Sunday, June 29, 2008

The Dumbing Down of the American Palatte


My first day at the Fancy Food Show in NY held few
surprises. Overall the products on display had less flavor, less oomph
than ever before. Sweet seems to have overtaken almost all other
seasonings.

Jalapeno Pretzels...a promising snack...third ingredient SUGAR. More dessert than Jalapeno.

Health drinks that advertising as sugar free had so much Stevia to sweeten them that they tasted like syrup.

Habanero salsas that tasted of corn syrup rather than Habanero.

There
were so many offenders that I cannot name or mention them all. Suffice
it to say that product makers are becoming less and less creative with
flavor and more and more reliant on sugar. It's offensive.

A few notable exceptions were just pik't
grapefruit juice, a delicious fresh squeezed product. Their orange was
made with such sugary sweet oranges however it was undrinkable. I can't
imagine what hybrid produced oranges with absolutely NO tang whatsoever.

Fabrique Delices Charcuterie does some beautiful all natural Pate among many other cured meat produces. Absolutely delicious.

Sweet Riot...the name is awful but they make delicious chocolate nibs covered in dark chocolate. They were among the least sweet entries at the show.

READ
the ingredient labels on anything you are seeking to buy, especially
new products. If you see sugar (and it's not dessert), corn syrup or
any variation thereof put it back on the shelf. Save your tastebuds for more worthy savories.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You really are consistent. I searched your site for postings containing the word sugar and found one sweet mention and your use of a tiny bit as a yeast starter.

I find it really hard to reduce sugar in my diet, but find when I do the weight drops off.

I am VERY dissapointed to hear that it is being added to more new products that don't need it.

WTF is corn syrup doing in pretzels?

Karl said...

I would encourage everyone to read the labels of everything.

"Healthy" breads are often filled with corn syrup and hydrogenated fats. Crackers and as mentioned pretzels are often worse.

Never choose Skip of Jiffy Peanut butter...ie Crisco with peanut flavor and sugar. If you purchase a store brand use Smuckers.

Fake ingredients are very bad for our health. Natural and local are the keywords to a healthy diet.