ONE PRODUCT TAKEN APART EVERY SUNDAY
What’s on the label, what it costs to make, and what the front of the package isn’t telling you.
I make food for a living. Free, once a week, with the sources attached.
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Flip the label
Tap a packageThe front of the package is marketing. The back is where the facts have to be. Here's what four of them say when you turn them around.
What I buy
The short list from someone who's seen the inside of the plant.
Food, Kitchen, Miscellaneous. A few links pay a commission and are marked.
How to read an ingredient list
Six rules, all federalEvery ingredient list in America follows the same rules. Once you know them, you can read any package in about ten seconds.
Sample label · not a real product
Ingredients
1Whole grain oats, sugar, dried apples 2(apples, citric acid), nonfat dry milk, 3natural flavor, 4spice. 5Contains 2% or less of: salt, calcium carbonate, guar gum.
6CONTAINS: MILK.
- 1
First is most
Ingredients are listed in order of weight, heaviest first. If sugar is second, there's more sugar than anything but the first.
21 CFR 101.4(a)(1)
- 2
Parentheses open the box
When an ingredient is made of other ingredients, what's inside it goes in parentheses right after it.
21 CFR 101.4(b)(2)
- 3
"Natural flavor" is a black box
It has to come from a natural source such as a plant, animal or fermentation. What's actually in it doesn't have to be listed.
21 CFR 101.22(a)(3)
- 4
"Spice" can be any spice
A company can list a spice by name or just say "spice." That's how cassia gets sold as cinnamon.
21 CFR 101.22(h)(1)
- 5
After "2% or less," order stops
Anything under 2% can be grouped at the end in any order. The weight rule no longer applies.
21 CFR 101.4(a)(2)
- 6
Allergens get called out
Nine major allergens, including sesame since 2023, have to be named on the label.
FD&C Act §403(w) · FASTER Act
How I check it
The full method →Read the label
Checked against the package itself, or the manufacturer's own product page. Dated.
Read the rule
The regulation behind it, read in the Code of Federal Regulations itself, not a story about it.
Cite the source
Every post ends with what it's built on. If it can't be checked, it doesn't run.
[600K]+ on X
Where this started
Every claim sourced
Label, regulation, or filing
Zero food brands
No sponsor has ever paid for a post
Who's taking the label apart
I make food for a living.
My career has been inside food plants: sourcing, formulation, and FDA and USDA compliance. I know which parts of a package are marketing and which parts have to be true, and I show you the difference with the receipts attached.