by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Former Sugar-Cereal Junkie…
This week I had my students develop ideas for new energy drinks. Some of the health-conscious students had trouble determining how to sweeten their drinks without sugar or chemically contrived substitutes. (We Los Angelenos continuously seek ways to minimize our sugar consumption — it so clashes with our daily smog intake.)
We discussed the various natural substitutes, but they’re still basically sugar, with varying levels of glucose and fructose. Specific glucose and fructose levels matter to people who are hyper- or hypo-glycemic, but for most of us they result in the same thing: chubbiness. (I have the middle-aged-male inner tube to prove it.)
So I hit my local grocery stores to see what the major packaged food manufacturers are doing.
And some of the ingredient labels I found were funnier than the sketches on Saturday Night Live. (Then again, some of the Congressional testimonies on C-SPAN are funnier than the sketches on Saturday Night Live.)
The most popular S-word substitute was “honey.” Remember the breakfast cereal Sugar Smacks? In the ’80s, it magically became Honey Smacks. Healthier, right?
Except pure honey is 70% sugar and 17% water, and the stuff on breakfast cereal is mostly dehydrated. That’s right, it’s sugar. So Honey Smacks was still more than 50% sugar. Today, it’s simply called “Smacks” — but the sugar is still there for all who want it. Mmm.
I also found products “flavored with real maple syrup” — which is essentially flavored sugar.
On the trendy side of the aisle, I found agave, the natural sweetener du jour that’s mostly fructose (just like the vilified High Fructose Corn Syrup, but without the evil syrup stuff). And there were products sweetened with various fruit juices (also mostly sugar).
My favorite S-word substitute came from my favorite store, Trader Joe’s. For the uninitiated, Trader Joe’s sells low-priced gourmet and healthy foods in a friendly, unpretentious, and arguably liberal-yuppie atmosphere. And yet, they’re not immune to sneaky marketing speak. What does Trader Joe’s call sugar on some of its labels? Get this:
“Evaporated Cane Juice Solids”
Yep, that’s the textbook definition of sugar. You’ll also find “evaporated cane juice solids” listed as an ingredient on many bodybuilding nutritional supplements.
Just fun with words, right?
Not if you’re a diabetic who doesn’t immediately connect the dots.
Trader Joe’s and others can argue that they’re still abiding by truth-in-labeling laws, and yet I don’t see them calling salt “evaporated sea water solids,” milk “bovine mammary-gland secretions,” or honey “insect regurgitation.”
So while I admire cleverness, I’d prefer less of it on ingredient labels and more on Saturday Night Live. Now that would be sweet.
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Dig that? You might also dig this: Facts and Go Figure: The Sneaky Art of Justifying Anything
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