles with a Pinkberry cup glued to their hand. I was recently in San Diego and tempted by the popularity of this particular chain, I found myself wide-eyed and staring at the modern décor, the bright colors, and most importantly through the glass divider at the assortment of fresh fruits and mix-ins commonly used with their yogurt base. I must have been staring too long because I was met with a hearty smile and a, "Is this your first time here?" I sheepishly nodded and asked to try the original vanilla yogurt base over the other green tea variety. Contrary to other fro-yos I have had, Pinkberry was tangier than most. It tastes like my normal, smooth store-bought Yoplait but colder and with a thicker consistency and it boasts only 20 calories per ounce, which must be why I've been seeing Hollywood starlets clutching their Pinkberry fruit-and-cereal topped cups over calorie-chocked smoothies lately. Its competitors are also probiotic-enhanced and claim to have between 20-25 calories per ounce, not including toppings. TCBY markets its 96% fat free and no sugar added varieties of frozen yogurt along with their standard flavors and toppings. Red Mango, Pinkberry's biggest competitor, was the first shop in the U.S. to be approved by the National Yogurt Association (NYA) for its probiotic content.

Not all fro-yo shops have NYA's stamp of approval for levels of live and active cultures which ensures that the frozen yogurt, "contains at least 10 million cultures per gram at the time of manufacture," which helps the customer choose products that may yield good health results. With frozen yogurt among other foods, it should be said that not all products that are said to contain "live cultures" are good for you and should always be used with caution. Because frozen yogurt is a concoction of live cultures, milk, and sugar or other artificial sweeteners, they are best consumed in moderation. If I still had my neon-speckled bike helmet or my local fro-yo shop, I might just be tempted to pedal down there and enjoy the benefits of a probiotic lifestyle, perhaps I just have to hope for a Red Mango or a paparazzi-laden Pinkberry to open near me.