Misleading product names - health foods

Curlypinkie

This is more of a rant but here goes.

This morning I spent 6EUR on two packets of dried blueberries and cranberries in Dunnes. It was 7.45am. I didn't check the content. Like who checks the content of dried blueberries and dried cranberries anyway? You would think that it does what it says on the tin.
But no.
The ingredient list in the dried cranberries reads:
Cranberries (sugar, sunflower oil)
and in the blueberries:
Blueberries (glucose-fructose syrup, lemon juice concentrate, vegetable oil)

Fair enough, the lemon juice concentrate but the rest??? Oil...

I'm in the process of switching to something like the paleo diet becuase of my allergies and bad egzema so need to really try to watch what I eat if you're wondering why I'm starting this thread.

Also, whilst shopping for meats and ham i was amazed how much of the ham on the shelves contain sugar!! I'd say more than half did and only the meat you're to cook yourself actually ONLY contained the meat and no preservatives.
Eating healthily in Ireland, is not easy!
Have you got any other experiences of "crazy" contents that shouldn't really be there?
Any tips and tricks for which shops to use or what products?

rubadub

Did you read the nutritional info on the packets too? i.e. what % of fat was in them will tell you how much veg oil was in them.

Veg oil is very common in dried fruits, it is there simply to stop them all sticking and clumping together. There is no need for the extra sugar though. I fell for the same crap, and I am an avid label reader. I got dried pineapple in holland & barret, and it was full of added sugar, it was sickly sweet.

The lemon juice is often to stop oxidation, if you cut an apple in half it goes all brown, but if you rub it with lemon juice I think it slows this down. I expect it was there for that reason.

A lot of hams I see have dextrose (sugar), I do not know why but I think it is very little, just read the "of sugars per 100g" bit. I also expect a lot of butcher meat would have similar stuff in it, at least you get some honest labels on some products.

Brian?

I know its not a health food but I picked up a tin of guacamole in a supermarket and it was 60% peas and only 10% Avacado. Needless to say I was a bit surprise and didn't buy it. It should really have been sold as tinned mushy peas with Avacado flavouring, but there you go.

cozmik

You can find dried berries in some health food shops with no added ingredients but they are very pricey!

Curlypinkie

Thanks Rubadub. I checked the Nutritional info and the fat content is actually very low, 0.8% in the blueberries and 0.2% in the cranberries.

However, I'm still amazed why they add sugar to a product like dried fruit, which would naturally be more sugary since concentrated...

Isn't there some kind of law that would prevent the manufacturer from naming a certain product if the content of the crucial ingredient, or how you may call it, wasn't high enough?

I mean, like the guacamole^^^ for example, should more or less just be avocado, garlic and some seasoning??

cormie

In the case of the guacamole, this is just a dip, there's no set quantities for the ingredients of this and thus couldn't be regulated I imagine?

Don't forget the sugars aren't counted as fat but is still very annoying to see sugar added to the likes of dried fruit. I had some apple rings from Holland and Barrett, it was closer than the usual place I get organic ones from, and my oh my, it just felt like I was chewing on something fake, the organic ones are yum and just dried apple, but the H+B ones had sulphur dioxide or some other preservative and you could really tell the difference.

Cranberry juice is bad too, look at your typical carton and it will be water, sugar and 17% cranberries.

r3nu4l

Yup, the Tesco Whole Foods range (The clear bags of dried fruits and nuts) are branded to appear wholesome and transparent (we're not hiding anything, what you see is what you get) can be very deceptive. Some of the dried fruits contain multiple added ingredients. Some of it is perservative, some of it as rubadub said, to stop them clumping together. You really have to examine the labels carefully to be sure that you are only eating what you think you are eating, even on something as simple as fruit and nuts.

rubadub

Curlypinkie wrote: »

Isn't there some kind of law that would prevent the manufacturer from naming a certain product if the content of the crucial ingredient, or how you may call it, wasn't high enough?

There are some, but they find ways around them. Could be "style", or "flavoured", or other tricks.

cormie wrote: »

In the case of the guacamole, this is just a dip, there's no set quantities for the ingredients of this and thus couldn't be regulated I imagine?

I would say this is the case alright.

cormie wrote: »

I had some apple rings from Holland and Barrett,

I think I saw them first, saw no sugar in them and presumed the pineapple would not too. Had to throw them out in the end, I have a sweet tooth but these were sick.

cormie wrote: »

Cranberry juice is bad too, look at your typical carton and it will be water, sugar and 17% cranberries.

If you read the cartons it will often say cranberry juice DRINK. Well drink in tiny letters! but that is the scam on these. AFAIK if it wasy cranberry juice it must be at a high %, like 95% or so. But once they put "drink" or some other term in the title you can almost be certain it is watered down.

Tesco have lots of "healthy living fruit juice drinks". Just water sweetner and juice. Cheaper to make your own, I still have yet to do it. Most kiaora types are juice, sugar/sweetener & citric acid.

I found my big bag of citric acid so might try making some. you can get citric acid in Asian food shops, normally used in sweet & sour dishes.

I am pretty sure most tins of mushy peas are the waste leftovers when they strip peas of fibre and/or protein for making supplements. i.e. you can buy concentrated pea fibre or pea protein. Get 2 same brand tins, one mushy one regular and compare the nutritional info, the mushy ones have feck all fibre. Worse still is that the snakes often charge more for this crap.


Batchelors Mushy Original Marrowfat Processed Peas (300g)
per 100g
83kcal
2.3g fibre

Batchelors Bigga Marrowfat Processed Peas (300g)
per 100g
75kcal
5.0g fibre

cormie

rubadub wrote: »

If you read the cartons it will often say cranberry juice DRINK. Well drink in tiny letters! but that is the scam on these. AFAIK if it wasy cranberry juice it must be at a high %, like 95% or so. But once they put "drink" or some other term in the title you can almost be certain it is watered down.

NSFW:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8LNGvgWnG8