Is it nuts to assume a scoop of pistachio ice cream should contain actual pistachios? Or how about real butter in a dish of butter pecan?
Such weighty questions about a favorite summertime confection could soon be decided by the courts.
A federal judge in New York has given the go-ahead to a Long Island woman’s class action lawsuit that claims consumers are being duped by Cold Stone Creamery when they purchase certain flavors that “do not contain their represented ingredients.”
Lead plaintiff Jenna Marie Duncan purchased her serving of pistachio ice cream from a Cold Stone Creamery store in Levittown, New York, in or around July 2022. According her lawsuit, Duncan “reasonably believed that the Pistachio ice cream she purchased from defendant contained pistachio.”
I’m sure all that will happen is they’ll change the label to say “pistachio flavored ice cream” lol
That’s still a win though, because nobody will be duped into paying a premium for artificial flavoring.
A related label that pisses me off is “zero sugar” when artificial sweeteners are used. I like sparkling water, in large part because it has absolutely no sweetener of any kind in it, but sometimes in a hurry I grab one of these pieces of shit and it really pisses me off.
Zero sugar is a correct label in that case
So is “artificially sweetened”, “natural sweeteners added” or any host of other, more useful descriptors.
Product nutrition labels are not the place for “it’s technically correct” phrasing.
That description doesn’t communicate if there is any sugar (calories) in it or not. That label would be accurate on a zero calorie or full calorie beverage.
The term you’re looking for is “unsweetened”. That tells you there’s no natural or artificial sweeteners in it.
** no actual pistachios were used for flavor.
No pistachios were harmed in the making of this ice cream.
But… did the tree scream?
I scream, ewe scream.
It’s also cold stone, so you can get a mix-in of pistachios and actually have real pistachios in your pistachio flavored ice cream.
Also: Now I wonder if the cheese cake ice cream has cheese cake in it. I usually assume everything is artificially flavored unless it’s plain chocolate or vanilla.
Vanilla is a pretty expensive spice and vanillin can be synthesized from oil or wood, you should probably assume most things vanilla flavored are artificially flavored. There is way more demand for vanilla than the amount of vanilla pods grown in the world.