Who woulda thought?
I’ve been advocating reading labels on the foods you buy VERY CAREFULLY for years now. Who woulda thought that I would get caught – yet again – ingesting chemicals I don’t want to ingest because of making an assumption.
The other day I was looking at bag teas for my husband. He likes a fruity taste, specifically cranberry. I started reading labels cause I found an apple/cranberry tea & I wanted to see if cranberry was the first ingredient. To my surprise it wasn’t any ingredient! Well, both the apple and the cranberry were listed under apple & cranberry FLAVOURING – which I’m sure you know means that it could be any kind of chemical or natural anything. It’s a very sneaky way to list ingredients, and it leaves us still not knowing what’s in something as simple as tea. Which I take as there must be something the company wants to hide. Not good. Not buying that tea. Another horrifying footnote – there was soy on this same ingredient list! In my universe, there is no reason to put soy in my tea. Picture me in the grocery isle, huffing & puffing – an indignant bird dancing the ruffled feather dance.
On a more positive note, I read lots of tea labels that day and discovered that:
1. Organic teas have clearly labelled ingredients.
2. Loose leaf teas tend not to have anything weird on the label, although organic is still the better option. Loose leaf is mostly available in variations of green, black & white teas.
3. Since there were not very many fruity organic teas on the grocery store shelf, I’ll be checking out our local tea makers at the farmers market as well as experimenting myself.
NOTE TO SELF: Again … Take the time to read the labels no matter how familiar the food is.