Don't Lie to Me, Okay?

Since it's around Christmas time and everyone gives and gets food and food baskets, we're all eating more than we probably should - grazing through the cookies and candy and stuff. While I graze I read. I want to know what it is that I'm eating and yesterday I came across something that was more than a little disturbing.

Here's the back of the package:

Now look closer:

Yum! Butter! Uhhhh, Not.

Nowhere in this list of ingredients does it say milk or butter or cream or anything cow related - even though the package comes with an allergen warning which declares the product contains milk:

Now to most people this isn't bothersome. To me it is. It's like GMOs to some people. I don't get up in arms about that because if you want to get really technical, hybrid plants are GMOs. Like most of the vegetables you buy at the grocery - including the "organic" veggies. Before laboratories sprang up, Luther Burbank was busily cross-pollinating plants to bring out certain qualities, like resistance to disease, or faster growing or other stuff. We're still growing and eating the strains of plants he created via cross-pollination (tomatoes being one).

Anyway. It all comes down to truth in advertising. Food labeling is taken very seriously by the FDA and this could qualify as a game changer for this company. You do not lie to the consumer when you package your product.

What's even more interesting is that I went to this company's website which is shown on the other side panel of the box, and this product isn't even listed. Which raises another red flag. Just where did this stuff come from?

According to the expiration panel on the box, these will allegedly stay fresh for another year (eww), so it's not like this is an old product. Baked goods usually keep for six months to one year and then they expire. Anything beyond that means the product probably contains plastic or something. I'm joking, really - it's just a joke! But think about it - how long can a baked product be expected to keep under ordinary circumstance?).

I work in the food industry and I spoke to our Director of Quality about this - sent her the images I have here - and she was the one who pointed out the discrepancy between the ingredients list and the allergen panel (which I had missed). This is serious stuff.

So, being me, I filed a complaint with the FDA. You don't mess with the food people eat. Not here in America, anyway. Now we'll see. Given how our complaint against the nursing home went after they nearly killed my MIL, I expect this will take months to get going, but whatever. I have the pictures.

And the "dig" at the nursing home is true. If you care, the post in which I talk about it can be found here: https://philippastories.blogspot.com/2015/06/friday.html

That complaint took more than a year before we got the report that said that they had verified our claim and said if we wanted to file suit we would have a leg on which to stand. We chose (hubby and MIL, actually) not to. It would have been too difficult for MIL to go through the process, so we declined.

Anyway. I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime, I will be more diligently reading the package labels of the stuff that I shove in my pie hole and if one of the primary ingredients is claimed - butter (a primary component of shortbread) - but is missing from the ingredients, I won't be scarfing that down.

Fortunately, I ate one of these things yesterday and I'm still here to complain about it, so it didn't kill me. Maybe I'm stronger? Hmmm. Nah. Probably not.

So read the panels, compare the claims to the labeling and eat well!

Best~
Philippa

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