Food fights, Episode II

Disclaimer: Uh, rather than copying the whole thing, I refer you to the disclaimer atop my last post.

I've always been a label reader, but until I started looking for artificial dyes and a few other specific ingredients after all the food research this year, I had no idea just how messy typical grocery store fare is.

Example 1: When I was shopping for snacks for Boy 1's class (more on that later), I discovered that for many brands, you can buy applesauce with no sugar or coloring added in the large, family-size jar, but not in the little single-serving cups. For other brands, just the opposite is true--cups are good, jars, not so much. Huh?

Example 2: Perhaps this has been the case for a long time, but since I never bought single-serving cups of fruit before Boy 1 started school, it was new to me. Many brands pack fruit cups in syrup only, not juice--not even the brands that do offer juice instead of syrup in the large can. Worse, some of the single-serving fruit is "in gel." That is, suspended in artificially flavored and colored gelatin. I don't think Jell-o salad in itself is a sin, but I do think there's something less than transparent about calling Jell-o salad "fruit in gel" and then stocking it in the canned fruit section, as though it's a less-artificial, less-sugary option.

Example 3: When it comes to coloring, there's a lot of senseless contradiction in packaged foods. One of our local store brands offers a frozen pink lemonade concentrate that's colored with grape skins. The same brand of grape juice concentrate, however, is chock full of Red #40 and Blue #1. So...if grape skin extract makes a color good enough for lemons, why the heck isn't it good enough for grapes?

Example 4: Another color contradiction: Some manufacturers persist in calling artificials by their alternate names (tartrazine, carmine, sunset yellow, etc.) instead of Yellow #5 or the other FD&C numbered names. There seems to be no rhyme or reason for which name is used. Within the same brand, the same color will go by both names in different products. The variation annoys me because it's a lot trickier to scan a label for names than for numbers (and I'd rather not spend hour upon hour in the aisles every trip).

I'm bugged even more by what we believe is okay to eat because the authorities appear to approve it. I'm aghast at just how little value there is in FDA approval when it comes to consumables. Sometimes it looks like oversight has been less than stringent, but I think more often it's because marketers have a limitless imagination when it comes to doing end-runs around FDA. For the most part, what's in the fine print is what's regulated. What appears on the splashy front label is...ahh...up for interpretation.

Example 1: Many, many bottles of fruit juice say "100% Juice" on the front even though the ingredient list shows added water, sugar, vitamins and minerals, coloring, and/or preservatives. And yet it's perfectly legal to market it as 100%. Call me prissy, but I think it's false to label something 100% when it's actually 85%. Not even 95% is, in fact, equal to 100, whether it's legal to say so or not.

Example 2: The two national brands and one store brand of baby cereal we get here are called "Single-Grain Oatmeal" and "Single-Grain Rice" on the front. But the ingredient list reveals that they each are made of two or three different grains. I fail to see what would be the marketing disadvantage to just calling it "Rice Cereal" and dropping the untrue "Single-Grain."

Example 3: Terms you might think are absolute, are not. Check out this summary from the USDA for just one example, the many ways the word "organic" may be used on a label.

Example 4: We've known for a while that Girlie's eczema, rashes, etc. are triggered in part by fragrances, so it's not just food on my label-reading agenda. Lo and behold, personal products labeled "unscented" are not necessarily free of fragrance. Check a few "unscented" items' inactive ingredient lists. Betcha you'll find at least one that contains "masking fragrance."

My new rule of thumb: Ignore the front label. Only the ingredient list is believable...and that, only sometimes. More and more brands are getting nixed from my grocery basket because their ingredient lists are too vague to be useful. I mean, how specifically informative are phrases like "color added" or "and other added vitamins"?

This is coming from someone with kids with relatively minor sensitivities to two classes of nonessential ingredients. For us, exposure is uncomfortable, not lethal. I can't begin to imagine how someone working around a disabling or life-threatening allergy or condition would navigate grocery aisles.

All of this together is a large part of the reason I so missed our backyard garden this past year. I'm aiming to have it back in the spring. The more I can make myself, the less I will have to worry about labels. It's also part of why I've been doing slightly out-there experiments in things like homemade yogurt, cheese, and, if I can eventually find a formula I'd like to try, soap.

Don't look now, but I think this is where to road to trading sneakers for hippie sandals begins.