Walden Farms

I recently pulled my mom out of maple syrup ignorance when I told her the cheap Aunt Jemima syrup probably did not contain any real maple, just corn syrup and other artificial flavorings. She reported back that maple is the sixth ingredient listed, which means that there is probably little of the tree juice in that plastic bottle.

She was bummed. She felt duped. Unfortunately a lot of the foods I grew up on were fakes. But nothing came close to the fake that is Walden Farms’ “peanut” spread that I found at a convenience store in Seattle. The first tip off – the spread claimed to be-calorie free. With a slight turn of the jar I uncovered that it was free of many other items as well: fat, sugar, cholesterol, carbohydrates and gluten. And of course, no animals or animal by-products were used in the production of this spread—it’s vegan.

So what the hell was in this magical jar?