Tidbits: It's true

Mr. Tidbit is, sadly, accustomed to seeing nutrition claims that aren't exactly straightforward. So when he saw new Dan-o-nino yogurt (in tiny cuplets marketed for very small children), he noted immediately the claim "2x calcium of milk." That's exactly the kind of comparison he loves to examine. He was willing to bet that this claim is strictly salesmanship -- that all yogurt probably has (ounce for ounce) twice the calcium of milk. Had he made that bet he would have lost. Calcium contents on nutrition labels are rounded to the nearest 5 percent, so things don't come out exactly, but 8 ounces of milk contains 30 percent of the daily value for calcium; call that 4 percent per ounce. A 6-ounce tub of regular yogurt contains 15 or 20 percent of the daily value for calcium; call that 3 percent per ounce -- a little less calcium than milk. The itty-bitty 1 3/4 ounce cuplet of Dan-o-nino contains 20 percent of the daily value -- a bit more than 10 percent of the daily value per ounce. That's easily twice the amount of calcium in milk -- and three times as much calcium as regular yogurt.

Mr. Tidbit is sorry he doubted.

New Home? While we're in the yogurt aisle, Mr. Tidbit must stop and update his mental picture of Old Home, a proud local brand of dairy products, with the trademarked tagline "where tradition continues."

Mr. Tidbit sensed a momentary disturbance in the gravitational constant last year when that Old Home tradition introduced an entire line of antioxidant-rich (and trendy) pomegranate yogurt.

And now Old Home brings us eight flavors of Safflower Power yogurt, which it says is the nation's first yogurt to contain added CLA (conjugated linoleic acid, an antioxidant). Yogurt and some other dairy and meat products already contain some CLA by nature. This added CLA is derived from safflower oil and, Old Home says, is "clinically shown [when accompanied by a low-fat diet and regular exercise] to help increase muscle tone and reduce body fat."

AL SICHERMAN