Any health-conscious Americans care to join me in being more than a little annoyed?
While researching the sugar content and ingredients of jam and fruit spread for a recipe I’ll be posting in a few days, I landed at Smucker’s Canadian website and was struck by what I found. Take a look at these two jars of Smucker’s Strawberry Jam. The one on the left is the American version, the one on the right is sold in Canada.
The differences go beyond the French on the Canadian label and the word “pure” on theirs where ours says “seedless.” We need to look at the other labels — click to enlarge — to see that the American version has 50% more sugar than its counterpart sold north of the border.
Gee, you think the ingredients might be different? Of course they are. Say howdy to high fructose corn syrup and its sibling, corn syrup, in our version.
I don’t know if they differ because of any Canadian law — and if so, why don’t we have that law? — or because Americans have proven time and again we’ll buy just about anything without a second thought.
Yes, this company sells a low-sugar variety, but why is the regular version so damn high when it’s clear it doesn’t have to be? Is our national palate that addicted to sugar?
The American Diabetes Association says 23.6 million Americans have diabetes. The total prevalence is up by 13.5% just since 2005 – 2007.
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I looked at some jams, no Canadian ones, but the ones from France, Denmark and Poland had labels with ingredients like the Canadian jam. I got so tempted that I bought a jar of French fig preserves. The store brand strawberry jam had sugar listed as the first ingredient, and no corn syrup. The fig preserves have a red and white checkered lid just like the Smuckers…comparison stops there.
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The name escapes me, but I’ve bought that brand with the checkered lid many times. Good stuff. How sad is it that your store brand’s first ingredient is sugar?? Wow.
Enjoy the fig preserves — oooooh!