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The Other Side of the Food Label

What do food labels really say about what's inside? (Photo by Boris Mann (bmann)/Flickr.com)
Photo by Boris Mann (bmann)
/
Flickr.com
What do food labels really say about what's inside? (Photo by Boris Mann (bmann)/Flickr.com)

A free-range chicken isn’t a free-agent. It may only spend a portion of its day in the great outdoors. The rest of the time? Anywhere but a cage. Though, that information is not something you'll find spelled out for you on a package of chicken breast. On this week's Field Notes: really listening to what food labels say, or don't say. Listen closely and read the fine print, because the thing is, the food industry spends a lot of time producing food, and they want to sure you buy their ‘All-Natural' cartons of eggs--or ‘Contains Real Fruit,’ boxes of fruit snacks that have more sugar than strawberry concentrate. Navigating these claims as a consumer is simple enough, ignore them or believe them. A farmer’s response is something more like, ‘oh no, you didn’t.’ Hear what farmers think about the messages that sell what they spend all year producing.

Jessica is Harvest Public Media's connection to Central Missouri. She joined Harvest in July 2010. Jessica has spent time on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday and WNYC's Soundcheck, and reported and produced for WNIN-FM in Evansville, Ind. She grew up in the City of Chicago, studied at the University of Tulsa and has helped launch local food gardens in Oklahoma and Indiana.