I recently bought a bottle of cooking spray and then noticed later that it claimed to be "perfect for fat-free cooking"! It made me feel gross about the whole company, that they would assume they could trick me into thinking that oil could be "fat free" (and that they would try to do so).

My favorite is the chicken package that proudly proclaims "raised without added hormones." The USDA does not allow the use of hormones in poultry or swine so none of the chicken has added hormones.

It's like the packages of jellybeans that say "Fat Free!" They never had fat in them to start with but that still doesn't mean they're healthy.

I do this all the time! I know lots of grocery-store foods are made to last on the shelves as long as possible so that they're bought before they are supposed to go bad. But I'm the same way about the preservative thing. I say: an ingredient list for something should generally contain the same things I'd stock my home with if I were to actually be making it from scratch. If it has any extra stuff, then I pass it up. I try to bring *real* foods into my home. Plus, I try to make as much from scratch, but it isn't ideal to do everything that way. So I definitely get frustrated when I can't find a "real" or "natural" version of a particular food item at the grocery store!

I don't know what is behind those ingredients with scentific names. Did they add any arsenic, cancer causing agents to mass produce the products so businessmen can make quick money.
I eat fresh meats, fruits and vegetables. I buy sauces and condiments from certain countries. Certain countries food safety news would make me scare. Hope those contaminated or with questionable ingredient products have not reach our store selves.

My favorite semi-untruth: "Evaporated cane juice"

It's sugar!

Okay, it's slightly less processed sugar cane, but at the end of the process, it comes out the same sucrose that's in the evil product known as "sugar."

Definitely. Really ever since the whole Pirate's Booty debacle. Packages of chicken that brag about being cage-free (aren't all chickens cage free?), labels that can easily trick the ill-informed, and the fact that FDA guidelines aren't religiously enforced and tested - all of this leads me down the road of homemade whenever possible. I don't buy organic because money is tight, but making home made whenever possible and avoiding packaged foods is good enough for me.

"Am I being paranoid?'.... 'What do you think?"

Yes... and perhaps naive.

Food labels are carefully crafted to get to product off the shelf and into your debit card. They will not educate you about hormones or jellybeans. Sorry. Same is true of perfume, late-night abb-firmers, and bulldozers.

I'm with phoxx but my favorite is "With real and artificial flavoring!!!" Uh, really? Then again, I don't buy a lot of foods with "labels" on them soo....

I think phoxx has summed it up perfectly. I buy most of my food at the Farmer's Market. No labels just simple, good food.

Evaporated cane juice, is, in fact, a mark of quality. Cane sugar is higher quality than beet sugar, tastier too. And much better than any of the super processed or fake alternatives. And less processed than agave.

And with most if not all beet sugar soon to be GMO, I'll be searching it out.

I hate egg packages that use all sorts of euphemisms to avoid saying 'caged eggs', and try to appear free range. Unless it says free range here in Australia, there's no guarantee it is. The worst is one with the brandname 'Happy Eggs' which are cage eggs, the eggs may be happy now that they're free but the chickens certainly aren't.
Also chicken with no hormones. Hormones are banned in Australia. So they wouldn't have them anyway.

The ingredients are most certainly regulated. The problem is you'd have to memorize all the limitations, defenitions and guidelines that the food companies follow to be within certain limits. For example, I'm pretty sure that if wheat is the first ingredient, and sugar is the second, they are allowed to have equal amounts of each ingredient even if one is second and one is first.

Don't ever read the claim and expect it to be accurate - if you're reading the label on the front, that's an advertisement. Some regulations exist for claims, but the real info is on the back with the ingredient list. Unless it's certified in some way, the front of the package tells you nothing.

Green claims are even worse - not regulated hardly at all by the FTC.

I don't really know what this whole post is about, the author sounds completely paranoid and intentionally trying to stir up fear. Would have been better as a facebook status update or a tweet, to be honest.

"Packaged foods are bad. My instincts tell me so."

If one is already determined not to believe the nutrition/calorie information on the package, why bother reading it at all?

Reading the packaging finally relieved my guilt at not wanting to make rice at home. Plain rice turns out to be essentially empty carbs (which come in forms I like better) and packaged rice mixes are mostly salt. Literacy is your friend!

Pick up a copy of Marion Nestle's What to Eat. She breaks down what all those labels mean and what is most likely in the food, both processed and fresh. Her writing is a little boring because she writes in an impartial and didactic tone (unlike Michael Pollan), but it is very informative to say the least. You'll have a much better understanding of food when you're done--guaranteed.

I dont' trust most food. I eat very little red meat because I accidentally watched a documentary on how it's prepared. I learned that most pre-made hamburger patties are washed in ammonia. I don't care how safe it is, there is no way in hell I would do that in my kitchen, and therefore won't eat it.

I read all labels, but even then, I feel like the deceit in labeling is crazy.

I don't trust "natural" versions of products that are decidedly unnatural--like Lays potato chips. When I do buy chips, I buy them at Whole foods or Trader Joe's, or from a small manufacturer. I just don't trust a large corporate conglomerate that's known for junk food.

If it needs to be advertised, it's probably not good for you.

In Canada, the nutritional information on a box of Lucky Charms is the same (or nearly) as on a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. Colour me skeptical.

Of course, we do have stricter food guidelines here than in the U.S., so maybe they are accurate. We can't even get rainbow Goldfish crackers or Count Chocula here.

My favorite is buying fresh meats and seeing the "THIS IS GLUTEN FREE" --- why would meat have gluten in it??

@Jen - that cracks me up too. We saw a bag of peanuts with that label on it. Anything to sell a product, right? Even exploiting someone's illnesses or fears.

@Sherme check this out

http://www.triplepundit.com/2009/09/smart-choices-food-label-claims-froot-loops-are-a-okay/

I try to buy mostly fresh fruits and veggies, and good quality cheeses. I make my own salad dressings. I also try to buy things with 5 or fewer ingredients (all that I can understand.) That way, I avoid problems.

@Emmi and @jenawithonen -

Actually, it can be very important for nuts and even meat to have those labels.

Nuts are frequently processed on the same equipment that handles wheat, and thus cannot be guaranteed to be gluten-free unless the product is lab-tested.

As for meat? Well, cooked deli meats can contain flavourings or additives derived from barley or wheat.

If you're talking about raw meat, even that isn't necessarily safe, especially whole poultry or other items that have been injected with a "saline solution." This can be found in the fine print - usually something along the lines of "may contain up to whatever % added water" and it also can contain gluten; for instance, last I checked, the solution Butterball turkeys are injected with contains barley-derived flavouring. If it's wheat-derived, the company is required by law to disclose it on the label, because it's among the top 8 allergens - but barley does NOT have to be disclosed on the label and can be hidden under the vague term "natural flavour." So yes, gluten can unfortunately be found in some very strange places, and accurate labelling is essential.

On the other hand, since there are currently no official standards for what can be labelled gluten-free, companies can unfortunately put "gluten-free" on the label even if they haven't done any tests to confirm that it actually is...

Sorry to go off on such a tangent, but I have celiac disease, so reading labels - and often, having to be skeptical of them - is all too familiar to me. Even avoiding processed foods doesn't solve the problem - as I've explained, I even have to closely examine "single-ingredient" foods like nuts, rice, etc. to see if there's any chance the product could contain traces of gluten.

If half the ingredients are unpronounceable or all the way down the label, I just say next one.