Sunday, May 9, 2010

Food scams 101

I feel cheated and betrayed. Have you ever had a one night-stand with a guy that you thought was gorgeous that night, but the booze wore off and reality set in the next morning and he turned out to be horrifying? Did you sneak out quietly feeling disgusted and unsatisfied? No? Me either. But I imagine that this feeling is similar to the way I felt after looking at the label of my half-consumed Fuze drink yesterday.

I was picking up a few items at the grocery store after running some other errands. On my way out of the produce section there was a refrigerated drink cooler with Vitamin Waters, flavored Dasani, spring water, juices, and other juice type drinks. I noticed a row of Fuze and scanned through the different flavors. Citrus Prickly Pear. My brain said, "Dude that sounds delicious! Get it!". So I obeyed. (Yes, my brain calls me Dude.) I took that and my other purchases and finished up my errands.

I got home and after putting things away, I grabbed my newly acquired drink and a snack. The Citrus Prickly Pear Fuze was quite tasty. It was really refreshing as well. But then there was an aftertaste. I kept tasting the essence of apple juice a few minutes after taking a sip. I looked at the ingredients to see if there was apple juice in it. I know many juice cocktails or fruit drinks will use several different kinds of fruit juices aside from the main flavors as fillers or sweetners as to avoid added sugar. Sure enough, there was apple juice in the ingredient list. But I kept reading out of curiosity. My fears were confirmed. The only thing citrus about the drink was citric acid. There was nothing remotely prickly pear mentioned at all. After a discussion of this matter with some friends, we concluded that it's possible the vague ingredient(s) of "natural flavors" could be the extract of these fruits. Regardless of that, I'm extremely annoyed. Basically, I paid $1.50 for some apple juice with chemicals and additives. I'm not impressed at all. I would have rather it all just been artificial flavorings and tons of sugar. This is such a scam. I guess this is what we can expect from large corporations, sadly.

I feel like I've been lied to. If you're going to call something Citrus Prickly Pear, why not actually use those ingredients? Yes it would cost more. But I think it would be more satisfying to actually taste those things instead of some funky apple juice. I wouldn't put an apple crisp on a menu and serve you pineapple spears when you ordered the apple crisp.

This will teach me to not read labels before buying something. READ THE LABELS ON THE PRODUCTS YOU'RE BUYING, PEOPLE! Don't make the same mistake I did.

Elle

1 comment:

  1. I've been on a mission to eliminate high fructose corn syrup from the house, so I've been reading a lot of labels lately. It's kind of scary how many things have what seem like entirely unnecessary chemicals in them. Applesauce. Why does applesauce need high fructose corn syrup? There's a case where you'd think using apple juice would be the intuitive answer, no?

    TL;DR: I, too, have felt cheated and betrayed by food and drink manufacturers lately.

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