5 ms·

> I doubt most reasonable people would interpret this as indicating strawberries must be a primary ingredient. This is only because you have become accustomed

by josho 5y ago

> I doubt most reasonable people would interpret this as indicating strawberries must be a primary ingredient. This is only because you have become accustomed to industrial food production practices. Because you've been tricked early in life and learned that 'strawberry' doesn't mean the berry and you've just normalized this practice. If you ever do any cooking of your own you'll know that things like Strawberry Jam is made from taking a pot of strawberries and adding other ingredients. It very clearly is not taking 1 strawberry and adding a pot of strawberry like flavorings. The real issue is we have crappy consumer protection laws. Companies should be forced to provide truthful advertising practices. E.g. 'Simulated Strawberry Flavor Poptarts' (don't hide the simulated label in tiny print that nobody notices until after the purchase). Another major problem is downsizing packaging, e.g. Orange Juice in a standard size container that is filled only to 90% capacity.

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago
Do you think that making a comparison between industrial food production processes and what goes on in a person's kitchen is valid? I could probably grab a box of pop tarts of whatever flavor I have in my pantry and check the ingredients list, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be misleading to any reasonable person.
- josho 5y ago
  By your phrasing on industrial food production it sounds like you believe there is an inherent requirement for industrial processes to use cheap ingredients and simultaneously market those ingredients as something else. That clearly isn't the case, it's a business decision to maximize profit, not something fundamental to industrial food production. And yes by analogy if I buy 'ground beef' I know it will be 100% ground beef because we have laws ensuring that is the case. However if I buy Shepards Pie & the packaging in large, bold text informs me that it is made with beef, I have to spend 60 seconds checking the packaging for small print that tells me the beef is actually 98% soy and 2% beef then I feel that's misleading. As a consumer I don't know why one is protected while the other isn't, but I've learned through buying really bad products that I need to spend 60 seconds checking the packaging because some companies are fine hiding the truth. So really the suit is about truth in advertising and exposing that we have a very low bar to be honest in consumer products.
  - cmeacham98 5y ago
    This is a false equivalence - strawberry poptarts don't have have "large bold text" claiming they are made with strawberries. I totally agree that "made with X!" adverts when X is actually 1% of the final product are misleading and should be illegal (maybe they are already, and it's just not enforced well?) - but I do think there's a difference between describing flavor and ingredients, and poptarts are pretty obviously the former.
- chuckee 5y ago
  That they have to tell the truth in the ingredients list does not give them a license to lie everywhere else. How could a competitor benefit from using an honest quantity of real strawberries, if the only place they can effectively advertise that is in the tiny ingredients list that nobody reads?
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    > How could a competitor benefit from using an honest quantity of real strawberries... "Filling made from 100% real strawberries!" Already a common marketing construction, even. Apple juice is often sold with this bit of puffery.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Then pop-tarts would just add some misleadingly similar but not technically wrong crap to theirs, like "100% pure natural syrup" on bottles that are definitely intended to trick you into thinking they're maple syrup, but aren't, which is a thing I've seen in the wild (Cracker Barrel syrup). Food labelling laws need an overhaul. And some serious teeth.
    - josho 5y ago
      Yes, thank you for proving my point. That statement says the strawberries are 100% real, it does nothing to exclude the addition of other ingredients or artificial red flavoring added elsewhere. You may think I'm being asinine, but I'm not. I've been fooled by that language before.

by josho 5y ago

HeyLaughingBoy 5y ago

Do you think that making a comparison between industrial food production processes and what goes on in a person's kitchen is valid? I could probably grab a box of pop tarts of whatever flavor I have in my pantry and check the ingredients list, but I'm pretty sure that it won't be misleading to any reasonable person.

josho 5y ago
By your phrasing on industrial food production it sounds like you believe there is an inherent requirement for industrial processes to use cheap ingredients and simultaneously market those ingredients as something else. That clearly isn't the case, it's a business decision to maximize profit, not something fundamental to industrial food production. And yes by analogy if I buy 'ground beef' I know it will be 100% ground beef because we have laws ensuring that is the case. However if I buy Shepards Pie & the packaging in large, bold text informs me that it is made with beef, I have to spend 60 seconds checking the packaging for small print that tells me the beef is actually 98% soy and 2% beef then I feel that's misleading. As a consumer I don't know why one is protected while the other isn't, but I've learned through buying really bad products that I need to spend 60 seconds checking the packaging because some companies are fine hiding the truth. So really the suit is about truth in advertising and exposing that we have a very low bar to be honest in consumer products.
- cmeacham98 5y ago
  This is a false equivalence - strawberry poptarts don't have have "large bold text" claiming they are made with strawberries. I totally agree that "made with X!" adverts when X is actually 1% of the final product are misleading and should be illegal (maybe they are already, and it's just not enforced well?) - but I do think there's a difference between describing flavor and ingredients, and poptarts are pretty obviously the former.
chuckee 5y ago
That they have to tell the truth in the ingredients list does not give them a license to lie everywhere else. How could a competitor benefit from using an honest quantity of real strawberries, if the only place they can effectively advertise that is in the tiny ingredients list that nobody reads?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  > How could a competitor benefit from using an honest quantity of real strawberries... "Filling made from 100% real strawberries!" Already a common marketing construction, even. Apple juice is often sold with this bit of puffery.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Then pop-tarts would just add some misleadingly similar but not technically wrong crap to theirs, like "100% pure natural syrup" on bottles that are definitely intended to trick you into thinking they're maple syrup, but aren't, which is a thing I've seen in the wild (Cracker Barrel syrup). Food labelling laws need an overhaul. And some serious teeth.
  - josho 5y ago
    Yes, thank you for proving my point. That statement says the strawberries are 100% real, it does nothing to exclude the addition of other ingredients or artificial red flavoring added elsewhere. You may think I'm being asinine, but I'm not. I've been fooled by that language before.