Merchants of shame: Never eating here again.

[DottyG]

One of the sites I just read said they may do it for diabetics.

[DottyG]

Just found this:

“Currently, the world of sweetener economics revolves around sugar prices, which are very high and unpredictable, particularly in the United States," says Ihab Bishay, director, business development and application innovation. “At the same time, the cost of high-fructose corn syrup, which has generally been the economical alternative to sugar, is also going up."

As a result, the company is seeing growing interest among food and beverage manufacturers to replace at least some of the sugar in their products with alternative sweeteners, “as a way of hedging against the price increases for caloric sweeteners," Bishay says. “What we’re seeing is that industry is looking for sweeteners that can replace 20% to 40%, or even more, sugar to reduce cost of the formulation. Leading the way in this effort is aspartame."

Its taste profile is similar to sugar, yet it is 180 to 200 times more potent, so its cost per use is much lower. Further, aspartame enhances flavors, maintaining the integrity and quality of a flavor without distorting it. When reformulating a product, reduced flavor usage may be necessary to maintain an exact flavor match. But this, too, results in cost savings, Bishay notes. And, in this day of growing health consciousness among consumers, aspartame also offers reduced calories and carbohydrates.

Ajinomoto Food Ingredients LLC

[Danika]

I figure they might put fake sweeteners in so if they have a nutrition information list somewhere, their items are lower calorie. I believe some places like Applebees offer Weight Watchers meals and they might even list the points values. And Subway has calorie listings on the menus, where I live anyway. This way, they can say "Oh, our foods are low cal."

But I always naively assumed that it was because they used lowfat cheese, or not a lot of butter, not because they were adding aspartame or who knows what else to my dishes. Yikes.

[jedikaiti]

I figure they might put fake sweeteners in so if they have a nutrition information list somewhere, their items are lower calorie. I believe some places like Applebees offer Weight Watchers meals and they might even list the points values. And Subway has calorie listings on the menus, where I live anyway. This way, they can say "Oh, our foods are low cal."

But I always naively assumed that it was because they used lowfat cheese, or not a lot of butter, not because they were adding aspartame or who knows what else to my dishes. Yikes.

I bet you're right. It is Applebees that has the WW sub-menu, and I bet plenty of restaurants put in fake sweeteners to lower calorie and sugar counts so their meals seem healthier on paper. I am just trying to figure out why they're in some foods at all, but I just don't tend to put a lot of sweeteners in most of my food.

[DottyG]

As an off-topic, I'd personally correct that to:

It is Applebees that has the sub-par menu

  Ate there once, and that was once too many.

[jedikaiti]

 

[Waterlight]

As an off-topic, I'd personally correct that to:

It is Applebees that has the sub-par menu

  Ate there once, and that was once too many.

POD, and not just because of the generally sub-par food.  I'm a vegetarian (I eat no red meat, poultry or seafood, but I do eat eggs and dairy), and there was absolutely NOTHING on their lunch menu I could eat without making a special request--e.g. "please leave the chicken off the salad."  Yes, even their salads, every single one, had animal flesh on them, and there were no vegetarian entrees.     Granted, this Applebee's was in a part of my state where there's a lot of cattle ranching--but even in cattle country, I've been able to find at least one thing on the menu I can eat at various types of restaurants:  sandwich shops, Mexican, Italian, Chinese, Thai.  That was the first and only time I'd gone to a restaurant with my mother and not been able to find ANYTHING vegetarian on the regular menu.

[Calistoga]

How in gods name do you have a day so long that you become convinced you have handed a customer food that you haven't handed them?

[jedikaiti]

Considering the number of times I've wondered if I actually did something or just THOUGHT about doing it, I can totally see doing that. But it'd also be really easy to check on - does the customer have it? No? Then give it to them.

[greencat]

Please remember that food service staff is frequently only really "trained" on how to operate the register to ring in orders, and how to sell the menu dishes.  It's not rocket science, just a demanding physical job.  I got a bit of training on allergens and ingredient lists and cross-contamination avoidance when I worked in a deli - but in a restaurant, you frequently don't even know how the kitchen actually prepares the dish. 

I developed a temporary case of lactose intolerance one summer and couldn't join my friends for trivia in a nearby pizza restaurant - everything, and I do mean everything, had contact with butter or cheese in the kitchen.