Due to popular demand and the fact that we love
trying weird foods and candies, The A.V. Club will now regularly feature
"Taste Tests." Feel free to suggest disgusting and/or delicious new
edibles for future installments: E-mail us at [email protected].
Yoplait Go-Gurt Fizzix Fizzy Lowfat Yogurt
Snack
Taste Tests here at A.V. Labs generally fall into
two categories, both of which inspire complaints from our readers. If we eat
something that's prima facie disgusting (to use the legal definition), like
crickets or imported cheeseburgers in a can, we're accused of not having open
minds going into the Taste Test. If we taste something that's obviously going
to be delicious in some way—like banana Oreos or new Cold Stone Creamery
flavors—then we're shirking our responsibility to eat something that the
average Joe or Jane would never try. And to be honest, we're rarely terribly
surprised: Things that look horrible—like cheeseburger-flavored
Combos—tend to bear out that horribleness in their flavors. We are guilty
of pre-judging food by its packaging. (And ingredients. And smell.)
But we're capable of reason, too, in the face of
cold, delicious facts. I asked this question of an entire office: "Hey, who
wants to try some carbonated yogurt in a tube? It comes in extreme flavors!"
Pretty much every single Taster made a face that could only be translated as
"Ewwww." But they still gathered around to sample various flavors of Fizzix
Fizzy Lowfat Yogurt Snack (a sub-brand of Go-Gurt, itself a sub-brand of
Yoplait, a Cinco corporation). Can you blame them for being suspicious? What's
the point of carbonating yogurt? (Answer: Kids think it's neat. They also like
Yoplait's Trix-enhanced yogurt.)
The taste: But then, a strange thing happened. The
gathered hordes began sucking the goop from plastic tubes—adorned with
extreme artwork, like a big, scary cartoon mouth—and delighting in its
taste. Everyone, to one degree or another, admitted that they enjoyed Fizzix,
which we sampled in four flavors: Triple Berry Fusion, Fruit Punch Charge,
Strawberry Watermelon Rush, and Blue Raspberry Rage. (It's fucking raging! That
yogurt is raging!) Well duh. We should have known. It's yogurt, packed with
lovely sugar and high-fructose corn syrup—10 grams of sugar in each tube.
(A can of Coke has 39, so ounce-for-ounce, these yogurts have almost twice as
much sugar as a Coke.)
What about the fizzing, you ask? It fizzed! It
bubbled a little bit in our mouths, like slightly flat soda. It wasn't terribly
strong, but kids might get a charge out of it. We froze a few—the box
sort of suggests that you can—and that pretty much eliminated the
fizzing, but it was still tasty. Carbonated yogurt, you have surprised and
delighted us, and though none of us will probably ever buy you again, we will
have fond memories of a Taste Test that proved our instincts wrong.
Oh, also, some funny notes on the packaging: "Do
not thaw and refreeze." "Consume within 7 days of sell-by date, even if
frozen." "Tubes expand at room temperature." (Whoa, we have to try that one
out.) Lastly, "Kids under 5 years may have difficulty swallowing frozen FIZZIX
lowfat yogurt snack. Please be sure to thaw before serving."
Office reactions:
— "This is what killed Mikey!"
— "It's like a melted popsicle with Pop Rocks
embedded in it."
— "It's like a venereal disease in my mouth."
— "It's buzzy. Yeah! It's buzzy!"
— "It's like the yogurt equivalent of the KFC
bowl, for lazy people."
— "Goes down like slightly fizzy yogurt, but
the burps have a soda kinda feel to them. It's odd to have that slight
carbonation burn from something creamy."
— "This is pretty good—way better than
I expected. But if you dump 10 grams of sugar and carbonation in anything,
it'll probably be palatable."
— [Blue Raspberry Rage] "I should've stopped at
the Triple Berry. This tastes more like generic yogurt; the fizziness is
definitely less pronounced than the Triple Berry."
— "I think I'm going to regret having two of
these in a row in such a short period of time. In fact, I already am."
— "The carbonation isn't really that
noticeable, and it's hardly 'extreme.' I don't even know if I'd notice it if
wasn't marketed as such."
— "If this doesn't get kids eating yogurt,
nothing will."
— "The label frightened me a bit, what with
all the exploding intestines displayed on it. The actual blue-raspberry flavor
was tolerable as an exit flavor, but the bitter 'fizzy' foretaste was merely
off-putting. Overall, I am leery about the combination of dairy and Pop Rocks,
probably for good reason."
— "Sweet for yogurt, somewhere between Kool
Aid fruit punch and a popsicle. Kids like food that reminds them of other
food."
— "Very small bubbles on the tongue are
unusual at first but makes me want to try more. It's strange to discover
carbonation in a viscous goo. Kind of how I imagine Edge shaving gel works."
— "The slight sourness of the milk cultures
and the carbonation left a beer aftertaste for me."
— "The graphic imagery on the yogurt tube is
definitely disturbing. I think Gene Simmons' tongue served as a model for this
design."
Where to get it: Grocery stores.