Thursday, June 4, 2009

Good Value Brand? Good Grief that's gross!

We are far from brand name snobs around here and the majority of the time I am very pleased with the store brand products offered. However I have recently noticed an upcropping of an even cheaper selection of products that goes by the name of Kroger Value(at least at Fry's.)
I have seen the same plain white packaging at other stores, and I have a feeling it's the same stuff even if the name is different.

Back to the point. Yesterday I went on a marathon shopping expedition at Fry's and had on my list a few Good Value products to investigate.
#1 - Kroger Value Apple Juice COCKTAIL. I hadn't noticed the word Cocktail when checking out the ad. Cocktail, means 25% juice. I didn't even bother checking out what the other ingredients may have been.
#2 - Pillsbury-esque buttermilk biscuits. (You know the kind in the pressure can that you twist and pop.) Well upon inspecting the product, I noticed it said artificially flavored buttermilk biscuits. Mmmm, Yummy, let's see what makes it artificially flavored. Among a host of crazy long chemical names, I come across less than 2% of beef tallow.
I'll be honest, I didn't know exactly what tallow was when I read it, but I knew it didn't belong in my biscuits.
Just so we all know, beef tallow is rendered from the hard fat around the kidneys and loins. Doubly lucky for us tallow can be stored for extended periods without the need for refrigeration.

Honestly I have been fighting the nausea ever since I started writing this post.

#3 Imitation shredded mozzerella cheese. (this was not on my shopping list, but by this point all of the Kroger Value products were flashing like neon lights to me.) I couldn't even bring myself to look at the ingredients.

I check labels carefully due to Morgan's allergies, but I'm not overly fanatical about all natural, or organic products. This however crosses into completely insane and not fit for human consumption. (IMHO)

There is such a thing as TOO cheap and I now feel that my previous avoidance of these products were completely founded.

What sort of crazy items do you run into at the grocery store?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I was curious about beef tallow so I googled and came across this post that talks it up. I did also skip the part where they explained how to make it yourself. =)

http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2008/02/chili-cheese-fries-cooked-in-beef.html

Ryan

Nanna said...

My "organic" sister tells me all the time what is in things sometimes and I or my "bank account" try not to hear it most of the times... lol But I do try not to buy junk like that... It makes me so sick to think about what something do or might contain... :(

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