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.”

  • MrJameGumb@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I’m sure all that will happen is they’ll change the label to say “pistachio flavored ice cream” lol

    • Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 months ago

      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.

        • Kraven_the_Hunter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 months ago

          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.

          • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            So is “artificially sweetened”,

            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.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • LimeZest@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 months ago

        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.

  • Veedem@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    It’s a decently fair complaint. Other food products have to use language to somewhat clearly differentiate between real and “flavored like” products.

      • Veedem@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        That still makes it sound like there’s real honey in it. Should be “Honey Flavored Sauce” IMO

        • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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          5 months ago

          100% agree. America lets a lot of crap slide that shouldn’t. The main ingredient in said “sauce” last I checked (which to be fair, was many years ago) was high fructose corn syrup.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Like the “Butter Chicken” sauce in a jar that I saw in the supermarket. Basically: “Fry chicken, pour contents of jar over it, cook ten minutes, ready!” like. With 7.5g of butter in total for four servings of butter chicken.

    My Butter Chicken (Murgh Makhani) uses 100g butter for the sauce, and some Ghee for frying purposes.

    Although I have seen recipes on he net which are completely devoid of butter. Why do they still call this “Butter Chicken” then?

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      You toast pecans in butter for several minutes to get that specific flavor. Butters a prominent ingredient and a core flavor.

      You should think that butter pecan ice cream would contain butter, because it’s supposed to.

      You should expect it the same way you would expect pecans, because they are both named ingredients of the flavor.

    • SquishyPandaDev@yiffit.net
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      5 months ago

      I’m confused, are you against consumer rights? I don’t think anyone actually cares if it’s real or fake. They just want it to be on the packaging so they can make an informed choice

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      If you want to advertise your “Pistachio flavored confectionery” you can put whatever you want in it - if you’re calling it “Pistachio Ice Cream” I expect actual pistachios to be contributing mainly to the flavoring. I’m honestly sad we allow “X flavored” instead of forcing these shit-heels to explicitly call it out like “Artificially X flavored” but it’ll take a lot of consumer advocacy to get us back into the realm of sanity.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Are you one of those people who thinks if a bad thing is not as bad as another bad thing then it isn’t bad at all?

      Because I’d personally rather be poked in the eye than stabbed in the chest, but I wouldn’t say either thing was good.

      • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Because I’d personally rather be poked in the eye than stabbed in the chest

        Instructions unclear, proceeding to stab you in the eye.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          And as in pain as I am, I’m not dead like I would be if you stabbed me in the chest, so you proved my point!

          Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to the emergency room.