Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Pinkberry Not so Healthy, 8th Ave. Gays go Bezerk

Well the proof is in the pudding frozen yogurt. Pinkberry brand frozen yogurt actually contains 23 ingredients including additives, emulsifiers and acidifiers. Not that anybody really expected to be "healthy"... However in an unprecedented action bigger than anything seen by ACT UP or Queer Nation the gay men of Chelsea have taken to the streets to protest Pinkberry's misleading health-based advertising! More after the jump.

After a class-action lawsuit was filed last year accusing the company of deceptive marketing, Pinkberry posted ingredients on its Web site. But that got little notice until the case was settled two weeks ago. (The company said the lawsuit had nothing to do with the posting.)

There is, it turns out, a great deal more than yogurt in those costly white cups.

The ingredients list for Original Pinkberry has 23 items. Skim milk and nonfat yogurt are listed first, then three kinds of sugar: sucrose, fructose and dextrose. Fructose and maltodextrin, another ingredient, are both laboratory-produced ingredients extracted from corn syrup.

The list includes at least five additives defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as emulsifiers (propylene glycol esters, lactoglycerides, sodium acid pyrophosphate, mono- and diglycerides); four acidifiers (magnesium oxide, calcium fumarate, citric acid, sodium citrate); tocopherol, a natural preservative; and two ingredients — starch and maltodextrin — that were characterized as fillers by Dr. Gary A. Reineccius, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota and an expert in food additives.

The Chelsea protest was joined by JAP (Jewgirls Against PinkBerry), a coalition of Jewish girls from Murray Hill, and a smattering of girls, 19 to 21, from NYU sororities. When asked for a quote one gay man responded, "Listen, if I wanted to be fat and remember what it is to actually taste something with flavor I would have gone to Baskin Robbins a long time ago. Humph!" To which an NYU girl responded, "I know, right? I hope I'm still able to fit into my dress for next week's AEPHI/ZBT date dash! This is an outrage!"
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Gurrrl, say what you will- but Ali Alex and I were there last weekend munching down on the original flavor with raspberries, bananas and other crazy mixins' talking about boys and spring fashion and stuff. SO fierce!

8 comments:

UrBear said...

If you think that's going to break me of my Pinkberry habit, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. You'd have to demonstrate that the stuff caused explosive tumors in baby dolphins before you'd be able to wrest that cup from my cold, dead (but very well-preserved) hands.

With that said, yeah, sure, fewer ingredients are better than more ingredients, all other things being equal. But a lot of the stuff on the list looks scary but is actually harmless. Citric acid, for instance, is naturally present in huge quantities in citrus fruits, and tocopherol is more than just a preservative... it's vitamin E, heavily touted for its health benefits. I don't see anything on the list that would put me off my feed.

Adam said...

Uh I cannot believe this is for real, it sounds like something you'd read in the Onion.

Unknown said...

Looks like I'll be visiting Venice and Red Mango.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry posse, Pinkberry fro-yo is still low calorie, has cultures and is low in sugar than the others, and let's face it that's all I care about. Plus fresh fruit, everthing has some artificial stuff in it afterall

Anonymous said...

Don't bret -- Red mango has more calories and sugar, and as the article states their first ingreds are water and milk, Pink's are skim milk and non-fat yogurt.

Unknown said...

It's too late to turn back now! I've Red Mango'd and I think I liked it, but now it just needs a location on every corner. . .looks like Pinkberry WINS!

dpaste said...

I have yet to set foot in a Pinkberry, Red Mango, Yellow Moon, Orange Star or Green Clover. If I'm going to bother, I'll get the real thing. A protest? About frozen yogurt? Seriously?

Eric Leven said...

Come on people this was a joke! I made it up! There's been no protesting- oye!