Line #13 Main/UnfortunateIngredients


1	Once upon a time, breakfast cereals for kids tended to have the word "sugar" in their names. "Sugar Smacks", "Sugar Corn Pops", etc.
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3	Then, sometime in TheEighties, sugar wasn't so popular with parents anymore. So cereal makers took the offending word out of the title, although the cereals still had the sugar in them if you ReadTheFinePrint. This seems to have happened around the same time they [[OrwellianRetcon edited]] [[{{Bowdlerization}} all the violence]] out of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes''.
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5	This is an advertising trope and covers situations when a food or drink is renamed or restyled to try to keep with the changing times, without ''actually'' changing the product in any significant way.
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7	When TheNewTens began, the sugar censorship itself proved to be a CyclicTrope. With "High Fructose Corn Syrup" now the new boogeyman, brands like Snapple and Pepsi [[InvertedTrope are proudly declaring]] that they use "real sugar!"
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9	Overlaps often with NewLookSameGreatTaste, NewAndImproved, and AsbestosFreeCereal as a means of making marketing lemonade out of the lemons given to them by the consuming public. Some ingredients may be unfortunate as the result of ScaryScienceWords.
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11	Not to be confused with IAteWhat, which covers ''truly'' unfortunate ingredients in fiction.
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13	!!Examples:
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15	[[foldercontrol]]
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17	[[folder:Breakfast Cereal]]
18	* Sugar Crisp → Super Sugar Crisp → Super Golden Crisp → Golden Crisp. This may vary depending on region.
19	** Mascot Sugar Bear had two name changes; first he went from "Sugar Bear" to "Super Sugar Bear". When they started down-playing the "sugar" aspect, he became "Super Bear", complete with TransformationSequence. At this point, he's once again Sugar Bear.
20	* Sugar Pops → Sugar Corn Pops → Corn Pops → "Pops"
21	* Sugar Smacks → Honey Smacks → just plain "Smacks" → Honey Smacks (again). Still known as "Smacks" in the countries where it's sold.
22	* Sugar Frosted Flakes → Frosted Flakes (happened in the 1970s). Makes one wonder what Kellogg's uses for frosting nowadays.
23	* At about this same time, many pre-sweetened cereals also had their ingredients lists rearranged. By law, all ingredients must be listed in descending order of abundance. Before the Great Sugar Cereal Renaming, a box of (say) Froot Loops had its ingredients listed as "Sugar, wheat flour, oat flour, ...". Today, that same box of Froot Loops -- whose recipe has not changed ''at all'' -- has its ingredients listed as "Wheat and oat flour, sugar, ...".
24	* In the UK Sugar Puffs came rather late to this, only changing their name to Honey Monster Puffs in 2014, despite the Honey Monster being their mascot since 1976. In 2018, they became Honey Monster Wheat Puffs, and Honey Monster on the box art assures parents "Nothing scary in here!"
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27	[[folder:Restaurants]]
28	* UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken briefly tried to call itself "Kitchen Fresh Chicken". Then they decided that just plain "KFC" was best. As of 2007, they realized that they weren't fooling anybody and went back to the original name.
29	** Some conspiracy nuts believed that the change was not to eliminate the word "fried" but to eliminate the word "chicken" because what the restaurants sell was no longer legally classifiable as chicken. Of course, in reality, KFC's chicken is probably more "real" chicken than the stuff that goes by the name at many other fast-food places.
30	** ''{{WebSite/Snopes}}'', just to cover all the bases, has a page proposing tongue-in-cheek that the ''real'' reason for the name change was that the commonwealth of Kentucky had started charging a license fee for the use of the word "Kentucky".
31	*** It's notable that the description of the "chicken" is identical to "Chicken Little", a being made of cloned chicken cells from the sci-fi novel ''The Space Merchants''.
32	** They tried "Kentucky Grilled Chicken" for commercials only to coincide with their new grilled chicken options, it seemed to make them popular for a while. Grilled chicken is healthier than fried chicken in the eyes of the public, but in reality, since KFC grilled chicken is made without removing the skin it has nearly as much fat as their fried chicken.
33	* International House of Pancakes became "'''INTERNATIONAL HOUSE''' [-of pancakes-] '''RESTAURANT'''" and then on to IHOP with a [[VisualPun kangaroo]] as a mascot.
34	* Dairy Queen became DQ in 2001, and neither commercials nor their employees seem to acknowledge the chain's unabbreviated name. It is still referred to as "Dairy Queen" in Canadian TV ads.
35	* During the health boom of the mid-2000s, Dunkin' Donuts commercials started focusing less on sugary fatty donuts and more on their coffee or breakfast sandwiches. Nowadays, any given Dunkin' Donuts commercial will not only never mention Donuts, but not use the word "Donuts" in their name, instead referring to itself only as "Dunkin'", down to their catchphrase "America Runs on Dunkin'". In Spain, the company's name is "Dunkin' Coffee" (though that's more due to a trademark dispute not letting them use "Donuts" in their name), and rumors say that DD may be gradually moving towards DC in the near future.
36	** In 2018, the company announced that some stores would be named "Dunkin'" as test markets for a potential name change.
37	* Monosodium Glutamate or MSG, a flavoring used to enhance savory/''umami'' tasting food, got a reputation for causing various (if never quite scientifically verifiable) health problems, specifically being linked with Chinese Restaurants, even though it could be found in just about every savory packaged food on the market. Nowadays, it's usually listed as yeast extract, hydrolyzed protein, glutamic acid, and sodium or calcium caseinate.
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40	[[folder:Other]]
41	%% Please resist the urge to expound on whether these are actually bad for you; down that road lies 4x-indented walls of text.
42	* Omega-3[[labelnote:*]]the - character isn't a hyphen, it's a minus sign, designating the distance from the omega end of the fatty acid chain where the double-bond occurs. If you are a stuffy organic chemist, you want to pronounce it "omega minus three"[[/labelnote]] fatty acids. Shortly after they became popular, advertisers started referring to them as 'omega-3 oils'[[note]]the difference between an "oil" and a "fat" is just whether it's liquid or solid at room temperature; chemically they're both fatty acid esters of glycerol[[/note]], and more recently just 'omega-3s' with even scientists using that last one. This was all to avoid people getting the idea that the fatty acids [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin might have something to do with fats]].
43	* Certain anti-aging creams contain amino acids. (Like all agents used in anti-aging cream, don't expect these to have any serious effect.) In advertisements, these are referred to as simply "aminos" because people [[HollywoodAcid associate the other term with either highly corrosive acids]] or LSD. Never mind that amino acids are simply the rudimentary components of proteins, which human beings ''need to live''.
44	* Yogurt is touted for its "live and active cultures" or, in brainier circles, its "probiotics." At least one supplement maker's ad refers to "good bacteria", but calling them "nummy germs" never quite caught on.
45	** Whilst biology students and health-obsessed adults might appreciate the whole bacteria thing, most children see yogurt as being a creamy treat with no health benefits (unless it has fruit in it, of course). In fact, the mention of bacteria puts them off, because at the same time they're being told to associate bacteria with germs, which are bad. There was an advert some years ago for Rice Krispies Multi Grain which openly touted their 'Probiotic bacteria' and had young children in the advert who actually wanted to eat it after hearing about this. Needless to say, this was thoroughly unrealistic.
46	** Never mind the minor detail that "probiotic" technically only means it contains ''some'' bacteria that are naturally found in the human gut, not necessarily the ones that are actually good for the digestive system. Most beneficial bacteria that live in the colon can't survive in the presence of oxygen, so incorporating them into yogurt that's going to be opened and spooned out in the presence of air would be a waste of time.
47	* Sugar substitutes like aspartame. It's either a wonderful alternative to tooth-rotting, weight-gaining sweeteners, or cancer in a paper packet that affects your insides like nicotine and tastes like synthetic evil. The common complaint is that it contains chlorine... which is found in most tap-water.
48	** Of the common artificial sweeteners, only sucralose contains chlorine; saccharin and acesulfam K contain sulfur. Aspartame is arguably the most "natural" of the artificial sweeteners since it's a dipeptide (basically, a very short protein) that's handled by your body in exactly the same way all other proteins are. The big drawback is that, at least until you get used to them, they all ''do'' taste like synthetic evil (with the aftertaste of sucralose being probably the least foul/easiest to get used to).
49	** The backlash against this is driving brands like Coke and Pepsi ''back'' to advertising the "[[AllNaturalSnakeOil natural sugar]]" they contain, where previously they banked on artificial sweeteners.
50	** Of note; the "causes cancer" warning for artificial sweeteners that everyone will, at some point, hear from a presumably well-meaning friend is not great science. There are some observational papers that suggest a slight elevation in cancer risk with some artificial sweeteners, but the primary source for the rumours seems to be a paper where a breed of rats ''already prone to developing cancer''[[note]]to be fair, often used in carcinogen research because of this exact tendency[[/note]] were fed absolutely ridiculous levels of artificial sweeteners, equivalent to a human being downing bags and bags of the stuff every single day. There have been less egregiously-constructed experiments performed since that time that, as with the observational papers, suggest there might be a slightly elevated risk of cancer from a diet high in artificial sweeteners, but that's not the sort of scientific conclusion that lends itself to a lunchroom warning about your diet soda consumption.
51	* High fructose corn syrup, the currently-trendy "evil" of the food industry, is beginning to be called "corn sugar" to lessen its "evil" connotations.[[note]]The U.S. FDA has rejected the term "corn sugar" as a term for H.F.C.S., though, because "corn sugar" was already being used to mean dextrose.[[/note]]
52	** To distance themselves from high-fructose corn syrup, some products that use regular (non-high-fructose) corn syrup are now calling it "glucose syrup" instead. (The British have traditionally called corn syrup glucose syrup long before HFCS came onto the scene; HFCS is called glucose-fructose syrup over there.)
53	** As with artificial sweeteners, some soft drink companies (notably Pepsico) have released "throwback" versions of their flagship products, with sucrose instead of H.F.C.S.; they proudly tout these throwback soft drinks as being "made with real sugar!"
54	* Averted with the ''previous'' trendy "evil" of the food industry, ''Trans'' fats. Instead of rewording the ingredients labels, food manufacturers actually went out of their way to reformulate their products to be ''Trans''-fat-free by the time the FDA's labelling requirements went into effect in 2006-8. The added bonus, of course, being that advertisers could boast about "zero trans fats" and hope gullible consumers would equate that with "fat-free." They also didn't waste any opportunity to label foods "low-fat" or especially "no trans fat" even if [[AsbestosFreeCereal all foods of that type are]]. Now that the FDA [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/07/fda-ban-trans-fats_n_4232871.html banned partially hydrogenated oils outright]], this particular ingredient will most likely become a [[ForgottenTrope forgotten unfortunate ingredient]] (at least in the US).
55	** As long as a product has < 0.5g of trans-fats per serving, they can put 0g in the nutritional information. (Partially hydrogenated oils == trans fats.) This has the amusing side effect of allowing vegetable shortening--which is high in ''trans'' fat because it ''is'' partially hydrogenated oil--to be labelled as ''trans''-fat-free: if the stuff is 33% partially-hydrogenated oil, just call a serving 1.5g, and voila! Less than .5g per serving.
56	** Milk and red meat also contain small amounts of naturally-occurring ''trans'' fat. A tablespoon of butter, for example, contains about a quarter of a gram of ''trans'' fat. These trans fats are different chemically from the ones found in partially hydrogenated oils, and might (or might not) have different health effects. If the "less than 0.5 grams per serving = 0 grams" rule were revoked, ordinary milk would have to be labelled as containing ''trans'' fat!
57	* In recent years Gluten has been getting much the same treatment as HFCS and Transfats. For 99% of the population, Gluten is a perfectly harmless wheat protein that acts as a structural molecule. It is not an energy storage protein and thus does not contribute positively or negatively to nutrition. For the 1-2% of the population which suffers from disorders that carry gluten sensitivity, it's akin to lactose intolerance - it induces intestinal discomfort, and in many cases is never severe enough to be diagnosed. Other people claim vague symptoms as "gluten sensitivity" the way previous generations did with MSG. Never-the-less, thanks to public misinformation on the "evils of gluten" and "carb-free diets", it's become a fad to a [[AsbestosFreeCereal advertise products as "Gluten Free", even when there's no logical reason a product would have a WHEAT protein to begin with]].
58	** That said, some cases of celiac disease are extreme enough to be triggered by even trace amounts of gluten from cross-contamination, so "gluten-free" can be a signal that a food was produced using celiac-safe procedures. Of course, this can cause dangerous confusion when something marketed as "gluten-free" to ride the health craze ''hasn't'' been produced with such protocols.
59	* You can have FunWithAcronyms to invoke this trope, too. Most people don't pay a lot of attention to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butylated_hydroxytoluene BHT]], but would ''you'' eat something that said it contained "butylated hydroxytoluene"?
60	* There used to be a brand of pretzels called "mister salty", which wouldn't sell too many pretzels these days.
61	* Barr's Iron Brew became Irn-Bru many years ago as it contains neither a substantial amount of iron nor is brewed. The word brew is actually northern word for a drink. Similarly, the drink is listed on the back as a 'Sparkling Fruit Flavoured Drink'. They don't say what the fruit flavour is but this is because it was originally said to be flavoured by iron girders (in actual fact it contains such a low amount of iron as to not be detectable).
62	* Mountain Dew was originally advertised using the name's connotations with hillbillies and moonshine but has since dropped that and instead rebranded itself as a sort of sports drink. The "Throwback" product (which reverted to using cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup as the sweetener) uses some of the original marketing illustrations, including one image of a hillbilly with an earthenware jug of something so energetic that not only does it open itself, the cork blows a hole through his hat... which is still more PC than the one where a hillbilly was firing a Kentucky long rifle at a presumed "revenoor".
63	* A thought experiment on the SlipperySlopeFallacy poses the question of eating a cake made with a lump of excrement equalling 1% of it mixed into the batter. Therefore, you can't accept any compromise, or else you're eating shit.
64	* Would you eat a fish called a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slimehead Slimehead]]? Of course not! Unless you've eaten "Orange Roughy", which is the same fish. "Firm flesh with a mild flavour", apparently, so you're probably okay to ignore the unappetizing name and give it a try, assuming you're not allergic to fish.
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