Labeling a Food “Plant-Based” and What it Really Means
By: Dan Stout
Tags: Health, Advertising, Vegan, Food, Life

Labeling a Food “Plant-Based” and What it Really Means

This reminds me of the “made with real fruit” scam that advertisers used to feed to us

Photo by Tamanna Rumee

I think by now we should all realize that commercials, advertisements, and the labels on our food are trying to trick us. We should know this, yet we don’t. Why? Jingles, loyalty rewards, ads, commercials, lies, repetition.

I digress.

As the plant-based diet becomes noticeably more popular, as a vegan, I have observed many companies switching their strategies. They are beginning to change the way they market their products to us by using little plant-based logos at the top of their packages or are actually printing on the package that it is plant-based. This is done even when their product is not completely plant-based.

I hate to say this, I really do, but they have every right to do so. There are no great laws governing our food that say they cannot. The system was built to fool and confuse us. Trickery in advertising and labels is not frowned upon for some reason. So, as long as there is some form of plant in the food it can be called plant-based.

Just like Sunny D isn’t really orange juice, it only has 2% concentrated OJ in it. It’s just sugar water. Actually, high fructose corn syrup water. They just put a big picture of a cut orange on the label to lure us in. It works too. Please don’t drink that.

Now that I think about it, Sunny D is now labeled as a fruit drink and not a juice, but I do remember a time as a kid of the eighties when it was not the case. It does seem like the powers that be have made this juice/drink thing right. Progress can be slow.

Getting back to the topic, all of these illusions can be tricky for people who are actually vegan or only eat plant-based foods. Many of these products that have a plant-based logo on the front have ingredients like eggs and milk in them. Again, technically these products are still plant-based in advertising speak. You have to remember to always check the ingredients.

I wish there was an easier way to get this information, or that we could just trust what a company says, but no, almost always no. When I come across a new product I am interested in, I always ask it “what are you trying to hide from me”?

So get out your phone, set it to your favorite camera app and use it as a magnifying glass to read those tiny little ingredient labels. I personally find no shame in this and hope you will not either.

When I finally do zoom in to that ingredient list, I find that milk powder is one that I run into most often. This usually happens in cereals and in the snacks that have some sort of seasoning. In fact, if you plan on buying any kind of flavored chips or snacks, there is really only one thing to do. That is right, check the label before buying.

Doritos, for instance, have cheese, milk, buttermilk, whey, and other milk-based ingredients in it. What! That is a no go for me. I’ve been Dorito free for three years now and could care less. Now, when I buy chips, they are baked and have simple seasonings or just plain. I know I can make something at home that will make these chips taste amazing.

Many loaves of bread are out to fool you as well. They can contain milk, butter, eggs, or lard. Noodles and pasta have the habit of adding eggs to the recipe. Orange juice that is enriched with omega-3 is another one. The omega-3 usually comes from fish oil. OJ and fish oil doesn’t seem like a particularly amazing combination yet it does exist. Actually, anything enriched with omega-3 is suspect because of this.

I will say it one more time, check the ingredients.

I have come up with this fictional scenario to share with you. Again, fictional. Let’s say I really want to make some money off of stupid people. People who believe everything they hear on Facebook or just the internet and advertising in general. How can I profit from this?

First I have to create a company which is very easy to do. A product? I realize most people love burgers, not just stupid people, so I want to create a plant-based burger that tastes and feels like a real beef burger. The goal is to get in on this blitz of new plant-based meat alternatives entering the market and take advantage of people who do not read labels.

I hire a research and development crew and let them know what I want. They play around in the kitchen and come up with something they believe is going to be the next best thing.

This is the recipe they come up with. For every eight-ounce burger, we use eight ounces of ground beef (cow), 1/2 teaspoon pea protein, 1/4 teaspoon beet powder. Contains less than 2% of the following: milk powder, soy sauce, whey, natural seasoning, liquid smoke, and dehydrated egg protein.

Abracadabra, our new plant-based burger is born!

Now it is time to take this burger to the market. On the label, I will make sure our advertising team puts plant-based and all-natural in big bold words. The package will be green, white, and have plants all along the border. The commercial would say something like, “grills and sizzles just like a real burger but made with plants”.

Would it sell? Probably.

This would all be legal for me to do, I think. Maybe I would need to add some onions or peppers in there. I don’t really want to look up the laws of what it takes to call a food plant-based. I don’t know the percentages. Perhaps that can be a future project. I think you get my point by now.

What we all need to take away from this is our health is not what these companies are thinking about when they design the labels on their products or with the ingredients they choose to put in the product itself.

Money is all these companies care about. The cheaper they make the product the more money they make. After all, the stock price must go higher. It must. Hopefully, someday this will change, but this is where we are now.

From now on when you are picking up a product I encourage you to ask it this:

“What are you hiding from me?”