Truth in Marketing...Weekly Weight Update
Another week in the world of being self employed and I’m finding I have (what should come as a surprise to no one) less time to write as I’m beating the pavement to secure new clients. Rizzo has on multiple occasions had to settle me down to explain to me that is has only been a few weeks and that I’m not going to have a full slate of clients in just a couple of weeks. My head says exactly that but my heart still gets frustrated that it isn’t happening all at once. I planned for this so it isn’t as if it was something unforeseen. This was all part of the plan but some days it still feels like wheels are spinning. The most important part is to keep working. In the end, the hard work will pay off.
With that being said, I wanted to share something Rizzo and I discovered at the grocery store during our weekly excursion. I don’t know if it is unusual or common, but each week Rizzo makes a grocery list and then we make a big trip to the store to pick up everything we think we will need for the week. Sure, we might pop in during the week to grab something we missed but we are usually pretty good about getting everything we need.
As we were nearing the end of this week's shopping trip we were walking down the frozen food section. We usually don’t need anything from the frozen section but something caught my eye that made me stop and look. It was an endcap freezer that had bags of frozen french fries. I was really wishing that I could pop an entire bag of those delicious beauties into the oven and destroy each and every one of those tasty spuds. That is, of course, until I saw this picture.
We have all heard of different types of food being made with beer batter. Probably the most famous item is beer battered chicken. So I don’t really have a problem with putting beer batter on other types of food. I, for one, love beer battered chicken so why not beer batter and fry up everything. It will certainly taste delicious.
My problem comes from the label of Craft Beer Battered Potatoes. Craft Beer. Initially I was excited. I wanted to know what of my favorite craft breweries had teamed up with McCain in order to branch out to use their beer to batter a delicious potato. I grabbed the bag to make a closer inspection.
Wait? Why isn’t the logo of the brewery that provided the beer on the package? If I was the craft brewery that was providing the craft beer for these potatoes the first thing I would insist on is having my brewery identified on all the packaging. It’s not on the front. Maybe it’s on the back. Nope. What is going on here. Let’s take a look at the ingredients:
Click image for source at McCain
Did you find the beer ingredient? It took a while but it is in there just after salt. It just says beer with ingredients of water, malted barley, corn syrup, hops and salt. Let’s take this one step at a time. First, the front of the package says it is made with the finest American Pale Ale. OK, which one? If it is a craft beer then it must be from a brewery that, according to the Brewers Association, produces less than 6 million barrels of beer annually, no more than 25% of the company can be owned by a brewery that is not defined as a craft brewery, and the majority of the beverage offerings must be in beer. That should narrow it down and make it easy for McCain to tell us which brewer provided the beer but that isn’t anywhere on the package.
Second, take a look at the ingredients of the beer. It includes corn syrup. That shot up some red flag. I’m not a brewer so for all I know corn syrup could be a vital and regularly used ingredient in brewing beer. So I poked around for some recipes for American Pale Ales. I turned to http://beersmithrecipes.com/ and haphazardly clicked on the recipe for six different pale ales. Not one of them included corn syrup. Why? Do we as a people has such a stockpile of corn syrup that we have to get rid of it and the only way we can think to do that is to put it into all of our food? There is no need for corn syrup in beer. Period.
I won’t even go into the other unnecessary ingredients included in with these “Craft” Beer Battered Potatoes (yum yum, Xanthum gum). I understand the marketing tactic of using “Craft” in the name of the product. Craft beer is a booming industry (although recently, Stone Brewing Company may beg to differ) and marketing your product to be associated with that market makes perfect sense to increase sales. The problem is that this isn’t even a little fudging, or a bit of stretching or bending the truth. This marketing label is just a flat out lie. McCain you should be ashamed of lying to the masses.
On Friday, October 28th, I submitted a post to McCain asking them to let us know exactly which craft beer was used in the preparation of the craft beer battered potatoes. McCain monitors the posts that are acceptable to be included on their Facebook wall. I don’t fault them for that because there could be monsters out there that will just post any kind of nonsense on a wall. As of the time I’m posting this blog, there has been no response and my question has not been included on the Facebook feed. Thanks for the information, McCain.
The plateau continues this week as I gained 1.6 pounds this week to bring my weight up to 207.6. That still keeps me under the 60 lbs lost but just barely at 60.2. It is frustrating to be stuck in a rut regarding weight loss but it isn’t like it used to be when I was 60 lbs heavier. I’m still working hard, running twice a week and going to OrangeTheory twice a week. I have been less dedicated when monitoring what I’ve been eating. So, with that in mind, Rizzo and I (and my sister, Carrie) have signed up for the OrangeTheory Fitness weight loss challenge. It runs from November 1 to December 31. I’m hopeful that it will get the weight loss back in gear.
Rizzo gained a mile this week in the Bring It On! Challenge just barely squeezing out a victory 38.5 miles to my 37.5 miles. With two days left in the month, I have a slim lead of 158.6 miles to Rizzo’s 155.0 miles. I’m going to push hard the next couple of days to make sure I keep my lead because I need to be first in line to see Doctor Strange. It’s going to be awesome!
P.S. Here are some other pictures from the week.
