Keep your love out of my granola
A Massachusetts bakery learned this week that nobody wants its love in their granola. Or, more precisely, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t want it.
The FDA sent a letter to Nashoba Brook Bakery, telling the bakery to stop listing “love” as an ingredient in its granola.
“‘Love’ is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient,” the FDA wrote.
(More troubling to me are all of the “serious violations” the FDA investigators observed during the inspection, such as supposedly cleaned and sanitized baking equipment covered with crusty food.)
The bakery’s CEO, John Gates, told the Associated Press that the bakery will comply but didn’t seem to like the news.
“It taps this feeling that a lot of Americans have that there are ways in which the government can overreach, and it seems kind of silly,” Gates told the AP. “Because it’s about the word love, it’s cathartic. … It makes it something that people can smile at.”
Speaking of smiles, have you ever looked at the ingredient list on a bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers?
That’s right. No. 1 ingredient is “smiles.”
Better watch out, Goldfish.
Marissa Harshman
I'm the health reporter for The Columbian newspaper in Vancouver, Wash. I started at The Columbian -- my hometown newspaper -- in September 2009. Reach me at marissa.harshman@columbian.com or 360-735-4546.