I still remember how food tasted before it had a marketing department.
And at some point I was standing in the supermarket asking myself why I’d actually believed the front for years. The sun. The fruit. The words natural, valuable, free from.
Then I started turning packs over.
And I’m telling you, what’s written on the back ruined my appetite. Not for food. For advertising.
The insidious part is: hardly anyone lies on the front. Nobody has to. If you know the rules, you don’t need a lie. Just the right words. And they’ve got them. For decades.
Five phrases I fell for
“No added sugars”+
I used to think that was good news. It isn’t. All it means is: nobody tipped in anything extra to sweeten it. If the fruit brings its own sugar, anything goes, and somewhere in tiny print it says “contains naturally occurring sugars”. I never read it. You probably didn’t either. That’s how a date bar with over 40 grams of sugar per 100 grams ends up on the shelf, perfectly legally, with “no added sugars” on it. And your body couldn’t care less where the sugar came from. It doesn’t count by origin. It counts by the gram.
“Natural flavouring”+
I thought it came from the fruit in the picture. Wrong. Natural only means: the substance came from nature at some point. Could be a completely different plant. Could be a culture of fungi or bacteria. Only when it says “natural strawberry flavouring” does 95 per cent have to be real strawberry. One single word. And the companies know exactly which one they leave out.
“With valuable vitamins”+
Anyone can print “valuable” on it. It isn’t protected anywhere. The vitamins are usually mixed in afterwards, just enough to do for the advertising. A product that has to be pepped up with vitamins before it sounds valuable tells you everything, doesn’t it?
“No preservatives”+
True. And it still keeps for months. How does that work? Sugar, salt and acids do the same job. They just have different names. Where there’s that much sugar, even mould can’t be bothered any more. Think about that before you put it in your kid’s lunchbox.
“From sustainable farming”+
For years they just printed it on. Proof? Nobody needed any. From 27 September 2026 that’s over: blanket words like “sustainable”, “environmentally friendly” or “climate neutral” are banned in the EU without real proof, and home-made seals along with them. It took decades for somebody to ban it. Just think how long they got away with it.
How I do it now. Three seconds per pack.
I only read the first three ingredients. Whatever comes first is what there’s most of. Sugar, syrup or juice concentrate among the first three? Then it’s a sweet. No matter how healthy the packaging acts.
I count the names for sugar. Glucose syrup. Fructose. Dextrose. Maltodextrin. Juice concentrate. Date paste. The more different ones, the smaller they’ve chopped up the sugar, so that none of them lands right at the front on its own. That’s no accident. That’s intent.
I look for the percentage. Whatever is pictured on the front has to be listed with a percentage on the back. Giant strawberry in the picture, 0.8 per cent on the back. I don’t need to read any further.
I only believe the table. “Carbohydrate, of which sugars” shows you all the sugar, wherever it came from. It’s the only number on the pack that doesn’t flirt with you.
My first honest shop
I put an AI on my phone and went through the supermarket with it. Turn the pack over, have it read out the ingredient list, have it take the list apart. One after the other.
I walked out with three things. A spice. Sea salt. Frozen vegetables.
Three.
I stood at the till and I was furious. At the companies. And a bit at myself, for not looking for so long.
Now I buy milk, eggs and potatoes from the farmer and cook for myself. Not because I can afford it. But because I’m no longer willing to pay the price of being screwed over.
Don’t believe me. Look it up.
Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims, Annex: “no added sugars” · Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 on flavourings, Article 16: natural flavourings · Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on the provision of food information to consumers: order and quantity declaration of ingredients · Directive (EU) 2024/825 (“Empowering consumers for the green transition”), transposed into the German Unfair Competition Act (UWG), applies from 27 September 2026
Two finds that finished me off
