Without Half & Half, I will forego the coffee and have tea.
The other day, we were out of Half & Half and for whatever reason did not get some the night before. So Hubba went out early so we could have our delicious morning coffee.
He came home with our non-normal brand and poured our coffees.
It tasted funny.
I chalked it up to it being the non-normal, non-organic brand but I really didn't like it.
So when I went for a warm-up, I noticed that the Half & Half was Fat Free.
What?!
We've made the mistake a few times. It's part of the risk we take shopping at the mainstream supermarket. With the packaging, product placement and shear volume of chemically-altered "foods" it's really easy to accidentally come home with Fat Free versions of foods that are supposed to contain fat.
We've since gotten some actual Half & Half. But before we dumped the chemical version, I decided to read the labels.
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The Fat Free "Half & Half" contains Skim Milk, Corn Syrup, Cream, Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Mono and Diglycerides, Vitamin A Palmitate and Added Color.
There is a warning that this product contains Milk. Yes, that's right. There is a warning that this Milk Product contains... Milk.
There is added color, because all that non-milk stuff apparently doesn't naturally look like milk.
The Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate and Glycerides appear to be present to stabilize and thicken the Skim Milk-Corn Syrup mixture. Where the Dipotassium Phosphate and Vitamin A Palmitrate appear to be there to "fortify" the chemically altered food.
There is added color, because all that non-milk stuff apparently doesn't naturally look like milk.
The Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate and Glycerides appear to be present to stabilize and thicken the Skim Milk-Corn Syrup mixture. Where the Dipotassium Phosphate and Vitamin A Palmitrate appear to be there to "fortify" the chemically altered food.
There is also a warning that the small amount of cream and glycerides add a "trivial amount of fat."
I'm generally not a label reader so my first reaction was just wow and yuck.
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As for the Organic Half & Half, the ingredients are Organic Grade A Milk and Organic Cream.
No warnings. Just Half Milk and Half Cream and a Thank You for choosing their product.
There are a lot of natural alternatives to cow's milk half & half... although difficult to find at the local mainstream supermarkets. So am I just naive or are consumers really requesting this stuff??
Whoah! That's amazing. And not in a good way. It's not really such a thing over here in the UK. Milk is still milk and when you buy it, even from a supermarket, it's expected that all of it came out of an animal (unless you're buying soya milk, or similar).
ReplyDeleteOn a similar theme, I remember being horrified when I compared the list of ingredients on a store-bought victoria sponge with the list of ingredients in the cookery book.
Apparently people are, cause such is ALL OVER.
ReplyDeleteI recently happened apon a local dairy that sells "creamline" milk. Its whole cows milk, thats not been homogized. We don't usually do whole milk (husband likes 2% and I do cream in my coffee and don't care what I bake with), but this is awesome stuff. They have a chocolate milk that is absolutely divine....
I don't think I've ever heard of "creamline" milk... It sounds like I would like it a lot. :-)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.stoltzfusdairy.com/
ReplyDeleteDonno if "creamline" is a technical term or they made it up. Don't care, its awesome!
My mother who lives with me keeps buying flavored fake cream and raving about it. UGH!
ReplyDeleteI only use creamline from a local dairy. Great stuff!
Awesome Post.