When Is Food Not Food?

When it's an income stream

The news isn’t the news, and food’s not food. At least in America.

As a subject, the dangerous and miserable quality of American food is low-hanging fruit, but let’s pick at it anyway. The information below is copied (and slightly edited) from this tweet. It summarizes and justifies the information in the video above. Enjoy your enlightenment. My comments below.

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• Subway's tuna salad got exposed for having zero tuna in it at all.

• Subway bread contained so much sugar it couldn't be classified as bread anymore; it has to be classified as a confection.

• Subway their chicken only contained 42% actual chicken.

• The Walmart product, 100% grated Parmesan cheese, got sued for not being 100% because it was actually 8% wood pulp.

• They legally aren't allowed to call Pringles “potato chips” because technically they're only 42% potato. They have to call them “potato crisps” instead.

• The reason Froot Loops is spelled with two O's isn't because they're trying to be cute; it's because there's 0% actual fruit in them. (Oh, and while we're ruining things, all the colors are the same flavor.)

• Mrs. Butterworth's syrup actually contains no real maple syrup at all, and the only reason it's allowed to say “syrup” on label is because it's made of high fructose corn syrup instead.

• 99% of all wasabi in the world is fake — it's just horseradish, mustard, and green food coloring — because the real stuff is so rare it would cost $20 per serving.

Proof:

• Subway’s tuna: A 2021 lawsuit and a subsequent New York Times investigation found no amplifiable tuna DNA in samples tested, suggesting either heavy processing or the absence of tuna.

• The claim that Subway bread contains so much sugar that it can’t be classified as bread stems from a 2020 Irish Supreme Court ruling in a tax dispute, where Subway’s bread was deemed a confection due to high sugar content (10% of the flour weight, exceeding Ireland’s 2% threshold for bread). This was specific to Irish tax law under Value Added Tax (VAT) regulations, not a global food classification. (It remains legally bread in America because our food standards are horrible.)

• A 2017 CBC Marketplace investigation found that Subway’s chicken strips tested at 42.8% chicken DNA, with the rest primarily soy protein.

• The claim that Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup contains no real maple syrup is supported by its ingredient list, which lists high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup as the primary components, with no mention of maple syrup. The label’s use of “maple flavored” or similar phrasing does not indicate real maple content, as U.S. FDA regulations allow “maple syrup” to be used descriptively for flavor rather than as a literal ingredient.

• The Froot Loops claim of two O's is denied by the company; they insist it’s about being playful. About the different colors, blind taste tests and Kellogg’s own statements confirm all loops share the same sweet, fruity taste, achieved with uniform artificial flavoring.

• Pringles really are only 42% potato. The 42% figure is accurate per ingredient breakdowns.

• Most “wasabi” served outside Japan, especially in restaurants and stores, is a mix of horseradish, mustard powder, and artificial coloring, mimicking the flavor and heat of the real thing. Studies and culinary experts confirm that genuine wasabi has a shorter shelf life and subtler taste, unlike the widely available imitation.

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Me again. This isn’t just an idle complaint, a bitch to the wind. Thousands of instances like this in the U.S. of A. are why people here are so sick.

The food just isn’t food. It’s a simulation that makes rich people richer and keeps most people fed badly. For example, modified food starch, which is in almost everything, is a) stripped of essential additional nutrients, and b) a contributor to blood sugar spikes and crashes, leading to increased hunger and overeating, a factor in unwanted weight gain. Same with high fructose corn syrup, mentioned above. Read the ingredient list of store-bought and drive-through foods. You’ll see what I mean.

So why are most of us so often unhealthy? Because, like our two-tiered justice and our two-tiered economy, our two-tiered food system takes money from almost everyone, the lower four-fifths, and gives back the cheapest-to-produce, easiest-to-market “food products” allowed by law. And much is allowed by law. Consider just bread.

You have to pay extra for food that’s really food.

This is criminal, say I, but who’s going to stop it? Crap food is an income stream, a second yacht for someone, a chateau in France. Can’t get in the way of that. Because freedom, they say. And they own the government.