Reading labels (soy milk)

WillPowerYes

Well I learned something interesting today. I drink soy milk and rice milk, and have tried many brands. Today I tried a new one, Soy Slender Soymilk, chocolate, "no sugar added".

Sounds good! Calories just 70 per cup.

So, first sip, I knew there was something odd. I checked the first ingredient, "organic soymilk". Humm, still sounds good. Further down, "Sucralose (Splenda Brand)". Thus the odd flavor.

Why bother with it being organic [pure] if there is going to be the chemicals of artificial sugar tossed in? I was mad at myself for not checking the label more carefully in the store. I just had not thought before that soymilk might have artificial sugar in it.

So, my advice, check the labels carefully, you never know where they'll be adding artificial sweeteners.

mooglysmom

It's everywhere, and I can't have it. But, as an avid label reader to begin with (gluten and dairy free in my house to watch for!), I catch it easily.

WillPowerYes

But, as an avid label reader to begin with ...

Yeah, me too, that's why I was so mad at myself. I really wasn't reading all the way down the label once I'd hit the "organic" part.

katy84o

I learned this lesson a couple of years ago. What I would usually do is write an email to the company explaining my disappointment. I know this doesn't really ever get done. But it makes me feel better, and I like to get the reply's back. They usually make me laugh then get annoyed and then I just don't buy their product again. I'll give two examples:

Heinz Ketchup maybe 2-3 years ago, had a commercial that was of a tomato that grew from a seed, to a plant, then the tomato grew into a ketchup bottle. Well, I know how marketing works, and I know that it's just an add. But I had just stopped using the ketchup I had in the refrigerator because the third ingredient was high fructose corn syrup. I basically said, the hfcs wasn't grown from a tomato plant. The reply was funny, all they did was refer me to the simply sweet website and said to please read the website to learn more about hfcs. I had seen the website before, brightly colored nonsense. Probably cost millions of dollars. But lets just say I had also read about a study done with mice and hfcs that it clearly causes weight gain, and a large percentage of hfcs, contains mercury. Whether it does or not, i'd rather be safe then sorry. And the next one

I bought one of those horizon flavored milks, the little single servings. I bought two from starbucks because I was planning on making a protein shake at work and I forgot to bring my own milk. Anyway, I figured hey they vanilla flavor will add some nice flavor to my brown rice protein powder. Well, it was so sweet that I didn't even finish it. There was like 30 something grams in one milk box. And they market that to children! So I emailed them, my opinion, thoughts and concerns for how sweet it was and marketing it to kids, (I said they get enough sugar from other crap). And their reply was, this blend passed with flying colors in a taste test)

This was long, I know, but mostly if it annoys you then write to them. Hopefully they'll write back with an explanation of why they use splenda in their organic product. And you can let the company know how unhappy you are and that you feel tricked.