Life is Belief & Struggle - Ahmed Shawqi

Friday, August 21, 2015

When Ketchup isn't Heinz



Heinz Tomato Ketchup is one of those iconic American product brands. When isn't ketchup added to the BBQ picnic table? It is found literally everywhere in America. You are more likely to find Heinz Tomato ketchup than peanut butter in American homes. I have watched Americans put Heinz ketchup in literally anything, and nothing ruins a good steak more than drowning it in ketchup, but to each his own. But ironically, in 2015, Heinz Tomato Ketchup doesn’t have as much tomato as you would think.  Ynet News:
Osem has launched a campaign against its main ketchup competitor Heinz, claiming the latter's sauce does not meet the criteria for ketchup and instructing retailers to remove it from their shelves. After conducting lab tests on the Heinz product at its own initiative, Osem on Tuesday morning sent a letter to retailers asking them to remove the Heinz product from their ketchup section, and not place it next to Osem's own product. The letter, signed by Osem Trade CEO Nizan Goldberg, states: "We wish to bring it to your attention that we recently discovered that the product marketed as Heinz 700g ketchup only contains about 21% tomato concentrate and not the 61% tomato concentrate as advertised on the product. The product has been tested in a leading European external laboratory, which produced these findings. Israeli trading standards define ketchup as having 41 percent concentrate. "The incorrect indication of tomato concentrate in the products severely misleads the Israeli consumer public and is a violation of the provisions of the law to protect consumers," the letter states. "This information has also been sent to the Diplomat company and the authorities. Moreover, under Israeli law, the presence of lower quantities of fortified tomato concentrate prevents the product from being called ketchup and it cannot be sold as such."   

Who would have guessed that Heinz Tomato Ketchup is only 21% tomatoes? This really does explain why 15 mls of ketchup contains 4 grams of sugar. Years ago, Heinz wasn’t sweet but tart - it had a bite to it. Now it is so sweet it can literally rot your teeth. So save your money and a few drops of red food colouring to your sugar, and viola! You have a clone of Heinz ketchup!
Then there is J-Street, the American pro-Israel pro-peace lobby group.  The “J” in “J-Street” was allegedly  to stand for ‘Jewish’ and had presented itself as a new hip Jewish organization to counter balance the more traditional Jewish organizations/lobby groups.    Not only has J-Street had to struggle for basic Jew creds within the Jewish community but there are grave doubts about J-Street’s Pro-Israel credentials as well.  

Of course, the recent election ofan American Muslim woman to the presidency of its national student board - J-Street U has destroyed any pretense of J-Street being an authentic Jewish organization. .

Do not misunderstand me, I probably won't find Amna Farooqi half as annoying as leader Jeremny Ben-Ami who, unfortunately, is a bona fide member of the tribe but an organization which positions and portraits itself as an authentic Jewish voice has be be backed by Jewish leaders. 

All of which brings me to the Obama administration and the latest Iran side deal. Whose idea was it to allow Iran to inspect itself?  And why, would any rational person go along with it? 

There is something very 1984ish about 2015. Big Brother may not be watching but you can count on the NSA to be listening. We might not have yet Ministries of Peace, Plenty, Truth and Love but we really are damn close.  Nothing is what it seems to be anymore.

4 comments:

  1. I stopped using Ketchup ages ago when it turned from tart to sweet. The sugar count is outrageous.

    As is the idea that Iran can police itself - I don't think that the Obama administration knows what it's doing. If it does know and is making all these outrageous concessions to those bigoted mullahs in Iran, then heaven help us. They are giving the green light to Iranian ambitions to revive the Persian empire. Of course, the Iranians are going to go mano-a-mano with the Saudi; just wish our government would let them both go at it without intervening and making things worse.
    For a long time, I felt that J Street was anti-Israeli and even now, anti-Jewish. Electing a Muslim as head of a Jewish organization is just about the last straw.

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  2. Oh - forgot to add that I put hot sauce on my food (never steak! ). And vinegar on my fries.

    Long live the hot and sour!

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  3. I am with you on the hot and sour, although I do have a weakness for eating hummus with my steak...everything just seems to go better with hummus. It's probably my inner Israeli coming out.

    I have always found the reform movement in the US to be an outlier kind of Judaism so the birth of J-street isn't as much of a stretch but it does seem very much an American phenomenon.

    It's such a shame that the mad mullah's have overtaken Iran, I have quite a fondness for Persians as a people.

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  4. Good food doesn't need ketchup, and bad food doesn't deserve it.

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