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Discussion » Questions » Shopping » I often tell people that the most important information on a food label is in the smallest print.

I often tell people that the most important information on a food label is in the smallest print.

I'm doing the weekly shopping online this morning. I'm always on the lookout for treats I can get for my special needs daughter. Two brands of sorbet are on sale today.

Halo Top Strawberry Fruit Sorbet, 16 oz. @3.50 (.22/oz. best buy?)
Ingredients: water; strawberry puree; soluble corn fiber; sugar; erythritol; strawberry juice from concentrate (water, strawberry juice concentrate); contains 1% or less of vegetable glycerin, natural flavors, lemon juice concentrate, citric acid, malic acid, modified cellulose, cellulose gel, cellulose gum, guar gum, carob bean gum, salt, stevia leaf extract (Reb M), beet extract for color, annatto extract for color...

Haagen-Dazs Raspberry Sorbet, 14 oz. @3.50 (.25/oz.) 
Ingredients: water; sugar; raspberry puree; corn syrup; pectin; lemon juice concentrate

Which is really the best buy?

Posted - February 5, 2023

Responses


  • 52936

     

      The latter.
      ~

      February 5, 2023 8:40 AM MST
    2

  • 17398
    I'm a faithful ingredient list checker.  Basically I don't want there to be one.  Last week I found that almost every brand of polish sausage now uses mechanically-separated chicken and/or turkey.  If you recall all the press that some fast food joints got about "pink slime" a couple years ago ............... well, that is what mechanically-separated is.  It made me sick and I threw two pounds of sausage into the trash.  Zatarain's Cajun Smoked Sausage does not contain the offensive chit.  Other higher-priced sausages are also free of it.  But the run of the mill brands like Hillshire Farms and Smithfield do.  Read those lists, girls and boys, and try to be safe out there. This post was edited by Thriftymaid at February 7, 2023 6:07 AM MST
      February 6, 2023 9:16 AM MST
    2

  • 52936

     

    Basically I don't want there to be one.”

      One what, please?


      ~

      February 6, 2023 3:04 PM MST
    0

  • 17398
    A list.  I say this pretty often. Example, my peanut butter has one ingredient......peanuts.  That is how we should buy our foods, in my opinion. 
      February 6, 2023 4:48 PM MST
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  • 52936

     

    Eye sea. Thank you for the clarification.
    ~

      February 6, 2023 7:26 PM MST
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  • 845
    You are correct. I just checked the Polish sausage that's been in my freezer for over a year. It does contain mechanically separated turkey. To me, that's no worse than all the types of sodium also listed. Usually about three or four times a year, I do eat this sort of thing. It's so hard to find what I call "unadulterated" food. So many of the unnecessary and objectionable ingredients in foods are not to improve the quality or the flavor, quite the opposite. They're used to make the product cheaper, to delay spoilage due to improper handling and distribution time, etc.
      February 6, 2023 5:35 PM MST
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  • 17398
    You might want to watch a video and see what the process is.  It is one of the grossest things ever.  USDA scientists quit their jobs when the USDA refused to alert consumers if this shit is in the food they buy.  There is no comparison to sodium.  While too much sodium  is not good for us, it isn't gross, nasty, horrific, etc. etc.  Pink slime used to only be used in animal feed, but now it's fine for it to be in human food.  The head of USDA when they made that decision has ties to the beef industry.  Shocker!

    This is not the most disgusting one I've seen, but maybe it won't make you nauseated. 
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87uBMXdIyjo This post was edited by Thriftymaid at February 7, 2023 6:06 AM MST
      February 7, 2023 6:05 AM MST
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  • 845
    No, I won't be watching how they process the product. I don't even want to watch how they butcher beef or pork. I am not a vegetarian and too old to change. I'm one of those people whose blood pressure was way too high so I started paying attention to sodium content 40 years ago. Now my blood pressure is low to normal* even though I've gained weight in those four decades. It's very scary how unnecessarily high the sodium content is in processed foods.

    Because of my daughter's birth defect, for 50+ years, I've had to read the ingredients on everything that comes into the house. It seems that you've been doing your homework as well. I do appreciate that. We both seem to be interested in passing on some knowledge. 

    You might not be helped by the original info I posted, but I find a lot of people who really don't know important differences between foods that may appear on the surface to be equal and to learn how to tell the difference.

    *Update: After a visit to my GP today, my blood pressure has been consistently low enough that I have been prescribed a drug used to treat low blood pressure. Good grief! This post was edited by NYAD at February 10, 2023 3:58 PM MST
      February 7, 2023 10:02 AM MST
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  • 9874
    I believe that food is an ingredient; it doesn't have ingredients.
      February 6, 2023 9:32 AM MST
    1

  • 5455
    I wouldn’t buy either one.  The ingredient that would disqualify the second one from my shopping list is corn syrup.
      February 6, 2023 12:14 PM MST
    3

  • 3684
    I'm surprised someone didn't pick you on "the best", of two! :-)

    Me? I'd not worry about either. I'd probably buy by price though the Haagen-Dazs does seem the better value by proportions of main ingredient.

    Most of the other ingredients are only vegetable extracts but their presence does dilute the title fruit proportion. I think the corn syrup Livvie avoids is there as a thickener.
      March 23, 2023 11:31 AM MDT
    0