oliviat17•1mo agoMost Upvoted

Remember when 'natural flavor' actually meant something?

I spent a solid 40 minutes in the store yesterday trying to find a pasta sauce without added sugar, because they all just list 'tomatoes' and 'natural flavors' up front. The sugar is always buried in the back. My grandma's old recipe jar from the 80s just says 'tomatoes, basil, garlic, salt' and that's it. When did the ingredient list become a game of hide and seek?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_zara1mo ago

Actually, "natural flavor" has always been a legal term, not a quality one... it just means the flavor came from a plant or animal originally. The real change is companies adding more cheap fillers like sugar and needing to hide it. Your grandma's jar is the goal, but the game has always been about the bottom line.

emmaj331mo ago

My last jar of jam was basically sugar with a fruit memory.

pat_schmidt601mo ago

A buddy of mine cracked open a jar of "premium" marinara last week and found high fructose corn syrup listed right before the garlic. He said it tasted like ketchup with oregano.