This post is not about the movie character Yogurt from Spaceballs and his obsession with merchandising.

It is about yogurt, the milk product. Every day I eat yogurt, and always the "plain" types. Then I add whatever stuff I want, such as nuts, berries or raisins. Or none at all. That gives me choice. I can have any taste I want and the amount I want. No one else decide the taste, nor the amount of nutritients or sugar. The power of choice.

When I was a child, there were very few fermented milk products, none of which was yogurt. Now, in parts thanks to capitalism, we can buy many types of yogurt. That is fine. What always bugged me was that there are, in addition, so many flavours: blueberry, vanilla etc. Fruits and berries are pictured as added nutrition, but they are in practice flavours. Those are in a sense choices, but really not choices, as the manufacturer has decided on a few types (similar across brands), and also decide how much sugar the buyer is going to get. While some proudly declare how little fat their yougurt contains (as if fat is dangerous), but speak in very small letters about how much sugar there is. Yogurts, especially those aimed at children, can be real sugar traps. Fancy colours and sugar. I never realised how much sugar there was in them when my children were small. It is quite insidious on the part of the manufacturers. So, they can go and fuck themselves for creating sugar traps. The multitude of flavours add to logistics problems. Shops have to keep track of so many more products, and see to it that they fill them in right tempo.

So, the apparent abundance of choice, is not very much of choice. Capitalism might react to wishes, needs and demands, but its "creativity" is also often one-sided. PR is short for PRopaganda.

It is capitalist choice, where someone else decided for you what is available. It can create more choice, but many times the freedom of choice looks better only at a quick glance. You might think you alone chose to serve your children blueberry yogurt, because your children wants the flavour, but the amount of sugar was the producer's decision, and maybe what in part hooked your children. If you want to know the amount of sugar, you have to look extra, giving you more work. Fancy that.

Flavoured products also are quite overpriced. It's not like the blueberry yougurt is 30% blueberries. Right?

Yesterday I decided to buy a type/brand of yogurt I haven't bought in long time. My mind created the idea that eating same type every day might give too much of one type of microorganisms (as yogurt tend to contain), and variation is probably good. To be honest, I have no idea if that is true. Now, they only had three flavours, and none of plain. I asked an employee, and apparently plain was less popular, so they decided not to sell it anymore. Doh. Thanks for the choice, mate. I bought the lemon one, but of course it was more sweet than lemon. Even if it was edible, I am not going to buy that again. Thanks for the choice.

Yogurt in Spaceballs labels himself plain, and he is, among other things, a capitalist. I am sure there is a joke in connection to my capitalist-critical (cackle) preference for plain yogurt, but I cba to invent one.