Have you seen the November issue of the NZ Healthy Food Guide Magazine? If so, you already know our good news – we have been awarded the ‘Best Yoghurt’ title in the magazines inaugural Healthy Food awards!

The yoghurt in question is our Organic Low Fat Greek Yoghurt. We have always known that it’s a special product, but it’s great to hear that other people love it as much as we do.

So what is it that makes our Organic Low Fat Greek Yoghurt a healthy winner? We take our already thick, low fat yoghurt and strain it to remove some of the watery whey content. This produces a premium, more concentrated organic yoghurt which is highly nutritious and packed with protein.

The rich taste and thick, luscious texture makes it perfect for cooking and making dips. In fact you can use it to replace some of the ‘naughtier’ ingredients in your meals. Here are some of our favourite healthy uses:

• It’s a great guilt free substitute for sour cream – fantastic as a topping on Mexican food

• Add crushed garlic, a squeeze of lemon and whizz together with fresh herbs to make a scrumptious dip for veggies, or a spread for crusty wholegrain bread

• Use it as a creamy dressing base; it’s especially delicious in potato salads

• Top with liquid honey, sliced almonds and blueberries for a guilt free yet decadent dessert.

Try this yoghurt based paint for a fun way to keep preschoolers amused. It’s especially good as baby’s first introduction to finger painting. The paint is bright, easy to clean up and dries to a nice shiny finish. Better yet, there is no need to be concerned if your little tyke ends up eating it rather than painting with it!

Edible Finger Paint

Thick and Creamy Cyclops yoghurt

Food colouring

Empty Cyclops yoghurt containers

Separate an equal amount of the yoghurt into each container and add food colouring, stir and keep adding until you get the right shade. Now all you need is some paper and the wee ones can paint away to their hearts delight.

Tips and Tricks:

• If you are concerned about using synthetic food colouring try raiding the cupboard to find some natural alternatives. For example coco powder for a tasty brown or a little turmeric powder for yellow.

• Letting your child mix the colour into the yoghurt is a great way to teach them about primary and secondary colours – blue and yellow make green!

• Try having younger kids finger paint directly onto plastic trays or large plates so you can easily wash all the mess away.

• Makes a great face paint, for kids and adults alike.

Let us know how the finger painting turned out, or better yet send us a photo! [email protected]

I admit to early childhood memories of pulling carrots out of the family garden and eating them dirt attached. I have eaten cat biscuits out of the cat’s very own dish and yet appear none the worse for these childhood culinary exploits. In fact research is now telling us that eating a bit of ‘dirt’ when young can help programme the immune system, letting it know what is best ignored and allowing it to practice immune responses.

Our immune system is like an army, it’s our front line defence against bad bacteria, viruses and disease. But like any army it needs to be ‘drilled’ before going into battle to ensure it performs at its peak. Being exposed to germs and viruses are the little battles it needs to keep ship-shape.

The hygiene hypothesis is a school of thought that theorises that the ultra-clean, germophobic environments of modern western life have led to weakened immune systems and rises in autoimmune diseases and allergies. These are illnesses which result from the immune system either attacking the bodies own cells or overreacting to a harmless outside substance. Imagine an untrained army that doesn’t know friend from foe and you have the hygiene hypothesis.

In my view ultra clean food is really just symptomatic of our society’s ever-developing zero-tolerance for potential harm. Occasionally a child is abducted so we don’t let kids walk to school alone; some of the bacteria in our homes are pathogenic so we douse everything with anti-bacterial spray; food borne bacteria in great enough numbers can be lethal or make us sick so we mandate pathogen free food. What do you think?

This beautiful world of ours is teeming with life in innumerable forms. It is mostly meaningless to try to classify it into good and bad. However the bacteria which turn our organic milk into Cyclops Yoghurt are undoubtedly beneficial for us humans. Happy eating. Healthy life.

Are they always the same thing?

Although organic practices are basically sustainable in that they do not deplete natural resources, that doesn’t mean that an organic product in the food ‘industry’ is produced, packaged, distributed etc in a ‘sustainable’ manner.

Organic certification is quite prescriptive. Producers have undergone a rigorous and lengthy process to prove that their food is organic and it has been produced with certain ethical standards in place. However no prescriptive set of rules is perfect and will always lead to some absurdities.

In many cases, like with our own Cyclops products, organic can and does mean a real commitment to sustainability. A schism can occur however when large agribusiness’s start to produce organically without the larger commitment to sustainability. For example in the US, organic farmers need only give animals ‘access’ to the outdoors and ‘access’ can mean as little as a screened window for the animals to look through. The animals could spend 100% of their life indoors. This goes against the tenants of sustainable practice where animals are allowed to graze/peck/scratch outdoors in a natural manner. Another example is that organic farmers are not required to limit the size of their crops, whereas sustainable farmers would plant smaller crops and rotate to control pests and keep the land more fertile.

Since sustainable and organic do not necessarily go hand in hand consumers need to consider which brands are committed to both. It is good to choose organic because in most cases it is more sustainable but I suggest that artisan producers like Cyclops are likely to also have a passion for sustainability.

The founding principles for Cyclops 21 years ago (as they still are now) were: natural, sustainable and delicious. It wasn’t documented as part of a business plan or anything like that; it was simply our own ethics and values.

Organic certification came in the early 90’s when the opportunity arose after we commissioned our evaporator and found a supply of organic milk. Organic is simply an additional credential which is in keeping with the brand; as was GE Free and our next project, carbon neutral. To us organic is a subset of the bigger goal, sustainability. It is generally with that bigger goal in mind that we conduct our business.

Yoghurt has an illustrious and incredibly ancient history. It is referred to as “food of the Gods” in ancient Indian poems and is one of the delicacies served in One Thousand and One Nights. Galen the ancient Greek physician wrote about yoghurt’s ‘valuable health benefits’ and Suleiman the Magnificent used it to cure French monarch Francis I of his (up untill then) incurable and life threatening diarrhoea. Some even believe yoghurt was the milk product followers would find in the biblical “land of milk and honey”.

Although the true origin of Yoghurt is shrouded in mystery, its discovery could have occurred as early as 2000 BC. Food historians agree that in all likelihood a lucky fellow living in a nomadic Central Asian pastoral tribe discovered that the milk he had stored in a goatskin bag, left to go warm in the sun and treated to the steady agitation of travelling, had turned into creamy delicious yoghurt. It was the beneficial bacteria found both in milk and in the animal skin bags that would have facilitated this miraculous transformation. From there its use spread to Persia and through the Balkan peninsular into Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. The rest as they say is history!

Many of the regions that yoghurt spread through developed their own traditional yoghurt recipes. Here at Cyclops we combine a proud European tradition of yoghurt making with the best of New Zealand organic farm fresh milk. Our yoghurt originated in Greece with the traditional recipe given to founder Jim Small by his mother. It was in the family home that Jim made his first batch of the wonderful, thick, distinctively textured Cyclops. Twenty years on we continue to stick rigorously to this clever combination of traditional cultures, evaporated fresh milk and a leisurely incubation time.

The result is a ‘remarkably tasty’ Greek style yoghurt which is probably a world away from that first warm runny goatskin bag effort!

homemade face masks

Now that the tantalising promise of summer is upon us, it’s time to give our ravaged, pasty winter skin a boost. But before you spend all your hard earned money on the latest skin care products we suggest you raid your fridge!

Yoghurt has high levels of Lactic Acid which acts as a gentle exfoliant, stimulates collagen production and refines pores, making it perfect as a base for homemade facial masks. Following are two of our favourite concoctions, we suggest using our Thick and Creamy yoghurt, its velvety texture on your skin is simply luxurious.

Monkey mash up

banana nourishes, yoghurt refines, honey moisturises and soothes

½ banana

2 tbsp of Cyclops Thick and Creamy organic yoghurt

1 tablespoon of ‘soft’ honey

Mash the banana to a smooth consistency and mix into the yoghurt. Add softened honey to mixture. Apply evenly to face and leave on for 20 minutes, rinsing off with warm water at the end. If you have any of the mixture left spread onto rice crackers, it’s delicious!

Oaty cookie scrub

Oatmeal heals and exfoliates, wheat germ oil enriches with vitamin E,

yoghurt refines, honey moisturises and soothes

4 tbsp oatmeal

2 tsp of wheat germ oil

3 tbsp of Cyclops Thick and Creamy organic yoghurt

2 tbsp ‘soft’ honey

Mix all the ingredients together and apply generously to face. Keep the mask on for 20 minutes and rinse off with warm water. This mask has a wonderful sweet and oaty aroma which will make you crave some oat cookies and a glass of milk!

What are your favourite homemade face masks?

Going to the supermarket was once an uncomplicated process, based on the simple premise that if an item looked tasty – into the shopping trolley it went! These days we are becoming increasingly concerned about the consequences our food decisions have on our own health, and also the health of local and global economies and environment.

Counting food miles has become a simple (and trendy) way to gauge our food’s impact on the environment. All you need to do is be aware of the distance your food travels from the time it has finished production until the time it hits your plate! At face value cutting down on food miles makes complete sense; surely foods which are sent thousands of miles would result in more carbon emissions and therefore contribute more to global warming than locally produced foods..? Apparently not…

Where food miles falls short is that it fails to give us the whole picture. It tells us the distance food has travelled but not how. In New Zealand 99.75% of our produce is sea freighted which is far more energy efficient than transporting by plane. But even then food miles only account for a very small slice of the total food carbon emissions pie. Researchers from Cardiff University believe as little as 2% of the environmental impact originates from transport, the rest comes from food production methods.

Food carbon footprints are a measure of the total amount of greenhouse emissions that occur in the production and transportation of a food. It includes such things as electricity used and methods of generation, farming and harvesting methods, fertilisers, even the environmental impact of food for livestock. Lincoln University found that key New Zealand imports to Britain were significantly lower in total green house emissions than the same food produced locally, with NZ dairy twice as efficient as its British counterpart.

This is great news for New Zealand exporters concerned with overseas markets aggressively pushing the concept of food miles to help local products appear more environmentally sound.

So as consumers should we be buying locally, or buying products with the lowest carbon footprint?!

We are lucky in that in New Zealand we can buy locally knowing we are supporting our local economy as well as the larger environment. Organic foods tend to have a slightly lower carbon footprint, so when in doubt buy New Zealand, buy organic and stick some Cyclops in your trolley!

Which is more important on your shopping list, food miles or carbon footprints?

Jim Small, MD Cyclops explains

We have had a lot of customers contact us recently about not being able to find their favourite Cyclops products at their local supermarket. It generally turns out that their local supermarket is owned by Progressive Enterprises (Woolworths, Food Town & Count Down) which has recently rolled out a comprehensive ‘plannogramme’ for their chiller cabinets. A ‘plannogramme’ details what products each store will stock and where they will go on the shelf. This is great for efficiency and uniformity but has little tolerance for variation between localities. So if a store is the right size but the wrong demographics it will still stock our products while a store that is the wrong size but the right demographics misses out.

The guys who are charged with rolling out their Aussie master’s system are doing their best under trying circumstances and all stakeholders are hoping things come right soon. However even when the system is functioning as it should, it is hard to see how the business gains it is designed to achieve will enable the Corporate to compete with the well organised Co-operative, Foodstuffs (New World; PakNSave). The owner/operators running Foodies stores have the knowledge, the incentive and the flexibility to stock what the locals want to buy and in this age where people are looking for a more meaningful food shopping experience that will be decisive.

What do you think?

Jim Small, MD Cyclops on his recent trip to the US

The US is a foreign country, that’s obvious, but visiting for the first time to promote our new premium Cyclops frozen yogurt, I found it more foreign than expected.

Two things made the strongest impression:

First: My thought that our key selling points were ‘certified organic from clean green New Zealand’ slowly dissipated as I began to realise that the New Zealand part was at best a neutral point (except for the woman who would not buy a New Zealand product because she had read a report of Prime TV’s anti-semitic billboard promo) but for the most part, New Zealand was IRRELEVANT. Our marketing strategy has now changed to focus on: ‘the first Greek Style Frozen Yogurt in the market!’

Second: Everywhere you go people are talking into their mobile phones – so 90’s!  My thoroughly researched guess is that 80% of mobile phone communications in New Zealand are text and it is the inverse in US. Which begs a few questions: Is it just because their plans are so much cheaper than ours? Or is it also because Americans love to talk – which they do (I truly saw a woman strutting down the street in NYC shouting into her phone “I’ll see you in court!”); Would we be better to talk more and text less? Probably, but it’s annoying for those in the vicinity and the talker is less present. Hmmm…?

This smooth creamy drink will remind you of a lemon tart. The light citrus zest of the LemonZ beautifully compliments the lemon honey Cyclops to create what was my favourite cocktail.

• 30ml LemonZ
• 15ml Bombay
• 2 tsp Lemon Honey Cyclops Yoghurt

Method: Shake with ice into a Martini glass