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Comment on Nature Valley: 10 bars in 5 packs

notnotmike@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

The US has a lot of bullshit in their labeling requirements. My wife studied food science in university and some of her biggest complaints are:

Serving sizes aren’t always the entire package*
"Natural" has almost no meaning on a package, it is just a hand-waving word
They can hide a lot of things in the ingredients under umbrella terms like “spices” and “flavorings”
“Made with real juice” does not mean it was made with the juice on the label. For example, a pineapple fruit juice may be more apple juice than actually pineapple juice
They can round down to 0 calories if the actual amount is below 5

The most egregious example I’ve seen lately was a jar of pickles I bought where the serving size is 1/3 of a pickle (now the website says 1/2). That’s just so that the sodium doesn’t get out of control and, in all likelihood, because an entire pickle may be more than the 5 Calories allowed to say it’s “0 Calories”.

*This is changing, slowly. Manufacturers now have to put servings for the entire container if it’s small enough

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Carighan@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

“Natural” has almost no meaning on a package, it is just a hand-waving word

That’s partially because it’s useless in general, of course it’s natural, where else would you get it from? Every atom from a particle accelerator colision?!

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wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

“Made with real juice” does not mean it was made with the juice on the label. For example, a pineapple fruit juice may be more apple juice than actually pineapple juice

This gave rise to an amusing misunderstanding in our house. My wife asked for “Cranberry Juice, but 100% juice, not the cocktail; that’s too sweet.” I dutifully went to our store and found the Cranberry Juice cocktail, and also the juice that was mostly apple and white grape juice, because that’s always what they use here when they can. I thought, surely this must be very nearly as sweet, and kept looking. I eventually found the small, expensive bottle of 100% cranberry juice with no other juices and no sugar added.

This was a mistake.

Pure cranberry juice is not popular as a casual beverage for a reason. It is nasty. It tastes like I imagine the least dangerous acid kept behind the counter at the chemistry lab supply company tastes: safe for human consumption, but just barely and definitely deserving to be there behind the counter.

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- the_artic_one@programming.dev ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Are you sure you didn’t get the concentrate?
  
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  - wjrii@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Pretty sure. It was a 32 oz bottle on the same shelf as all the cocktails and blends.
    
    Now, to be fair, some people do recommend cutting pure cranberry juice with seltzer or water, but it was not specifically a concentrate.
    
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- mbfalzar@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I actually like the taste of pure cranberry juice, but it’s too expensive to buy just for drinking so I mostly end up drinking half the bottle while I cook holiday meals after I’ve started the cranberry sauce
  
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