Label Assessment: Ingredient Splitting

Assessment 3: Ingredient Splitting

Splitting wheat into two parts can make it look like there's less of "wheat" overall in the food — Splitting wheat into two parts can make it look like there’s less of “wheat” overall in the food

Look for any ingredient TWICE on the list.

If you were manufacturing a food and found wheat to be cheaper than fishmeal, you would want to use wheat to save money. But, you know the consumers want the fishmeal to be FIRST on the list. So you split the wheat!

Example:

Two pounds of fishmeal is less than three pounds of “Wheat”. Right?

So, honestly, that would read:

Ingredient one by weight: Wheat

Ingredient two by weight: Fishmeal

But what if you did your label based on:

2 pounds Fishmeal

1.5 pounds Wheat “germ”

1.5 pounds wheat “flour”

I’ve split my wheat into two “separate” parts and they’re taken separately into the label and my Fishmeal is boosted to the TOP of the list.