Manly Yogurt: Does Food Have Gender?

Photo by Cookinghow: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookinghow/

Did you know that yogurt is a “girly” food? Neither did I. But after reading a few articles about a new yogurt product marketed directly to men I have discovered that this common pro-biotic food is enmeshed in an ideological system about what makes a “real” man. You can read more in the Globe and Mail.
 
I have learned that real men don’t eat yogurt. According to Fonterra’s marketing of their new yogurt for men, yogurt is a “sissy” food that your wife eats. Apparently the regular containers of yogurt that you find in your local grocery store are wimpy foods that could hardly sustain the intense appetite of a man. Fonterra’s yogurt, marketed under the brand name Mammoth Supply Co., contains “manly” ingredients like seed and barley and is advertised as “super thick”. Let’s be clear--it isn’t that runny, fat free stuff that your lacklustre and anemic wife would consume. And it comes in containers twice the size of a normal single serving of yogurt. 

I find this entire phenomenon strange. Yogurt is a healthy, nourishing food that already comes in a range of types, from thick Greek style yogurt with 10% milk fat to low fat plain yogurt enhanced with gelatin to fruit filled yogurts containing flax seed and luxury dessert flavours like cheese cake and lemon meringue pie. But apparently a man seen consuming any of these already existing varieties of yogurt risks being something other than a “real man,” something that falls on the more feminine end of the gender spectrum. And I have to wonder--how did we manage to feminize something as completely genderless as yogurt? 

A brief historical investigation suggests that yogurt was eaten by “real men” in the past. In fact http://www.dairygoodness.ca/yogurt/the-history-of-yogurt tells me that “recorded history states that Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire, and his armies lived on yogurt.” I have also learned that “most historical accounts attribute yogurt to the Neolithic peoples of Central Asia around 6000 B.C.. Herdsmen began the practice of milking their animals, and the natural enzymes in the carrying containers (animal stomachs) curdled the milk, essentially making yogurt.”

So how did we go from armies and herdsmen to yogurt being an emasculating food product only fit for upper class women who need a snack before their yoga class? Men are getting the raw end of this deal. It’s men who feel that they can’t order a salad and a glass of red wine at a restaurant without being heckled, it’s men who are pressured to consume monstrous servings of red meat and potatoes in order to prove their “manly” appetites, and it’s men who are encouraged to avoid light, healthy meals in favour of fat laden, rich ones slathered in hot sauce to prove their digestive strength. Women can get away with eating a “manly” meal such as a hamburger the size of your face, but men are less likely to get away with eating a “feminine” meal in public (say poached fish and couscous) without some form of judgment being passed. If my husband orders salad and I order steak our server is highly likely to pass us the wrong meals when it arrives at the table. 

All of this is ridiculous, of course. Men--go out there and eat your pro-biotic, flax seed yogurt. Go out and consume an arugula salad. Go ahead and eat fruit salad or drink an apple martini. Have the chicken instead of the burger. Eat what nourishes you and makes you healthy without worrying about whether or not you look “manly” to your peers. Drink wine instead of beer if that’s what you’d prefer. The saying “you are what you eat” applies only in the literal sense that we are all made up of matter derived from the sustenance we put into our bodies. Food does not have a gender and you will not become more feminine by consuming strawberry shortcake as opposed to a deep fried Mars Bar. I suspect that if men could get away from the foods that are stereotypically marketed to them, they might just be more healthy and consume a more varied diet. One that includes yogurt.

What do you think?