Once again, I was wandering through my local grocery store when something caught my eye as being completely out of place. Here, in the cereal aisle is a whole shelf of Alpina Yogurt with Cereal. Just to be clear, the cereal aisle at Publix is completely void of refrigeration. As far as I know, yogurt is a dairy product, and most dairy products require some kind of refrigeration. Not Alpina Yogurt.
Honestly, what catches my eye about the yogurt isn't totally the placement in the grocery store. It also has a clear plastic cup of cereal attached to the top. I'm a total sucker for combinations like this, so I threw it into the cart and began pondering what this yogurt would look like after sitting on the shelf for God knows how long.
Before I open the yogurt, I cheat a little. My curiosity as to how this can be unrefrigerated for such a long time gets the best of me, so I take a peek at the ingredients: Semi-skimmed hygienized milk, sugar, lactic ferments, and starch. I guess "hygienized" means to make invulnerable to spoilage and the forces of nature. I also notice that the ingredients call this a "Low fat yogurt drink," something I missed the first time around. I take off the cereal top and pry off the foil top.
It looks like milk. The cup is about three quarters of the way filled,
which would be a total ripoff had it not been for the bonus cup of
what looks like Frosted Flakes. I decide to take a sip before pouring
in the cereal. I'm expecting this to be a
super-thick, almost chunky drink, so when it pours over my tongue like
warm milk, I'm pleasantly surprised. The yogurt drink itself is the same
consistency of whole milk. And the more of it I taste, the more it
tastes exactly like warm milk. Nothing at all like the yogurt I'm used
to eating. The only thing that is disturbing about this is the
temperature. I have a feeling had this container been refrigerated, I
would pick it up for those mornings I need to eat a quick breakfast.
However, the fact that it doesn't need to be kept in any kind of cool
environment makes me weary of what this is doing to my insides.
As it turns out, the cereal that looks like Frosted Flakes is indeed
Frosted Flakes. At least that's what it says on the ingredients. When I
dump them into the yogurt-milk, a strange snapping and popping sound
comes out, like Rice Crispies, as the cereal soaks up the warm liquid
yogurt. After a couple minutes, the cereal is completely soggy, and I'm
suddenly drinking a bowl of my favorite childhood snack.
Who should drink this? People who fear the apocalypse might be just
around the corner and can't live without soggy cereal on Saturday
mornings, people on the go in the mornings with no respect for the laws
of nature, survivalists.
