This begs the question - is it reasonable for the consumer to put in a little work - reading labels and doing research outside of the grocery store?

I find that you do the research once, and then you know what to buy next time.

Well, the supermarkets know know what the effect of their product placement is. If they change it, the customer buys different things, on average.

So, we can say it's reasonable for people to do some research and pick the yoghurt they consider best, but we know most people don't do that. And that supermarkets prefer to give the best spots to sugary yoghurts.

What's wrong with doing the research once for the average person and then regulating the supermarkets so they give those the eye level space? People can still make different choices if they want.

It could be the result is people buy more danishes and doughnuts from the bakery section for breakfast instead of now harder to find sweetened yoghurt.

Can we believe that consumers have any agency at all?

Like maybe the reason there are 200 varieties of single serve cups is that people like them.

The amount of work the consumer puts in is matched by food makers. You'll see the deceptive marketing on so many foods. "No sugar added" no longer means no added sweetening agent. It means that sugar was replaced by alternative sweeteners.

It's exhausting being a consumer these days.

Are we still talking about yogurt? I do not find it difficult or have to put in any work to buy low sugar yogurt. I buy large amounts of full fat zero added sugar Greek yogurt and yogurt cups with 2g of added sugar and there are always multiple options clearly labeled on the shelf among all the other more sugary options.

Sure. In the Kroger app when I search for “plain yogurt” the first result is yoplait vanilla flavored yogurt. I wish I could share the screenshot because it’s so ridiculous.

If the issue was only about choices adults make about their own bodies and there were no externalities from those choices, then IMO it would of course be reasonable.

I think the point is more that the norm is sugary, and so it's necessary to do what you describe to find plain (not to say 'normal') yoghurt.

Look for plain yogurt, it never has sugar added. Easy to spot too.

Ridiculous.

Look? As in open your eyes? It's literally right on the front of the package in large letters. You can see exactly what you're getting without even squinting at the fine print on the back.

> You can see exactly what you're getting without even squinting at the fine print on the back.

So the nutrition facts and ingredients list doesn’t convey any new information? The designers managed to cram all that info into an appealing front facing label? And the marketers refrained from soft deceptions and convenient omissions, prioritizing truth and clarity over sales numbers? Sure.

Sure, if you want plain yogurt with no added sugar then you can find that just by looking at the front label. Have you ever been to a supermarket?

Lots of people in this thread missing that unsweetened yogurt options are probably not distributed evenly across US supermarkets.

Your local coastal city store might have a half dozen plain greek yogurts but I bet there are plenty of areas where they are not stocked because they know it won't sell.

You would lose that bet. I eat plain unsweetened yogurt. I have seen it on the shelf in supermarkets everywhere, not just coastal cities.

But hey, don't take my word for it. Most large supermarkets now offer online ordering. Pick a few small Midwestern cities at random and look what dairy products the major local supermarkets have in stock. It's hilarious how people keep posting uninformed comments here without taking 5 minutes to do some trivial fact checking.

half the time, no sugar means sugar substitute. It is definitely confusing.

Glad you're hear to tell people they are dumb and they should work around systemic problems instead of trying to fix the system.

My nearby Kroger has four brands of greek yogurt with no sugar added and three brands of plain yogurt with no sugar added. Each of these brands sells yogurt of varying fat contents in quart and cup containers. This takes up like eight feet of width on the shelves.