Over the past few days, I’ve seen this commercials for Ragu Old World Style pasta sauce and there are a few things here that really bother me. First off the commercial as well as the companies website tries to convey this message:

Ragu gives kids more than a full serving of veggies in every half cup of red sauce. And it’s all natural, without any additives or preservatives.

Additionally there is a disclaimer on their website:

A smooth, flavorful classic sauce. Ragú Old World Style® pasta sauces meet FDA guidelines for healthy.*

And the * provides the following:

* To be considered “healthy” by the FDA, pasta sauce must be low in fat and saturated fat, contain limited amounts of cholesterol and sodium, and contain a minimum amount of certain nutrients.

But looking at their ingredients:

Tomato Puree (Water, Tomato Paste), Soybean Oil, Salt, Sugar, Dehydrated Onions, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Spices, Romano Cheese (Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes), Natural Flavor.

I have to ask the question, does anyone buy the claims that this is all natural and without any additives or preservatives?

Let’s look at this from the top down. The first thing we need to consider here is that the FDA is NOT the authority on what’s considered to be healthy. The reason for this is that whenever there is policy to determine what’s healthy organizations such as the ones that produce food will try and meet those requirements so they can claim that what they are saying is FDA endorsed.

Second look for the whole food. When you look at the ingredients, what in it is a whole food? When I think of “a full serving of vegetables in every half cup, I actually am thinking about a vegetable. Tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, etc.  Now let’s look at the ingredients, there is:

  1. Tomatoe Paste
  2. Dehydrated Onions
  3. Romano Cheese

There is nothing close to a whole food in that. Also if you look at the cheese, even that is made with part-skim milk–there are good fats and essential nutrients in regular milk. When looking at foods like this, we need to move past all the claims, such as:

All natural, low fat, a good source of lycopene, vitamins A and C

First off, this is not all natural, and we need good fats (why would there be fats in a product made with whole foods?), lycopene comes naturally in tomatoes and other foods, and Vitamins A and C should be a mute issue as it’s in most vegetables and fruits which you should be eating lots of (more vegetables than fruits) on a daily basis.

As consumers we need to really take a look at the ingredients, and not the bells and whistles that are on the labels.