Have you ever glanced at a product and said huh? because of something on the label or package? Food labels sometimes do that to me to the point that I must stop and read the labels. It happened recently when I needed to make pasta sauce. The on-sale canned organic tomatoes were shelved next to the jarred pasta sauces. When I looked down at the low-profit bottom shelf, I noticed special Heart Smart jars of Prego, segregated from the brand’s regular varieties.
Huh?
What, I wondered, made it especially heart healthy? I snared one, compared it with a regular Prego Traditonal and compared both with a similar jar of Classico. Imagine my surprise when the labels showed the Heart Smart version is almost idential to the regular and Classico is the healthiest of the bunch.
All serving sizes are one-half cup. The clickable thumbnails show us both Pregos have 3g of fat per serving and Classico 2g, but only the Heart Smart Traditional sauce has enough saturated fat to be labeled. The heart healthy version has 10 calories more than Prego’s regular Traditional and 20 calories more than Classico. Fiber? Classico has three times as much and far less sugar. The Pregos do have more carbs, 13g per serving to Classico’s 10g, and that is good or not, depending on your situation.
The primary difference, as far as I can tell, is with sodium and it’s not dramatic. Heart Smart has 430mg per serving, Classico has 460mg and regular Traditional Prego tops the list with 580mg. One teaspoon of salt has 2300mg of sodium.
To Prego’s credit the Heart Smart varieties are the same price as their others, and I’m not sure why they’ve done this. If they’re targeting people who already buy the brand, splintering their own customer base makes no sense, as beverage makers know but continue to try. [Update: for a Malcolm Gladwell talk about this issue in general and Prego in particular, please see the link in the first comment.] If they’re targeting those who buy other brands, all someone has to do is read the labels.
Problem is, too many Americans don’t.
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“splintering their own customer base makes no sense”
You need to watch this:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/malcolm_gladwell_on_spaghetti_sauce.html
Thank you, Dan! It’s always a delight to learn from Gladwell, but that talk was eerily perfect. I’m going to update the post to make people aware of that link. Thanks again.
“all someone has to do is read the labels.”
Exactly.
Drat! Dan’s link is non-compliant to the wonders of dial-up. LOL
Great comments, though.
“… make yourself. Tomatoes, olive oil, onions, garlic, fresh herbs,
maybe some wine … ”
That’s the ticket for sauce, sage! We are cut from the same cloth. I love to make it in large quantities and freeze portions. (Don’t even ask about my recent foray into pasta making though. All I’ll say is anyone thinking of spending $25 for KitchenAid’s pasta plates — extrusion — should just save their money. They call it a Pasta Maker Attachment. Hmph.
)
The Gladwell talk is about the marketing wisdom and benefits of offering more choices of the same thing. I checked for a transcript (none) but saw you can download the audio in mp3 format. That’s the important part, as he’s just walking back and forth for 18 minutes. No charts or other visuals. That might work?
Good to see you again!
Aww. Thanks.
Good idea; I’ll try the audio.
It should work, sage. Please lmk.
That diet makes perfect sense, rain. It sounds like a more precise and sensible version of the “no white foods” way of eating some people swear by. Flour always trips me up.
My mother was on an interesting diet once: she was allowed to eat any fresh food she wanted, and any packaged food too, as long as sugar, oils, or flour were not in the first three ingredients. Dead simple and she lost a lot of weight without compromising nutrition.
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Hi ellaella. Actually, it’s true that common table salt is made up of sodium, but majority of people are not aware of the fact that not all sodium is common table salt.
Sodium is also naturally present in all fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes. And this natural organic sodium is not bad for you, like table salt is. So the amount of sodium is not always a good indication, but depending more on what type of sodium it is.
But very informative article and discussion!
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Oh, I think people who watch their sodium intake are very well aware of that and I’m always careful not to use them as synonyms. It’s like sugars. Some are there naturally and then there are the sugars and blasted HFCS on the ingredient list.
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I was quite surprised by what I found on those labels!
Stellar post! The only disadvantage to reading food labels is that it can turn a half hour shopping trip into an hour! Having recently purchased an organic catsup without reading the label, I was dipping my homemade fries into it and thinking this is possibly the best catsup I have ever had, and on the label, sure enough, sugar as the second ingredient!
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An hour at the least! Interesting about the catsup, but not surprising. At least it was just real sugar. I’ve been looking at some recipes because I do love the stuff but the big brands have HFCS, as I’m sure you know. At least I’d control the sugar that way.
Glad you liked it! I have a couple other label revelations up my sleeve, if I get around to them.