Pistachio-almond is one of Baskin Robbin's classic 31 flavors.
Upon closer inspection, two oddities emerge.
First, the product's official description is: "a nutty combination of pistachio-flavored ice cream and roasted almonds."
That's right, the nut pieces you see are almonds, not pistachios.
Then there's the ingredient list, from which pistachios are entirely missing:
"Cream, nonfat milk, almonds, sugar, corn syrup, natural & artificial flavor, blue 1, yellow 5, cellulose gum, mono and diglycerides, guar gum, carrageenan, polysorbate 80."
It's not just ice cream chains pulling this trick.
I recently stopped by a well-known New York City vegan restaurant and ordered a delicious-sounding spinach-almond-banana-soy milk smoothie to go.
As I watched the smoothie man concoct my beverage, I was slightly crushed to see it didn't contain actual almonds, but rather a few drops of almond extract.
I think I now understand how Milli Vanilli fans felt when the lip-syncing scandal broke...
April 17, 2009
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2 comments:
Being that I live in New Jersey, it's hard to not be familiar with the NJ Turnpike factories that produce 'natural flavor.' Every time I see it on a food label, I'm very wary of what that could be. I know it's a highly secretive industry but has anyone written anything on what 'natural flavor' or 'artificial flavor' actually IS? I'd be very interested in reading about that.
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