The FDA is not pleased with Kellogg’s waffle manufacturing plant in Georgia. The federal authority sent the company a warning letter. Kellogg’s is reprimanded for the poor sanitary conditions at the factory, and requested to clean up its act. From Food Navigator:

The list of breaches included leaving uncovered rubbish just inches from raw materials, allowing potentially tainted water to drip onto food lines, and a number of unsatisfactory cleaning methods by employees. read more…

These conditions led to the discovery of Listeria monocytogenes (L. monocytogenes), a pathogenic bacterium. It can cause  mild illness (called listerial gastroenteritis) or a severe, sometimes life-threatening, illness called invasive listeriosis. Listeriosis is a major public health concern because of the severity of the disease, a high case-fatality rate, a long incubation and a predilection for individuals with underlying conditions.

What you need to know:

Life is all about trade offs. Food from factories means that every once a while there may be a safety issue. That factory can be a peanut processing plant, a CAFO (where thousands of cows are grown into steaks), or a waffle plant. While churning peanuts into butter is not something most people can do, nor raise a cow in their backyard, waffles are rather easy to prepare from scratch. And yet, Kellogg’s has an entire factory devoted to Eggo waffles.

Here’s what goes into a pre-frozen Eggo Homestyle Waffle:

Were you to make the waffles at home by yourself, you wouldn’t add artificial colors Yellow #5 and Yellow # 6 to make the waffles look better (these colors are not good for you). You wouldn’t use palm kernel oil with TBHQ and citric acid. You’d use real butter, or perhaps canola oil. And you wouldn’t fortify your waffle with vitamins and minerals in order to make it appear more healthy than it really is. And you probably wouldn’t find any surprise bacteria waiting to make your kids ill.

Hot fresh waffles are a such great treat on a weekend morning. So why settle for a pre-frozen product? It tastes so poorly compared to a fresh homemade batch. AND it contains unwanted ingredients, sometime with additional surprises…

What to do at the supermarket:

Buy some eggs, flour, and milk. Make sure your pantry is stocked with sugar, salt, baking powder, and vanilla extract. Now turn to one of many recipe websites and make your own waffles in 10 minutes. Bon apetit.

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Nutella is hands down one of the tastiest spreads out there. A rich and creamy hazlenut and chocolate spread turns any toast into a culinary rockstar.

Ferrero , Nutella’s manufacturer, is now trying to ride the health wave by positioning itself as a healthy and nutritious start to the day. It invites you to treat yourself to a tasty balanced breakfast with Nutella:

Over 50 Hazelnuts per 13 oz. Jar
Contains No Artificial Colors
Contains No Artificial Preservatives

Here’s what they forget to tell you. Read more…

Häagen Daazs ice cream is probably one of man’s best inventions, a true elixir. Undoubtedly the recipe was handed down from the heavens to help us mortals live a better life. It’s ice cream at it’s best, ambrosia for $7 a pint.

And it’s fattening, much to our dismay.

A pint will set you back 1200 calories, 100% of your daily fat allowance and 200% of your daily saturated fat allotment. True, the serving size is a quarter of a pint, with 4 half-cup servings per container, but show us someone who knows when to stop…

Ice cream is a fun treat if you eat healthy and indulge every once in a while. At least it’s money well spent compared to other “snacks” that don’t match up in flavor.

Now if they could only make their ice cream a bit healthier…

That’s why we were happy to read [thanks slashfood] about a new product line from the company, called Häagen Dazs Five:

All-natural ice cream crafted with only five ingredients for incredibly pure, balanced flavor… and surprisingly less fat!

Curious to know what’s new, we checked out the ingredient list of Häagen Dazs Five Vanilla Bean flavor to see what has changed from the classic formulation. We expected to find a drastic reduction in superfluous ingredients (including evil preservatives and whatnot). Here is what we discovered:

New formula: SKIM MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, VANILLA (VANILLA BEAN FLAKES, VANILLA EXTRACT).

Classic formula: CREAM, SKIM MILK, SUGAR, EGG YOLKS, NATURAL FLAVOR, GROUND VANILLA BEANS.

Guess what – the classic formula has exactly six ingredients. And despite the “FIVE” logo, the new formula also has six! (Vanilla bean flakes and vanilla extract count as two separate ingredients by our book, not one).

We continued to check the nutrition information. serving size is half a cup in both formulas.

New formula: 220 calories, 11g (17%) fat, 7g saturated fat (35%), 0 trans fat (not really zero just rounded down)

Classic formula: 290 calories, 18g (27%) fat, 11g saturated fat (54%), 0.5g trans fat

We see here that more skim milk is used in the new formula than cream, and the result is less fat and less calories. The big questions is how much of a difference in taste does this reduction in fat cause? And is the 25% saving in calories worth it?

What you need to know:

This Five campaign is a nice marketing move by Häagen Dazs, but will not likely help you with your diet. As usual, don’t let marketing tricks fool you to believe that products are beter for you.

The market pressure is so high, that food companies can’t rely on selling a solid good product anymore, they need to constantly innovate and keep consumers interested in buying more and more of their new products. Trying out all sort of weird flavors (Hello Ben and Jerry’s) is one way. Line extensions are another, hence HD’s Five. It’s not really about our health.

What to do at the supermarket:

Five Shmive, our favorite flavor is Dulce De Leche, and nobody is going to stop us. We promise to limit ourselves to the manufacturer suggested half  cup serving size…

What do you think about the taste of a new Five product compared to the classic formulation? Let us know in the comments below..

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