Bought a small block of attractively priced “old cheddar” (Canadian for sharp) cheese tonight. When cutting off a couple pieces, only then noticed the tiny and dreadful writing: LIGHT! 40% LESS FAT! which comprised 1% of the packaging area. They couldn’t have made that more obvious?
It brought to mind a couple years ago when I accidentally purchased a six pack of bottled cola after picking up a bunch from the zero sugar pile.
Is it me? How often do you inadvertently purchase an unwanted (or lesser) grocery item?
I recently bought some non-fat milk thinking it was whole milk. I’m pretty good at reading labels, but the store rearranged their dairy cooler and didn’t bother to tell me. I suppose I could take it back and they would probably let me switch it, but driving an hour (30 minutes each way) doesn’t make sense. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it.
Years ago, I bought some chocolate ice cream. When I got home, I discovered it was chocolate mocha ice cream. The coffee flavor ruined the chocolate. I tried a taste and couldn’t eat it.
Sure, but that would require me to drive to a store and get it. I’ll probably take it back when I go shopping next week. It should still be sell-able at that point.
A couple of times I have bought the whole bean bag of coffee when I do not have an easy means of grinding the beans. I wanted the ground coffee, but the information that I needed is on the top of the bag, which is often squished and difficult to read. I am more careful now.
For anyone wanting to chime in that grinding whole beans tastes much better, I don’t care. My palate is not discerning, so I don’t care.
As I have life-threatening food allergies I am a constant and very careful label reader so it doesn’t happen very often to me, and by that I mean many years can go by between such incidents.
Due to health reasons I’ve had to have my groceries delivered this summer. I leave very careful instructions for the shoppers and stand by my phone while they shop so they can easily ask me questions and have them promptly answered. So far no problems. Well, OK, that one time but it was fixed the same morning and didn’t involve the wrong food items but something else.
I also have a shopper I know and trust via work and have his private number. I usually text him when I’m about to place an order and he usually manages to snatch it up before anyone else does (usually - not always, but most of the time). He’s awesome, and someone I actually would (and do) trust to choose meat, fish, and produce for me. As soon as I see him pop up as the assigned shopper I breathe easier.
I bought regular Gatorade instead of Gatorade Zero. It was on the shelf where the Zero should have been. I’m pre-diabetic, so I prefer the Zero version.
I bought salted butter instead of no-salt. For a chocolate cake I was baking. I realized it too late. I could definitely taste the difference, but it wasn’t an overwhelming salt taste. I had some left over batter (I re-use a recipe for a different form factor) so I made some cupcakes with the extra, and took them to the bar. I told my friends that there was something wrong with them but I wanted them to tell me what it was. No one figured it out, and they all said it was good. I guess it worked out well enough.
I use artificial sweeteners in my coffee-- I started when I was doing a low-carb diet, but I still do, to cut out sugar wherever I can. When news started coming out that Erythritol, a sugar alcohol used as a low-calorie sweetener, and is in a LOT of no-sugar sweetened stuff, was linked to higher risk of blood clot formation, heart attacks and strokes, I threw out everything that had Erythritol in it and had my wife buy a big box of ‘Monkfruit and Stevia’ sweetener packets from Costco.
Then I read the ingredient list-- turns out that many non-sugar sweeteners in powdered form use Erythritol as a bulking agent, so my boldly labeled big box of ‘Monkfruit and Stevia’ sweetener was full of Erythritol
I’ve done the opposite myself a couple of times, buying ground when whole was intended, but luckily that direction of error doesn’t present a logistic problem.
I trick I learned when shopping in stores for coffee labeled in languages I don’t speak / read: Feel the bag. Give it a good massage and it’ll be real obvious whether it’s full of whole beans, course grits, or fine powder.
All the time. One memorable occasion, I brought home a bottle of fabric softener–which we usually never buy–because it was the same brand / same bottle type / similar label and directly next to the item I thought I was buying.
Often the wife informs me I got the wrong thing, when she goes to use it and…it’s not what she expected. Happens maybe 2 or 3 times per year. She even does it on occasion, although she proceeds much more carefully and slowly through the store, no doubt double-checking the stuff she puts into the cart.
Don’t get me started on the substitutions made by the “shoppers” who fill the cart for online pickup orders. They’ll happily substitute a 6-pack of diet 7up for a case of (sugar free) seltzer water.
Any refrigerated or frozen item, sure. And because of that, I wouldn’t object if stores didn’t accept returns because you bought the wrong item. But there’s really nothing someone could do to a package of cookies they took home that couldn’t be done in store.
Gaah! Since that fake low fat crap is usually more expensive and highly desireable to the people who want it, I’m always amazed at the marketers that soft-pedal what ought to be the single biggest brightest part of the label.
Ought to be LOW FAT, LITE, REDUCED CALORIES. But sometimes not. 'Tis a mystery.
I got fooled the same way the other day. I buy only full fat (AKA “real”) yogurt. My fave is Cabot plain Greek 10% fat. Milk & cultures, no artificial crappola. It also only comes in large (~1 qt / liter) tubs for ~$7. Cabot also make the same full fat in a vanilla bean flavor. Can’t have too much at a time or my wimpy pancreas complains, but it sure is good. Same big tub, same big price.
Last week I learned they now also make the vanilla bean in a greatly reduced 2% fat version. A very subtly labeled 2% version. Of course I learned this when I stuck my spoon in it at home and tasted the nasty gunk with utterly different mouthfeel. Right into the trash; there’s no alternate use for a food I refuse to eat.
My SiL loves Mediterranean style sardines, so I always have 2 or 3 cans on hand in case she wants a sardine meal. About a month ago, I shopped the Jewels near her house as opposed to my own in which I’m familiar with the location of virtually everything. I hurriedly picked up a couple of cans of what I thought were sardines. The cans looked identical in size, shape, and packaging to the cans of sardines I was used to buying. Turns out they were cans of salmon which, fortunately, she also likes. Sometimes, we see what we expect to see as opposed to what’s really there.
