VIEWPOINT: Clamato Tomato Cocktail, The Worst Product Of The Year?
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A few weeks ago, we were at a food trade show in San Francisco, tasting away. Almost everything is good, if not electrifying (that is to say, not “Nibblelicious”). But at one booth, an attractive-looking white and dark chocolate pastry with coconut was so vile, we had to spit it out.
(As one NIBBLE staffer commented, “I not only spit it out, I also had to scrape my tongue.”) Generally at the Fancy Food Show, it never gets this bad; even in the supermarket, it doesn’t. But as we were picking up a few supermarket items this week, we found a contender for the worst thing tasted this year. The market was out of the organic brand of tomato juice we usually buy. As our eyes scanned the shelves, they noticed Clamato juice, a brand owned by Cadbury-Schweppes that we haven’t had in more than 20 years. Hmm, we thought, healthy tomato juice and healthy clam juice combined. We’re in! Ladies and gentlemen: Read the labels before buying, even on what you think is a simple bottle of juice! |
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Because when we got home and poured ourselves what we thought would be a healthy, tasty glass of it, we couldn’t believe our taste buds. Think tomato juice with tablespoons of sugar mixed in—only it was high fructose corn syrup. When we went back to the store, shell-shocked (note pun), we compared the ingredients in the Tomato Clam Juice Cocktail from White Rose. Same sad story. Same vile taste. Why, oh why, does Big Manufacturing have to throw sweetener into every savory product from bagels to soup to tomato juice? Not only does it taste horrific (to the refined palate, anyway—obviously somebody is buying it). It adds sugar calories where they aren’t needed or wanted, contributes to the obesity epidemic and warps the palates of the majority of Americans who don’t know better and think that this is what food is supposed to taste like. We’re so spooked by this, we’re going to start reading labels on milk and egg cartons.
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