Have you noticed that the yogurt section of most supermarkets has pretty much taken over the entire dairy aisle? Every day a variety of new types and flavors seem to crop up, widening the sea of yogurt options. There's a good reason for that. Yogurt has some pretty impressive health benefits. Yogurt is rich in potassium, calcium, protein and B vitamins, including B-12. It's chock full of active live bacteria cultures – the good kind – which aid digestion and boost the immune system. The lactic acid in yogurt helps us to digest lactose, which in turn, helps maximize calcium absorption. Plus, it's smooth, creamy, delicious!

Yogurt has always been one of my favorite foods. Ever since I swirled my spoon into that first container of Dannon Strawberry Fruit on the Bottom yogurt as a kid in the 70’s, I was hooked. Then, came Yoplait. You didn’t even have to stir that kind! Plus, it sounded so French! I knew it had to be something special. Of course, now that I’m older with a much more sophisticated palate, I’ve expanded my horizons on the yogurt front. These days, my yogurt of choice is a nice thick and tangy Greek-style yogurt with a drizzle of luscious orange blossom honey on top.

As much as I adore yogurt, though, I was never really crazy about frozen yogurt. Around the same time that Dannon and Yoplait were gaining popularity in the U.S., other companies started jumping on the yogurt bandwagon with their so called “frozen yogurt” products. The rationale behind it was that since yogurt was looked upon as a health food, frozen yogurt was a healthier alternative to other frozen desserts, namely ice cream. Good concept, not so great execution – at least as far as I was concerned. It just didn't taste much like yogurt to me. Meh!

This article appears in May 5-11, 2010.