I Heart Farms

The HELLman's You Say: "Real Ingredients" Don't Mutate DNA

(Graphic: created by me in Photoshop.)

Though I am loathe to give up top billing to YellowWallFarm.com—about my favorite thing I get to do is shine light on the good and beautiful in the world…well, I've got a barrelful here for Hellman's^® and their completely ludicrous and cynical misuse of the words "real ingredients" when listing what actually goes into their products.

I am aware that Hellman's and Best Foods are the most popular mayonnaises in this country. I am also aware that some people eat ground beef at Taco Bell and McDonald's, so clearly we are a nation who likes to play fast and loose with our food safety.

You might be lulled into a sense of food security with the sincerity of words like "real" and "natural," and even "organic" and "free-range" or "cage-free." Then, last evening another pro-food (real food, not corporate chemicals in boxes and jars) food blogger, "Genie," aka @egratto, tweeted this little nugget:

"So. Hellman's Mayo has an ad campaign claiming they're making it from real ingredients. Here's the nutritional info: http://bit.ly/bWPawC"

And that's when my insta-cynic knew I was about to launch out the gate for a horserace to be the first to find out…WTF, HELLMANN'S?

Real Food or Caloric Entertainment? #FAIL, Duncan Hines!

 

First: apologies for the wacky formatting of this post. Typepad launched a "new and improved" interface that is a colossal failure.

Pictured here: a beautiful artichoke display from Prevedelli Farms at the Food & Wine Farm to Table Harvest in Carmel on September 26. I went with Cynthia Sandberg as her VIP guest, and it was glorious. Because this is what real food looks like. Recognizable as food, not some Frankensteined mix of "ingredients" that have been machinated to lose all resemblance to something that nourishes your body cells and well-being.

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that I don't suffer fools gladly, especially on a day when I'm so grouchy that I could kick something for the pleasure of the pain to my foot. And you know that, on a few occasions, someone pimping promoting some fake-food item to ME has caused my innate cynic to haul out the Whack-a-Mole on them.

Case in point: an email this morning from someone representing that titan of nutritious real food caloric entertainment found inside a package inside a box, Duncan Hines. And this is what it said: