Totally Disgusted

Seriously, that's the last time I buy something without reading the label.

So I was in the grocery store, and decided to get some nuts or something to keep in my desk drawer, because I'm a grazer and like to eat more or less constantly throughout the day, and what's better than some healthful, high protein nuts? Only when I was standing in the store I saw roasted, shelled sunflower seeds, which have always been a weakness, and I pounced.

Later on, sitting at my desk eating some seeds, I happened to look upon the label of the jar. Now, you'd think, the ingredients of roasted sunflowers seeds would be roasted sunflower seeds, and maybe salt and a little oil or something. But no. The ingredients of the sunflower seeds are as follows:

shelled sunflower seeds, salt, sugar, modified corn starch, monosodium glutamate, torula yeast, corn syrup solids, paprika, spices, hydrolyzed soy protein, natural flavor, onion & garlic powder.

Ok, I can handle onion and garlic powder. Corn syrup solids? Strange things I can neither pronounce or identify? Let's wiki some of these and figure out what they are:

monosodium glutamate = MSG

"USE Torula, in its inactive form (usually labeled as torula yeast), is widely used as a flavouring in processed foods and pet foods. It is produced from wood sugars, as a by-product of paper production. It is pasteurized and spray-dried to produce a fine, light grayish-brown powder with a slightly yeasty odor and gentle, slightly meaty taste." -wikipedia

"Hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, is produced by boiling cereals or legumes, such as soy, corn, or wheat, in hydrochloric acid and then neutralizing the solution with sodium hydroxide. The acid hydrolyzes, or breaks down, the protein in vegetables into their component amino acids. The resulting brown powder contains, among other amino acids, glutamic acid, which consumers are more familiar with in the form of its sodium salt, monosodium glutamate, or MSG. It is used as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods." -wikipedia

Natural flavors, of course, can mean almost anything. Thanks, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, purveyors of sunflower seeds.

This is another example of how we can't just eat whole foods anymore, they have to find all kinds of strange things to ADD to the foods, because otherwise the corn refiners association would go out of business. Well, they can stuff it. I'm not buying any more corn syrup coated sunflower seeds. Seriously.

Serves me right for not reading the label, I suppose. How do most people shop?