You may have noticed ‘added vegetable’ claims on processed foods like tomato sauce (below). Are these products really adding the nutritional boost being claimed? We take a look.
If you notice any of these claims in the wild, snap a pic and post it here.
Johnny, tomato sauce is a condiment to be used sparingly, don’t slather it on like that.
Yes Mum.
Johnny, eat more veges.
Mum? What? Make up your mind.
An historic ode to the great sauce/catsup/ketchup veg, USA USA USA
There is also added or ‘made with real fruit’ appearing on highly processed food products, with some treat foods specifically marketed to children. I guess parents look at the labels and think ‘must be okay as they contain veges/fruits’…and ends up in the shopping trolley as they think it is a way for their kids to eat more veges/fruit.
Good example, a problem in the same vein
Regarding the misleading claims on the amount of vegetables in certain products I’m curious of V8 Vegetable Juice. Claims 4 or 5 vegetables in it obviously most is tomato which is obviously not a bad thing but curious about its claims considering the most recent article about it. I must say I enjoy it and drink a lot of it mainly because I just like the flavours. Although I much prefer the salt reduced one.
Welcome @Phil4
Thank you for your post on this product, I have moved the post into this recent topic about claims about added vegetables in processed food. It does raise an interesting question about the level of certainty we may have about claims of types and numbers of vegetables that may be included in a product such as V8 juice/drink. From what I am aware they may also have added sugar, I assume to help standardise the taste across batches. This added sugar commentary is just a general comment and is not a reflection on any particular product, the manufacturer of V8 juice is not being accused of adding sugar to that product.
Thank you. While I do like the taste I’ve always wondered about these claims. I figure it’s better than soft drinks but I take some claims with a grain of salt, excuse the pun. I hadn’t paid too much attention to the sugar content but it wouldn’t surprise me at all. I’m just so sick and tired that you can’t buy any product in a supermarket without a degree in food science to determine its health claims. I think I have some degree of intelligence to realise a processed product is not the same or as good as a real vegetable or fruit but sometimes you have stuff because you do.
Sometimes the sugar content can be similar to or more than that in softdrink. Salt content can also be quite high and in terms of health consequences not at good levels at all. Such is the drive to sell that we are sometimes (maybe often) the victims of the economic desires of business.
Absolutely I have an App that checks sugar content but to be honest I completely forget about it. That’s why labelling needs to change but that is never ever going to happen. We just have to muddle through ourselves 
The low sodium one purchased by @phil4 doesn’t have added sugar, it’s ingredients are:
Tomato (84%)*, Carrot (7%), Celery (4%), Beetroot (0.5%), Parsley (0.5%), Lettuce (<1%), Watercress (<1%), Spinach (<1%), Salt, Food Acid (Citric Acid), Vitamin C, Natural flavour. *Reconstituted Juice
The juices used, all will have natural sugars (tomato (3-4%), carrot (~4%) and beetroot (5-6%)) . The tomato juice as a base (84% of the product) could be there/used to sweeten the juice.
The normal V8 juice is stated to contain no added sugar, this doesn’t mean other juice type products produced by others don’t contain added sugar. An example is Coles Tomato juice which has added sugar, Golden Circle’s Tomato juice has no added sugar. I’m sure there are others out there that state they are juice but contain at least added sugars.
I never ever trust manufacturers “claims.”
No need to make any further statement!
The issue for me here is not the sugar levels (any juice that removes the fibre is exactly the same), but the ridiculously low amounts of ‘vegetables’ with 6 out of the well-advertised 8 being well under 5% and most of those not even 1%!
And people buy it thinking they are getting 8 serves of vegetables in each glass! The marketing doesn’t actually say that of course but they make a big deal out of including 8 different vegs in the juice. Technically they do but most are simply waved in front of the package and don’t actually make it into the product!
Solution, make your own!
I am speaking about children’s microveable meals. I work as a Nanny. Many parents I work for over the years are very time poor and some they buy microveable meals with “hidden” vegetables. I do wonder how about the nutritional value but I think some brands are better than others. It requires reading the ingredients list in its entirety. Time poor parents don’t do that. The better brands have high vegetable content.
