New York State Assembly OKs Yogurt as Official State Snack

The bill, which was debated for 45 minutes by the state Senate, heads to Gov. Cuomo's desk for consideration

New York is one step closer to making yogurt its official state snack.

The state Assembly endorsed the measure 85-1 on Wednesday. The legislation passed the state Senate last month and now goes to Gov. Cuomo for consideration.

The idea of making yogurt the state's official snack came from a fourth-grade class from western New York.

The Senate's 45-minute debate on the bill became late-night talk show fodder. David Letterman and Jon Stewart both lampooned the deliberations, where legislators mulled the distinction between snacks and meals and whether other snacks were more deserving. 

Stewart called the deliberations "maybe the best 40 minutes" of legislative debate ever.

"Even the fourth-graders who brought this up in the first place are like, 'They're still talking about the state snack?'" Stewart said.

Some senators said the frivolity was staged as a parliamentary protest. 

Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat from Manhattan, wrote on Facebook that she asked silly questions — including one about the bill's implications for lactose-intolerant New Yorkers — to criticize the priorities of Senate leaders.

If Senate leaders "make us talk about yogurt, then that's what we'll talk about until they give us something better to do," she wrote.

New York is the nation's top yogurt producer, making 741 million pounds of the dairy product last year, well above the 591 million produced by second-place California.

Cuomo has called New York the nation's "yogurt capital."

Other states with official state snacks include Texas (chips and salsa), Illinois (popcorn) and South Carolina (boiled peanuts).

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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