Do you read the label for ingredients and nutritional information ?

Most of the time, yes. The rest of the label can be misleading. For example, “whole wheat”
or “whole grain” breads can still contain white flour, which I avoid as much as possible. I don’t find the ingredient lists to be confusing. If something is unfamiliar, I look it up.

I’d never heard of this. I’ll have to add it to a growing list on my Amazon Prime order. :wink:

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It’s the Platonic ideal of ketchup.

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With that kind of recommendation, how can I not try it out?

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I read labels on everything. There is just wayyyy too much weird crap in foods.

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I read the origin, I won’t buy made in China and I try to buy Made in the USA as much as I can.

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Yes, anytime I’m buying a brand or variety of canned/packaged/processed food, I try to understand what’s in it. I also do the “compare a few options” and pick the one that seems to have the least chemical additives. I also note serving size and number. A smaller package/can with a ridiculously large number of servings will confirm if the nutritional info is BS or not.

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To keep it shelf-stable and maintain an appetizing consistency while at room temperature for weeks at a time? Just throwing that out there.

I wish I could remember the exact source and percentages, but several years ago I learned that virtually all processed food “made in the USA” contains at least SOME, and usually a LOT of, ingredients from China and other parts of Asia. If, say, a pasta sauce contains onion and tomato, they were probably grown and dried there, then shipped to American manufacturing plants. Labeling doesn’t tell you this, and it is virtually impossible to track imported ingredients to their source. An American company may import, say, chili powder from one country, but THAT country probably bought some of the components from China.

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Yes gg I have heard that too, in particular with honey and garlic which is frequently from China, then added to US made products and branded as Made in the USA. We can only do so much.

I don’t buy a ton of processed foods but I do tend to read labels. I don’t actually know when I started doing it, but now I always do. I buy a lot of canned tomatoes and I always read the label because they often have basil in them.

This actually got me thinking and I did a quick look. Most of the processed foods in my kitchen have less than 5 ingredients. I think that was A recommendation that Michael Pollan made in one of his books. So yay!!

Yes I read ingredient labels for what I feel comfortable with consuming. I look at number of ingredients and look out for others. Then scan sugar, salt and sometimes protein. Then I typically start to get frustrated with crap processed products and/or the healthier more $$S options.

I get busy and have to eat sometimes befores it gets too late. So need to work on one day cooking for the week in batches from scratch, and having leftovers freezer stuff.

Lots of deal breaker ingredients on those labels for me. The worst questionable, universally added in “pull the wool over your eyes” ingredient IMO, has to be a fat that they say is not a Trans fat, and act like it’s good for you, I’m talking about refined oils here, like Canola oil, Sunflower, and Safflower. These are preservative, shelf life oils, that might be better than an actual Trans Fat oil but are still bad for you. They are also getting sneaky and instead of using the word "partially Hydrogenated they will say fractionated Palm Kernel oil.

Saturated fat content is not always an easy one either. If the product has high saturated fat and is processed heavily then i am more concerned about it and avoid. Not all saturated fat is bad for you, like eskimo diet and I dont have a problem with the high saturated fat in a good quality organic milk product. I know the raw cheese and raw milk i sometimes drink is high in saturated fat but am not worried about it from that source.

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And chicken, which we send to China for processing into forms that are then added to U.S. food products. Another reason to buy only fresh, unprocessed, whole foods you can see, feel and recognize in their original forms and not packaged stuff.

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