Fruit nectar looks like a healthy product. It looks like a natural product. Nearly every grocery and convenience store in Berkeley sells the stuff. But just what is nectar? Because nectar is usually thicker than regular fruit juice, many people assume that nectar is simply juice with extra pulp in it. Unfortunately, that is not what nectar is. Here is how the FDA defines nectar: “The term ‘nectar’ is generally accepted as the common or usual name in the U.S. and in international trade for a diluted juice beverage that contains fruit juice or puree, water, and may contain sweeteners.” Have your ever read the ingredients on a can of fruit nectar? Kern’s peach nectar lists high fructose corn syrup ahead of peach puree on the label. That means that there is more corn syrup than peach puree in the can, and high fructose corn syrup is neither natural nor healthy.

There are a lot of products on the market like nectar – products that look healthy, pure, and natural – but aren’t. Food processors are very clever and creative in coming up with product names designed to get you to buy them. When in doubt as to what a processed food really contains, read the ingredients label.  Most of the time (but not always) they have to tell you what’s inside. Before Teddy Roosevelt became president, food processors were not required to reveal the ingredients in their products, and few did. After Roosevelt made food processors list their ingredients on the label, many companies, including some big ones, went out of business. People just stopped buying their products. This included bakeries that made bread out of sawdust, dairies that watered down their milk, and sausage makers that made hot dogs out of old horses and animal parts unfit for human consumption. The food processing industry challenged the law, arguing that requiring them to list their ingredients was an ‘attack on free enterprise’ (where have we heard that before?), but the Supreme Court backed up Roosevelt and the newly-created FDA.