Foodwatch warns about certain products sold in supermarkets for the holidays, which are “label scams”.
At Christmas, shopping for meals is one of the key moments when you shouldn’t miss out. Foodwatch, the association which campaigns for “the right to healthy, affordable, chosen and sustainable food for all”, has for the occasion decided to submit its “pan of gold“. With irony, it comes “to reward the Christmas product whose marketing abuses and misleads consumers”. The association has thus listed five products which are “scams on the label”. According to Foodwatchthis may concern the price, the list of ingredients or even the packaging.
Among them is a great classic of the Christmas meal: foie gras. And the product highlighted is the “gourmet duck foie gras block” from Maison Monfort. According to Foodwatch, the problem lies in the composition of the product. There would be E250, or sodium nitrite, which presents a health risk, being able to participate in “the formation of probable carcinogenic compounds”. According to The Parisianthe brand responded that it was working on researching “effective alternatives” to nitrite.
To accompany foie gras, the Maison Delpeyrat brand offers a balsamic vinegar cream with Sichuan pepper. Foodwatch definitely doesn’t recommend this blend, but this time it’s all about price. The 60 mL pot is sold for 4.50 euros, which amounts to 75 euros per liter. A price considered far too high by the association which claims to have found a similar product half the price. “This price scam is a holiday classic that we could do without. Small pots of fig or onion jam, sea salt or lemon: placed next to foie gras or salmon, these products cost often much more expensive per kilo or per liter than the rest of the year or in their usual radius,” warns the association. This price is justified by the brand in particular by the use of “Szechuan pepper”.
After the starter, time for the main course. For this stage, the association calls for avoiding the “Maître Coq morel roast”. The scam identified by Foodwatch: the 0.3% of morels, even though the packaging presents large morels in the foreground. For dessert, Tipiak pastry bites seem like a bad idea. Their composition poses a problem: they contain palm oil. “Much cheaper than butter, palm oil used by the agri-food industry is much less responsible from an environmental and human rights perspective, and is also not the most recommended vegetable oil for health”, details the association.
Finally, if the price of chocolate is high this year, you should especially avoid Lanvin noir snails with the “raspberry heart praline” flavor. The golden box and the pink snail may tempt you, but according to Foodwatch, there’s simply not a trace of raspberry in the list of ingredients.