@notallcompaniesarebad: I wonder why cranberry juice usually says a percentage ("37% Cranberry!") and other juices don't?

if you're looking for something sweet that is relatively healthy, look for products with real sugar in them, as opposed to high fructose corn syrup.

sugar isn't necessarily a bad thing; the amount and type matters. if you look further down on the nutrition label, the amount of sugar in the product will be listed in grams, under the total carbohydrate header.

@morsteen:

Did you seriously just suggest that learning Spanish somehow makes it more difficult to learn other tasks, such as understanding ingredient labels?

If not, then I have no idea where I learned this tidbit. I'm guessing my mom taught me. But I have mentioned it before and had people go "REALLY?" so it probably bears repeating.

I gotta say, I use this knowledge often. But never on health care stuff. You want an eye opener, read the labels on your pet food. Stuff is not usually as advertised...and I never would have thought about it much until my cat turned out to be have a food allergy (fish of all things) and I started reading the ingredients religiously. It's not pretty.

Is it just me, or does the woman in that pic look like Pam from The Office?

@thepounder: I remember reading about it in Health class though I can see why one wouldn't think that it's a normal part of the class curriculum. Maybe it isn't.

Either way, I'm willing to bet most people don't consult that list unless they have allergies or other dietary/health needs that require them to make sure something isn't in it at all.

I remember learning this from a Weekly Reader in third grade. That night I tried to convince some blowhard friend of my parents that it was true, but the fool refused to believe it. Sample counter-argument: "They don't send you to school to learn about labels on cans."

Of course now I'm older and I can dismiss children, so it's all good.

First, in the case of Aquaphor, the base of the ointment is most assuredly going to be listed first, it's the stuff they add to the ointment that's important, so just because it's vaseline doesn't mean it does not contain other items that differentiate it from vaseline. The primary ingredient in beer is water, yet we all know beer water.

I don't the grouping is a trick per se. It's usually done because the sauce is added to the meal and therefore it's grouped. It's like reading a recipe where they have how to make your fajitas w/ guacamole dinner. The fajita recipe is separate from the guacamole recipe. However, the one thing that is true is that there is less sauce than there is rice.

Rice (white rice, corn starch), sauce (high fructose corn syrup, malodextrin, hydrolyzed yeast extract)

In this case there is probably more HFCS in the sauce than corn starch in the rice, even though it appears later in the overall list. I think within each sub-group the order is descending as well.

I hope those ingredients aren't listed in order of percent included.

Also note that the names of foods often give a clue - famously Kraft Mac-n-Cheese that used to run ads that it was so cheesy they should call it Cheese-n-Macaroni (which of course they couldn't unless it actually did contain more cheese than pasta).

Next up: righty tighty lefty loosey!

Why's everyone sippin' on the Haterade on this post? ouch.

@lalahsghost: Turnips are blech... maybe smarter than a radish? (Radish ingredients: radishy goodness)

The consumerist for dummies!

or the kid's consumerist

In related news: Sun rises in the morning, expected to set later this evening.

Bless his "pea-pickin'" heart.

/Thanks to Tennessee Ernie Ford.

I think Ben would have gotten away with this if he'd just created a tag that was something like "obvious" or "easy-to-forget".

Yeah, me three.

Except when you have "contains 2% or less" statements.

Me too...

And of course there are the mystery ingredients like 'seasonings' and 'natural flavors'