Sugar Cane and My Cool Whip Story

Posted by Reporter on Thursday

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I did a double-take. There in front of me on a random little black shelf in the produce section, strewn haphazardly below the shelf of big fat New Zealand kiwis, lay vacuum-packed single sticks of sugar cane! The cool thing about this:

• We are talking seriously mediocre grocery store where I would bet a lot of money they would never carry something like single sticks of sugar cane.
• Where can you buy relatively fresh sugar cane sticks?
• I felt my salivary glands awaken at the idea of sucking on the sweet cane juices.

Promptly my husband walks over and says, “Oh, you found the hippie sticks!”

On a darker note, I am mad at Kraft. I should be writing them a letter, but first I’ll share what I discovered in the frozen dessert case yesterday. I was supposed to be picking up a pint of B&J’s for Jeff, but I was distracted by all of the bright colors in the Cool Whip section. Then, from a distance I see, “Cool Whip — Sugar Free”. Okay, so I suspected the usual maltitol or Splenda that I seem to see in sugar-free ingredients lists but I decided to take a look. As I read the ingredients through the frozen glass door, I became surprised.

The first ingredient was water, if I’m remembering correctly, but the second ingredient, even before milk or oil, was corn syrup! Just “corn syrup” with a tiny asterisk. Okay so I followed the asterisk down to the bottom edge of the container and read something like, “Contains a trivial amount of sugar.” My question is, isn’t a trivial amount of sugar still sugar? Also, why would you print ingredients in the tiniest font in the world? I have excellent eyesight, yet the font made my eyes hurt.

It was a reminder to not believe everything you read on a label. I guess food industry geniuses figure most people will just look at the front label and not bother to check the list of ingredients. Little did Kraft know that I would discover their dirty little secret and share it on the world wide web! It infuriates me how labeling laws allow for this inconsistancy. To me, sugar-free means no sugar at all, otherwise, where do you draw the line and WHO draws the line? A “trivial” amount of sugar is quite subjective in my opinion! Also, if one were to eat the entire tub of cool whip, could it be considered sugar-free then, or did that person eat so many servings of “trivial” amounts of sugar that the total amount consumed wasn’t trivial anymore?

I don’t respect tricky marketing tactics like this, and I think if enough people complain, Kraft may own up to their misleading label.

It reminds me of the big argument a while back about the “fat free” butter spray that people would basically drown their toast with, “because they could.” But come to find out, “fat-free” only pertained to one serving size and after so many serving sizes the butter was definitely no longer fat-free!

Anyway, I have provided a link to the Cool Whip I am talking about because I think it’s so interesting. Do they count on their customers being so naive?

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