Yogurt wars

Southerners love sweet tea, fried chicken, BBQ, Krispy Kreme donuts, collard greens, and more fried animal/vegetable/starch.  What southerners apparently do not love is yogurt.  At least, not the yogurt I want to eat.  Because really, if not what I want, clearly it’s not important.

Every time I come back to Alabama, I have issues with pretty much every grocery store I step foot in.  The Grocery Store gods mercilessly mock me down here.  One of my standard snacks (or breakfast, whatever) is plain lowfat soy, goat milk, or Greek yogurt with fresh fruit.  I freakin’ love it.  Give me a mango and slap some yogurt on top, and I’m blissfully happy.  Ok, anything with a mango will make me blissfully happy.  But back to my yogurt  trials and tribulations.  

I think it’s illegal to sell yogurt made from goat milk down here.  I’ve never seen it.  Also, soy yogurt is nearly impossible to find.  I’ve found only one type (at the craptastic Winn Dixie, of all places - go figure), and it’s rather subpar.  The fancy-pants Fresh Market doesn’t carry soy yogurt at all, which, quite frankly, shocked me.

So I’m left with the Greek yogurt, which has popped up everywhere.  I know, it’s probably a fad just like cupcakes are all the rage right now.  But I don’t care.  I drank the Kool-Aid, and I like it.  And I’ll admit, I drank the cupcake Kool-Aid, too.  I LOVE cupcakes. 

After arriving in Alabama this week, the first thing I did was hit up ye olde Winn Dixie.  I braced myself for a lack of... well, everything.  It lived up to its expectation.  I sauntered up to the yogurt case and had two choices for Greek yogurt:  fruit-flavored low-fat yogurt and nonfat plain yogurt.  

I admit, I’m being hyper-picky about my yogurt.  But really, is low-fat plain Greek yogurt that highbrow?  I’m not the chick that goes to Starbucks and orders a grande half-caf soy caramel cinnamon macchiato with an extra shot of espresso and sugar-free vanilla syrup.  I get coffee and drink it black (ok, FINE, I actually get an Americano).  I don’t want hoity-toity yogurt.  I want it plain, and I want a little fat in it.  Is this too much to ask?

I stood in front of that yogurt case for a good 5 minutes with a scowl on my face.  A store employee that seems to be stocking the dairy aisle every time I’m there was 30 feet away.  This is probably the 4th or 5th time he’s seen me loitering in front of the yogurt glaring at the selection.  I could tell he recognized me.  I settled for the nonfat plain Greek yogurt and went home.