... about "hidden" ingredients

[LurkingHusband]

Nosing in the supermarket last week, and idly noticed this:

www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/pulses-beans/jamie-oliver-mustard-pearl-barley-250g

Interest whetted, I picked up the packet, and read front:

"Marvellous mustard pearl barley with borlotti beans wholegrain mustard and thyme"

feeling peckish, I turned over, and read the re-stated large print description on the rear:

"A blend of pearl barley, borlotti beans and wholegrain mustard"

Ooooooh, nice. I thought. However, being old and ugly (and a fussy eater), there was one more piece of research to do. Read the ingredients:

Pre-Cooked Barley (48%) (Pearl Barley (contains Gluten), Water), Rehydrated Borlotti Beans (28%) (Borlotti Beans, Water), Artichokes, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Red Wine Vinegar (contains Sulphites), Wholegrain Mustard (Water, Vinegar, Mustard Seeds, Natural Flavouring, Salt, Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid), Antioxidant (Potassium Bisulphite), Spices) (2.6%), Honey, Thyme, Concentrated Lemon Juice, Salt, Ground Black Pepper, Thickener (Xanthan Gum)

Artichokes ? Kept that quiet didn't they ?

Anyway, I guess my AIBU is to feel that ingredients are sometimes "hidden" ? As in not mentioned anywhere in the "headline", but lurking to upset the unwary ? Worst example was a fish pie I had years ago in a supermarket cafe. Nowhere in the blurb did it mention that onion was the 3rd ingredient after fish and [mashed] potato (and who cooks fish with onions anyway). Until with unerring accuracy I located it with my first mouthful.

I get really annoyed when I order something in a restaurant and when I start eating it I realise it has chilli in it. A lot of people are allergic to chilli and a lot of people, like me, find it triggers acid reflux, heartburn and related problems. It is an ingredient that needs to be clearly signposted to customers, but often isn't. Butchers also often include it in made up meatballs etc without writing it on the packaging.

I love the irony of lurking artichokes upsetting the OP

sometimes when you've been posting a while, you've got to put something in which is just for you

Did you actually buy the sauce after all that?

(not for the first time wishing MN had threaded posts)

Did you actually buy the sauce after all that?

If that's to me, then no. Or rather, not yet. There's a whole range of these packs...

Jamie Oliver Microwave Ready to eat Moroccan Bulgar Wheat 250g

Jamie Oliver Microwave Ready to eat Sweet Chilli Spelt 250g

Jamie Oliver Microwave Ready to eat Tomato & Olive Quinoa 250g

Jamie Oliver Microwave Ready to eat Curried Chickpeas 250g

which MrsLH and I might try soon. We'd have to work out a menu to serve them with and slot it into dinner one day. One thing you discover losing weight, is "spontaneous" joins "chocolate" in the banned words bin.

I was most miffed on Saturday when the lovely cupcake I'd been given had bloody coconut in it. Wasn't meant to have it apparently but I could definitely taste it. You'd be surprised how often you find that in stuff too.

Think the best one I ever saw was when the SpecialK cereal/yogurt bars came out. It was meant to be strawberry until you read the ingredients and discovered that those little red bits were strawberry flavoured cranberries. In what universe is that sane?

I like artichoke - sounds alright to me

I always read ingredients and anything at all containing xantham gum is put back on the shelf.
and it's in s LOT of products. It's a 'by product' of bugs fed on cabbage. In other words, bug poo. The crap (literally) that's put in our food these days is a disgrace.
but then I wouldn't have picked up a pack of anything with Jamie Olivers face on it in the first place....

YANBU - I notice that there's red wine vinegar (& sulphites) in it as well, and that would cause me problems as I'm allergic to anything connected to alcohol, even something as minimal as this.

I do tend to read the ingredients on packaging carefully now, although that isn't always easy as sometimes things are in really small print, and if I don't happen to have my reading glasses with me it is a right nuisance.

If there was more mustard than artichoke, the chances are it would be quite inedible.

Maybe my OP wasn't too well articulated. I think my beef is with the fact that there appear to be two levels of ingredient listing ... "menu" (which is what get's printed on menus !) and "full" which is the whole shooting match; and that sometimes ingredients that you'd think should appear in the "menu" list don't.

I'm quite good at scanning ingredients lists, and spotting oddities. Recently saved us from a lovely looking quiche "Lorraine" which had onions (again !) in it.

Rogue artichoke!

1st world problem!

It's not hidden, its right there in the ingredients list. You want they should list all the ingredients on the front or something? How is that any different?

I'm way more bothered about hidden additives than hidden ingredients, with the exception of ready sandwiches/salads where I have to watch out for red onions as they give me indigestion and are popular where I live.

I'm in North America so have to watch for glucose-fructose syrups in anything from the States and yogurt buying is always a longer experience as they like to add gelatin and gums (yuk yuk!). Generally I look for short ingredient lists.

patrician that reminds me of chocolate brownies I used to buy in the States which contained chocolate flavour chips!

Not as bad as the chocolate I bought that 'may contain crustaceans'!

LH if you made cauliflower cheese, the second ingredient by weight would possibly be the milk used to make the cheese sauce. It's not called cauliflower milk cheese, though. Similarly, chicken korma is likely to have chicken, onion and some combination of yoghurt and/or cream as the 2 largest ingredients, depending on which recipe you use. It's not called chicken, onion and yoghurt korma, though.

Likewise, the term chocolate cake makes no mention of the fact that there is likely to be butter, eggs, sugar and flour in the cake and that there might be no actual chocolate at all, as cocoa is used.

3 largest ingredients. I was inadvertently hiding one.

YABU

You can't really expect them to include all 19 ingredients in the name of the product?

I would agree if something likely to significantly affect the flavour (eg. Mustard) or something really random which you couldn't reasonably expect to be included (pigs heart, lobster) was an ingredient but neither artichoke nor onion would fall into that category

Fish and onions should not be in the same meal.

I read every ingredient list when shopping and wouldn't touch anything Jamie Oliver with someone else's bargepole. He was responsible for added really weird and incompatible things to many otherwise enjoyable meals. Waitrose also do this.

Fish and onions?

Lovely, I make A Spanish cod and tomato stew with onions, my fish paella has onions, my goan fish curry has onions.

artichoke has a choke in it - big clue :o

op yabu, all ingredients are listed (lucky us)
but yanbu not to want to find 'treasures' in food

re fish and onions - is a battered haddock and pickled pnions from the chippy out

I like onions and like fish and agree that onions are an expected ingredient in fish paella, fish curry and most Spanish fishy things.

But fish pie - no.

Fish pie is fish and possibly peas, hardboiled egg or maybe green beans (I don't like peas) in either a parsley or cheese sauce, topped with mashed potato. No onions.

YABU. Short description describes the dish, long ingredients list tells you everything in it. Perfectly reasonable and clear.

I was watching Hugh Whatshisname the other night and he was educating some people who eat lots of fast food or procesed food. He looked at the ingredients on a packet and one of them was cochineal (red dye obtained from a Mexican insect).

I suspect we should pay a lot more attention to labelling.

Poach fish in milk and then pour the milk into a pan, put an onion and bay leaf in and let it infuse. Remove onion and use oniony/fishy milk to make sauce for fish pie. Delicious :)

Now I really want a fish pie...