28 August, 2011

When is "All Natural" NOT All Natural?


Cabot Sour Cream claims on its label to be "All Natural!" but a look at the ingredients panel tells a different story - it contains "modified corn starch, guar gum, sodium citrate, carageenan, locust bean gum."

Apologists may argue that guar gum, carageenan, and locust bean gum are all "natural" products (guar gum is an extract of the guar bean, carageenan has it's origin in seaweed, and locust bean gum comes from, well, locust beans) but no matter how you try to spin it, sodium citrate and modified corn starch are both heavily processed manufactured products.  I am not saying any of this stuff is harmful - only that it seems to me that a dairy product which is made by so many other producers out of nothing but milk, cream, and culturing enzymes should not carry an "all natural" label when it is so full of unnecessary shit that serves only as low-cost filler.

An identically-sized container of generic no-name sour cream at the same store, stocked right next to the Cabot sour cream, had no gums or dubious thickeners in it at all and was selling for less than half the price of Cabot.

3 comments:

Alyse said...

Quar gum and all that stuff is "natural", however, sour cream does not naturally need that stuff. That's how I view things, if it can stand on it's own, then it's natural, if not, it's doctored up shit. Some p-nut butter companies put oil in peanut butter. It may be natural, but completely unnecessary. The end.

MrsBug said...

That's because "all natural" is simply a marketing term; the FDA (I believe) has not applied a standard definition to it. Therefore, woohoo!! Field day with the meaningless terms!!

Seeing 'All natural' on a product immediately makes me look at the ingredient label. Call me a skeptic...

Foodin New England said...

Kindalike a lot of the "Organic" items......i just get a kick out of it.. and the ignorance of the people that believe it...