the REN DAO Wellness Center Blog

About a year ago I wrote about food labels. This was after a friend bought a jar of imitation honey they thought was real honey. A few weeks ago it was me who got duped. In a rush, I bought a jar of dry roasted peanuts without fully reading the label. Whether intentional or not, product labels, ingredient list and nutritional fact labels can paint an inaccurate picture of whats really in the package.

This year, the REN DAO Wellness Center participated in a Halloween celebration organized by Lucy Moreno for kids in her Greyston Community Gardens Project. We gave the kids a karate class, then I spoke briefly about healthy foods and snacks. I like to emphasize eating more whole foods and less processed foods (with added sugars etc.) We ended by having the kids participate in making a healthy trail mix snack (with Chex cereal, raisins, peanuts and pretzels). The kids then when to the Groundworks Science Barge to crave pumpkins and to the Buena Vista community garden to watch a movie.

Halloween celebration went well, the kids enjoyed the trail mix. It wasn’t until the following day when I ate some of the nuts by themselves that I realize something was strange. At first I thought, “Man, these are some tasty nuts” (in my best Samuel L. Jackson voice). Then I realized the nuts actually tasted sweet. I had feed Lucy’s kids (and parents) salted dry roasted peanuts laced with sugars, MSG and favor enhancers.

The peanuts were Target’s store brand, ‘Market Pantry Dry Roasted Peanuts’. One would expect that the jar should contain only dry roasted nuts. Below is the ingredient list:

Obviously these nuts are mis-labeled. They are Salted Flavored Dry Roasted Peanuts. A Shoprite’s store brand, labeled ‘Unsalted Dry Roasted Peanuts’, accurately listed only peanuts on their ingredient list.

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