We have Strauss here in Oregon but I've never tried it. It's only sold at one local specialty store and maybe WF. That store also sells my favorite yogurt--Brown Cow whole milk in maple or coffee. Dannon fruit-on-the-bottom was the first yogurt I ever had in the 1970s and it was the best imo. But they tried to compete with Yoplait by blending it and they ruined it. Their fruit on the bottom, if they still make it, is nothing like it was in the 70s.

My favorite cottage cheese is Kemp’s 4%. It just seems to have a flavor I prefer over other brands.

I can taste a huge difference in grassfed and organic dairy. I look for that more so than a specific brand. I go with small, local farms if I can rather than mass produced.

My friends had a weekend house down the road from Staus Family Creamery and came home with a little tub of their vanilla ice cream. At the time it wasn't sold in stores, just made for locals and scooped into no label containers. Holy cow. It was the best dairy product I have ever eaten in my life. Milk, egg, salt, vanilla.

I live in the Bay Area- yes, Strauss!! Really really good. Also Alejandre, a NorCal dairy- their products are even better, IMO. But sadly they don’t make ice cream:(

The best yogurt I can buy is Cabot Farms Greek yogurt. Kroger doesn't carry it, but my small local supermarket (used to be IGA, now something called Morning Fresh) has it. I've never seen it in another store--didn't even know Cabot Farms made anything other than cheese--and it's a fairly recent addition--a few years maybe. It's really delicious, no additives and full fat.

Until just the last few months, Kroger never has carried anything by part skim mozarella. But now they have full fat (yaaay!), Galbani brand I think. Of course, my Kroger is so unreliable, it could have disappeared since I last saw it.

Cottage cheese comes to mind, I don’t buy it too often but when I do it’s Good Culture. Read about it here a while back.

I used to get Plugra in 1 lb blocks for about the same price as regular butter but can’t find that anymore. I don’t eat butter as a spread enough to warrant spending money on more expensive brands, on the other hand I don’t use enough butter for it to break the bank. Maybe I’ll try some more. Been wanting to try cultured butter.

I looked for Straus, one area supermarket chain carries just ice cream in some stores, but not in any of my four close ones. How far I’d need to go oddly depends on which flavor I want.

I don't eat or use much dairy other than I use a lot of butter and heavy cream. I'm not too fussy about any of it -- I'm fine with store-brand butter if I can't catch a sale on the chi-chi brands, and 99% of the time I buy the store-brand whipping cream. But I do read the labels -- some cream has added thickeners/gums, and I never buy those irrespective or brand, only 100% milk/cream.

On the rare occasion I buy ice cream, I'll go with the better-branded stuff like Haagen-Dasz or something similar. But my favorite is Haagen-Dasz. Here again it boils down more to ingredients than anything else, and a heck of a lot of ice cream is filled with all sorts of gums/thickeners. Blech.

ETA: Where I live, we don't have many of these small-batch local farm brands or specialty brands available, and the la-la land place I might be able to find such things is too expensive and too far of a drive to be bothered (gas and time are money, after all). I pointed this out on the butter thread. Those of you who do have access to these type of brands should consider yourself fortunate, and doubly fortunate if you can afford the items on a regular basis.

My favorite yogurt which I have with blue berries & a bit of granola for breakfast most days is the very hum drum non exotic Kirkland brand. It checks all the boxes for me & is easy to find & buy. It’s organic, nonfat, plain, 0 added sugars with only 3g’s of sugar, 18g protein, rBST-free.

Fair Life chocolate milk. It's been my addiction for the last six months. For someone who is lactose intolerant, it's GREAT. I have been drinking their lo fat white milk for a couple of years. Or just regular if that's all there is on the shelf.

I'll have to try the FairLife whole milk product. I see it has reduced or no lactose as a result of filtering and the addition of the enzyme lactase (the ingredient of the Lactaid product, which I use regularly). I only use "milk" for the occasional bowl of cereal and I find that soy milk isn't an agreeable alternative.

Thanks schoolhouse!

I'm pretty sure we tried the Strauss Yogurt, it was runny, high calories, not very sweet. We've been eating Noosa Yogurt as a treat, instead of ice cream. We do picnic lunches on our photo-shoot outings. I'll bring Noosa with us. The cinnamon-roll flavor is pretty good! Also Sigi's is really good Yogurt.

Noosa thickens their yogurt with gelatin, cornstarch and gums. That's the trade-off for nonfat.

Hudsonville Deer Traxs Ice Cream and it's on sale right now at Meijer

" I'm pretty sure we tried the Strauss Yogurt, it was runny, high calories, not very sweet. "

Nicole, I'm not sure you're describing Straus whole milk Greek yogurt.

It's quite thick, as thick or thicker than sour cream. The opposite of runny. It's not sweet and not intended to be - it has the traditional tang of pure, natural yogurt. No sugar is added. The only ingredients are milk, cream and bacterial cultures. For those who prefer less tang (and I'm not sure why anyone would), the European style fills that bill.

I did a quick calc of calories per ounce and the Noosa flavored yogurts are slightly higher. But there's not much of a difference.

My wife likes it with berries, I prefer it plain or with a mashed banana. Or with a little muesli or Grape Nuts. The thing is when you start with plain yogurt and choose for yourself what to combine it with, you know what's there. And what's not.

We tried it last time you recommended it. Just didn't like it....

Perfect. I thought you were looking for information and I wanted to be sure you had it. There's no better info than giving it a try. Thanks.

There are a few TV chefs using Great Value Greek Yogurt in place of sour cream. It has 90 calories in 5oz. We were eating one of those every day.

Love your scientific method, chisue!