About a week or so ago, I was barrelling down the last aisle of my grocery store, in a rush because I had about twelve minutes left to get through the check-out, and boogie about six blocks to the preschool to collect my Little. It’s always a bit of a mad dash.
Anyway, I passed the freezer section and remembered that I promised the children I’d get some ice cream – we’d been out for over a week, and they’d been asking for some. My mental running total of the grocery bill was near the maximum, so my eyes scanned the frozen dairy case, looking for some acceptable vanilla ice cream, the store’s private label, or whichever one wouldn’t cost me, say, ten dollars. Just… less. C’mon, it’s ice cream!!
So. I see the store’s black-and-white brand, find the word vanilla on the tub, toss it into the cart, and sprint to the cash. And thanks to the shopping gods, I got into the world’s shortest line ever and pitched all my stuff onto the conveyor belt.
Baby carrots. Cucumber. Milk. Cheese. Meats. Frozen corn. Eggs. Ice cream. Crackers. Bread. Cereal.
Wait.
Did that say Ice Cream Product? Did it really? What does that mean? Never mind… no time… no time… just go, woman. Late! GO!!
Several evenings later, Martin casually says, “Hey… you know that ice cream you bought? Well, you know… it was the worst ice cream I’ve ever had. It tastes kinda wrong, and I think it even made me feel kinda wrong afterward… just, not great, you know?”
This is coming from a man who would eat just about anything. ANYTHING!!
I go to the freezer and retrieve the tub, and indeed, it says Ice Cream Product. Then I read the contents (get ready…) Modified milk ingredients, maltitol, corn maltodextrin, mono- and diglycerides, locust bean gum, cellulose gum, guar gum, polysorbate 80, natural and artificial flavours, colour (contains tartrazine), carrageenan, sucralose (2.7 mg/serving).
Man, I wish you could see the spell-check going crazy on that last paragraph.
Now, I confess that I don’t always read the labels on everything I buy, a) because I’m lazy, and 2) because I make so much of our food from scratch, I’m not worried about the small quantities of “prepared” things we eat, such as taco seasoning mix (which is a once in a while thing).
I liken it to getting soft-serve ice cream – you KNOW it’s got all kinds of bad stuff in it… but it won’t likely kill you, especially if you don’t eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So with the ice cream (product) I bought, I though, it’s ice cream… how bad can it be?
I was expecting to see some actual foods listed, though. Like eggs. And sugar – real sugar, I mean. And real milk. And vanilla.
Yeah, I won’t buy that again. I’ll pony up an extra three dollars or whatever for any other brand with a list of ingredients I can at least understand.
Manufacturers are constantly looking to lower production costs, so they can net a larger profit – I understand this – but shouldn’t there be a line drawn somewhere? Doesn’t it seem kinda criminal to be allowed to even sell such a product?
Gross.
Uchhhh… isn’t it awful, Alice? Wow.
I’ve been finding the same scariness reading the labels of hand soaps lately in an attempt to buy soaps that don’t contain parabens and petrol products. Scary stuff, even in the less bad ones.
There is some soy ice cream that even tastes decent, if you are looking for that, too. Natura, I think?
It might have been… though I think there was another option on the shelf that said “low fat” which I promptly left behind (no thanks!) but this was no better. Never again. Oy.
Christine,
Can he have soya? I wonder if those fun ball ice cream makers would work with soya milk? Just a thought.
Or, freeze a banana and some berries and then whip them up, they turn out sort of like ice cream.
If it does not say ice cream on the label it is not ice cream. Have you seen the commercial about that? Most of the companies have what is called frozen desert now and it comes in a tub like ice cream, but is made with oil. I guess they found a way of substituting eldible oils for the cream. Look for the blue cow to get ice cream.
What you picked up sounds like a diet product with artificial sweetener.
Ack!! That is just awful – it’s so necessary that you stay away, of course. But yes – grrrrr….
Yes, I’m looking for some good gluten-free items, like bread crumbs – that would be rad, Christine!
I’m an astute label reader from Cuyler’s gluten and dairy/casein free diet.
It’s frustrating because the only “ice cream” that I can serve him has all those ingredients listed on yours plus about 30 more AND it costs 8 dollar for a small tub.
Might not have wheat or dairy in – but it has a shite load of shite in it.
Grrrr…
Was it you who wanted info on gluten free? I’ll email you my faves!
Right? I know, sistah. This should be waaaaay easier. Poo.
Grossness.
If you can’t pronounce it and none of the root words make sense, don’t buy it.
Easy rule. Sort of. But not really.
Yeesh, Desi… that sounds like all kinds of hell. Outside of the gluten I’m avoiding on my husband’s behalf, I just don’t read the labels much – that’s bad, I know – but in my case it’s easy(ish.) Food allergies like this must be SO HARD to get around!! Wow.
But in any respect, food that doesn’t contain any food is kinda… scandalous. And where is Miguel, anyway? My drink needs refreshing…
My kids are allergic to everything (eggs, nuts, spinach, some grains, most non-food additives, etc, etc,), so I have to read labels. And it sucks. I’ve spent literally hours googling the chemical additives in their food, laundry detergent and care products to make sure I’m not using anything that could irritate their skin and/or cause one of those creeping allergic reactions that makes them sick for a week or so. So, yeah, it makes me crazy that so much of the “food” at the grocery store doesn’t actually contain any food. ‘Cause if it did? I would be lounging on a chaise somewhere, sipping a drink with an umbrella in it, while someone named Miguel hand-feeds me peeled grapes and fans me with banana fronds. Or, at least, that’s what I’d rather be doing when I’m looking up the azodicarbonamide in Roger’s All-Purpose Flour.
EW!!
I think that “product” line might have to do with how the milk is separated…or something. It all just sounds so bad.
I know. Sadly, the smaller tub always feels like a rip off… you get what you pay for, right? But seriously – this shouldn’t be an option for consumption. Terrible!!
Roasted sheep’s head has only one ingredient, so by Tracey’s reasoning, “the less ingredients the better” it is the best.
I remember hearing something about how McDonalds couldn’t call their soft serve stuff “ice cream” because it didn’t actually have any cream in it…is adding “product” on to the end a way to get around transparency??
Totally agree. It is worth extra $ even for a smaller tub to enjoy the real thing!
Yes, but did you eat the roasted sheep’s head? Ew.
The less ingredients, the better. Always.
I just had a two meat pies in a remote village in the Eastern Cape. No artificial ingredients at all. No filler, no chemicals. One steak & kidney, one lamb & mint. I have never had anything so good, and I often go vegetarian.
uhh, I passed the lambs and calves on the way out.