Lawsuit stirs up guacamole labeling controversy
"Peanut butter is made from peanuts, tomato paste is made from tomatoes, and guacamole is made from avocados, right? Wrong. The guacamole sold by Kraft Foods Inc., one of the bestselling avocado dips in the nation, includes modified food starch, hefty amounts of coconut and soybean oils, and a dose of food coloring. The dip contains precious little avocado, but many customers mistake it for wholly guacamole." This article is in contention for "least likely word combinations in headlines."
Dec 1, 2006 in Absurdity | Comment (2)
I don't think they should be allowed to label it guacamole if it contains no avocado. In fact, I don't think they should get to use the term unless it contains a lot of avocado. We have regulations on terms like "milk chocolate" (what percent has to be milk solids, butterfat, cocoa solids, cocoa butter), and this seems the same. Letting them pass off that... sludge... as guacamole is misleading consumers. :-P
Actually, the article mentions how there are regulations for other things, such as peanut butter, that actually have government regulations about how much of their title ingredient they contain. There really needs to be a rule of thumb of some sort; if you claim to be something typically made from a specific ingredient, then you should have to have a certain amount of that ingredient. Just like you can be a "juice drink" with very little juice, but to be a "juice" you need to be almost all juice. Everyone understands that. Maybe you could be a "guacamole flavored dip" without much avocado.