Tuesday, February 11, 2014

It's worth reading the label!

With Tracy spending a lot of her time creating recipes, I, her devoted husband Bri, have become quite an efficient and effective grocery shopper, if I don't say so myself. I know all the spices and other items mentioned in Tracy's "Stocking your GF, DF & SF Pantry" section of her book. I know the importance of checking the ingredient list to ensure that the product is pure and that the manufacturer is not sneaking in some ingredient that Tracy would not want in her recipes. 

Well...I had an experience a few days ago that makes me mad and makes me want to re-emphasize what Tracy always says: that it pays to carefully check ingredient labels.

I  came home recently, the 21st century equivalent of the conquering caveman, with vast quantities of Grapeseed oil that I found on sale. So, because we go through grapeseed oil like..well, we go through it fast, and so I stocked up. Luckily, Tracy happened to ask if it was 100% grapeseed oil.

Excuse me?!? You are you perhaps implying that Moi, your Search & Secure Shopping Husband has fumbled the ball, muffed his assignment? Fat chance of that! So, I confidently displayed the bottle, knowing that good old Golchin wouldn't let me down on this one. Well, I started immediately backpedalling from my swagger when we took a close look at the label. Here's what it looked like:


Oh no, Golchin's gonna make me look bad here. I could sense it as intensely as I knew it was gonna break badly for the Broncos after Peyton Manning watched the first snap sail past him for a safety. I was on the wrong side of this one.

Down below the aggressively humongous, all caps "GRAPESEED OIL" appears in unassuming (I'd now call it microscopic) italics "Plus." Heck, that puny, pint-sized little "plus" hardly seems worth paying attention too, right?

Bingo!! That's what Golchin and other manufacturers want to happen. So, here's the set up. You're cruising through the market (maybe even quickly because there's a game you want to get home and watch) and you see a great deal on grapeseed oil. You glance at the bottle, which looks like it's grapeseed oil and confidently grab it and 2 or 3 more--happy you've scored a bargin.  But, have you? Let's look at the backside where the ingredients are listed:



Dang, dang, and double dang! Canola oil is listed FIRST!! In case you can't see it, it's in that tiny lettering just above the ISBN code. What about that King Kong sized "Grapeseed Oil" on the front of the label? Where is it listed? Second!! Seriously? Second? Not first? Hey, it's bad enought that you guys tricked me, but grapeseed is not even the main ingredient? You see, I know enough about all this to know that ingredients are listed in order of the percentage of the product they represent. So, with that tiny ingredient list on the back, they're telling me there's more canola oil than grapeseed oil. Well, so how much? It's bad enough it's there in the first place, but,we don't even know if it's 55-45 or 90-10 or...er, I'm Charlie Brown mad on this one.

Now, I don't know why Canola oil is persona non grata, but, trust me, I have it on good authority that it definitely is. So, I'm back to the market to exchange my 4 bottles of "GRAPESEED Plus" for some 100% grapeseed oil, and I kinda feel like someone just hiked the opening snap past me as I was saying "Omaha." Well, okay, not as bad as that. And, while I'm not trying to make excuses, I really do think the ambient noise in that market contributed to my mistake.

So here's the take away. Remember to read the label, especially when you see a product at a price that seems a little too good to be true.

~ Tracy's Husband Bri

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