When I lived in Paris, I was surprised to see my host family always had yogurt in the house and frequently had it for dessert! Imagining the gross Danon's of my youth that never quite stirred together or the Yoplait's of my college years that were fine ... if you had nothing else, I hesitantly tried a cup. It was divine! Creamy, thick and sweet. Not at all artificial. I believe it was just vanilla Danone, but I have never found anything like it in the United States. Why must we suffer gross yogurt here?

We suffer from gross everything here. A while back on Slate, I read about Mexican Coke, that is made with sugar rather than corn syrup. It was a whole different beast, and far superior, plus it came in a cool glass bottle. Not to channel the Dos Equis guy, but I don't drink soda often, but drink Boylan's when I do. Not only is it a local NJ product, it's made with cane sugar. I love it.

Sorry to sidetrack, it's just that most stuff we have here (dairy products and sweetened things) suck.

Sometimes technology is great, and sometimes it takes us too far away from a classic! I think in American food, the latter is DEFINITELY the case, sometimes. :(

I also used to buy plain old danone when I lived in Barcelona. It was absolutely delicious. Nothing like the U.S. variety.

Everything sold there even by giant conglomerates like danone or nestle had a much simpler ingerdient list. Europe is also agregious with its farm subsidies, but its not a good place to grow corn, so instead they import cane sugar. Tighter consumer protection laws keep out many chemical preservatives.