Reading Labels

[Guest guest]

Being new to this forum, I'm coming in late to the discussion about reading

ingredients on labels to determine whether a product is " legal. "

I don't know whether you all have covered the issue of " fresh pack " vs. products

made from concentrate. By law a product, such as canned whole tomatoes can only

use the words " fresh packed " if the fruit is only cooked once between the field

and the can. Usually, this happens within a matter of a few hours.

A tricky wording is " vine-ripened. " At the moment there is controversy in the

industry about the meaning of this term and when it can be used.

Many tomato products in the store, especially the bottled spaghetti sauces are

oooked at least twice. The bigger canners such as Hunts and Heinz, for example,

often quickly process tomatoes in the summer harvest to be reprocessed later in

the year into the final sauces that appear on store shelves. The word for this

is " remanufacturing. " Because the " fresh pack " description is so valued, if it's

not there, the tomatoes were probably remanufactured. If an ingredient is

" tomato paste " you know it has been remanufactured.

Another phrase that has legal import is " Not from concentrate. " This, too

implies that the product, such as fruit juice, was only " cooked " once. The

example of 100% grape juice begs the question, is it from concentrate?

I should think that " fresh packed " or " not from concentrate " products would have

priority over remanufactured foods when determining whether a product is

" legal. " They usually taste better and retain more of the original nutrition.

Two cautions. Italian labeling laws differ from American laws so the label on an

import may not accurately describe how the product was processed according to

FDA regulations.

Also, when one company acquires another, the product name and label may remain

the same, but sometimes the processing changes. For example, Muir Glen has been

owned by at least three different companies that I know of. Sometimes the packer

is a subsidiary of a larger company such as General Foods. Conversely, private

labels, such as Trader Joe's Whole Italian Tomatoes may cover cans that are made

by several different companies.

I don't mean to make this even more complicated, but it can take a lot of

sleuthing to tease out the relationships between labels and the companies that

produce, vs the umbrella company that owns it as a subsidiary. Many of the

" health food " labels that lead consumers to believe they are supporting small

independent entrepreneurs have been acquired by the " big guys. " It's another

case of " buyer beware. "

Shirley