Yogurt

A former suitor of Heidi's Frogen Yozurt Shoppes has filed a lawsuit accusing the Laguna Hills chain of fraud and deceit and seeking damages of $5.6 million. The lawsuit by Johnston Foods, filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court, follows the announcement last month that a planned merger of Heidi's and Johnston Foods had fallen apart. Since then, Heidi's has signed an agreement to be acquired by New York-based Steve's Homemade Ice Cream. That deal is still pending.

Score one for Pinkberry in the latest round of the all-out Southern California frozen-yogurt fight. The growing Pinkberry Inc. chain took a couple of body blows last month, when two consumer lawsuits were filed contending that the popular frozen dessert lacked the healthy bacteria cultures found in yogurt.

FOR a guy who has yet to officially open his business in the U.S., the president of fledgling frozen yogurt company Red Mango is having a very good day. "We just installed a machine in Leonardo DiCaprio's office," Dan Kim says from the South Korea-based firm's office near LAX. "Now he wants a machine delivered to his temporary home in New York. Apparently, he heard about the rats at Pinkberry's New York store." Kim laughs at his own cheap shot.

Total time: 45 minutes plus marinating time Servings: 6 to 8 Note: This marinade is loosely based on a recipe by Julie Sahni. 1 cup yogurt 1/4 cup red wine vinegar 4 cloves garlic 1 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper 1 (2-inch) piece ginger, grated 1 serrano chile, sliced 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 1 1/2 teaspoons salt 1 (4- to 5-pound) boneless lamb leg 1. Stir together the yogurt and vinegar. Add the garlic, squeezed through a press or smashed, then minced with a chef's knife.

One of the foods that has grown a hundredfold in popularity in recent years is yogurt. It was a trend that stayed. Was it the Lactobacillus bulgaricus, said to be the "bacillus of long life" in this dairy product that triggered people to follow the traditional yogurt diet of Middle Easterners? Ask any yogurt fan and you'll get more valid reasons for preferring yogurt: it has low-calorie appeal, it is a natural food and it has digestible properties.

Congratulations, America! We've become a nation of healthier snackers. So says market research firm NPD, which has declared fresh fruit the most popular snack food in the country. Even better, the popularity of fresh fruit is continuing to grow. Over the course of a year, Americans snacked on fresh fruit an average of 10 times more than they snacked on chocolate and 25 times more than they snacked on potato chips, according to NPD's recent “Snacking in America” report . Fresh fruit, chocolate and potato chips were the top three snack foods identified in the report.

Nearly a third of the people who take antibiotics to cure an infection develop diarrhea when good bacteria in the intestines are killed off along with the bad. Some stop taking the drugs as a result, leading to problems such as failure to cure the infection or the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. But data from a large number of clinical trials compiled in a survey by researchers at the Rand Corp. show that consuming probiotics (beneficial bacteria) reduces the incidence of diarrhea by 42%. Probiotics are found at varying levels in yogurt and are also available as dietary supplements in most stores.

As an intern at an investment banking firm, Dan Kim lived every poor college student's dream: takeout meals delivered to his office every day, and on the company dime. "I just started eating everything," he recalls, "and forgot about my whole health plan." In three months, he gained 25 pounds. It was a lot for a 5-foot-10-inch former high school athlete -- so much that his then-girlfriend, living in another city, didn't recognize him. Kim shed the weight and never looked back.

Quark is a traditional German fresh cheese with the look and consistency of yogurt. Its flavor is mild and on the tangy side. Try substituting quark for yogurt in some of your favorite recipes to lower the calories, carbohydrates and sugar. Compared with nonfat yogurt, quark has 70 calories per half cup while yogurt can have as many as 130 calories. It is also considerably lower in carbohydrates and sugar.