I was wandering through the grocery store and I realized that I’ve started to read labels out of habit. It could be because I am thirsty for knowledge and want to share my findings on this blog. It could also be the fact that I am constantly on the search for “safe” foods for my boyfriend and every time I look at a product, I wonder “Could I eat this with him?”
I had one such moment while looking at Amore brand paste. If you haven’t seen it, it’s ingenious. They have a variety of common Italian ingredients that people might not want to hassle with, such as anchovies or tomatoes. Instead, what they do is turn it into a paste so all you have to squeeze a little onto a measuring spoon and you’re good to go. I was especially intrigued by the tomato paste because my boyfriend is very committed to buying fresh food in season. This means that if we want tomatoes, we have to find someone selling locally-canned jars so that we can make sauce. Buying it in paste form would make it so much easier!
Looking on the back of the package, I saw something amazing. Not only were there no “unsafe” ingredients (YAY!), but they were extremely honest about allergen potential. They stated that the product was made in a plant which also processes fish and tree nuts. I know that this is fairly common among food labels, however they went on to define tree nuts as cashews and pine nuts and the fish as anchovies. Most of the time when you get the “processed with” line, they don’t get that specific.
Although I was ecstatic about this honesty, I can see why this might have been so easy. This company only makes these pastes and therefore wouldn’t be processing anything like gluten or corn. Since they don’t process a wide variety of products, they can afford to be more specific.
On the same shopping trip, I also got some dishonesty. I picked up a bottle of Sambazon Acai juice just to see what the heck acai tastes like. Perusing the label I had my hopes up. It was made mostly with pureed fruit with added apple and cane juice. Hooray for them! And here I was thinking that they would put in….hang on! At the very bottom of the ingredient’s list, almost like they were trying to hide it, it said “less than 0.5% of: organic natural flavors, organic soy lecithin, citric acid”. Why do they think that putting the less than “0.5%” bit makes it okay? Alright, alright, I know that some people only have reactions to allergens in large amounts. My boyfriend says he can tolerate corn in small increments, and I can see how simply putting “soy lecithin” on a label might lead someone to think that there was more than there actually was, but I was just taken aback by the whole look of the thing.
I think I might be a little too nit-picky about this. If there was less than a half of a percent of the “unsafe” ingredients, it makes sense that they were put last; since ingredients are listed in the order of how much presence each one has in the finished product. Still, I was still a little happy from the Amore encounter and hated having my hopes dashed by less than 0.5% of natural flavors. It may not have been dishonesty, but I definitely didn’t like the attitude.
http://www.sambazon.com/products/juice_strawberry
http://www.amorebrand.com/
(images taken from websites above)
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