Labelling Things as They Are: No More “Peanut Butter,” and No More “Hot Dogs”

When it comes to food, I am starting to understand just how badly I’ve been misled. For years now Maureen and I have enjoyed eating Tofurky sausages. Naturally, we’ve always assumed that these are genuine sausages, containing only the sorts of material you expect to find in a sausage—ground up bits of dead pigs and cows. (Is there any point in being fussy about which bits?) Now, thanks to the fuss over labelling made by several American states and, more recently, by the European Union,* we’ve realized that we’ve been misled all along. After hearing of their efforts, we took two packages of “Tofurkies” (as we have sometimes referred to them) out of the fridge and had a closer look. Sure enough, if you look closely at the label, you’ll see the word “plant-based” in large letters, right before the word “sausages.”

These aren’t made of pigs and cows at all!

Maureen discovers the truth about Tofurkies.



I’m sure that others have had similar moments with products that purport to be “milk”—and then, when looked at more closely, turn out not to come from a cow at all, but rather from soybeans, or oats, or almonds. (Maureen and I are relieved that we are able to correctly identify the sort of drink that's in our fridge—the brand we buy is labelled “soy beverage.” If it were labelled “soy milk,” I am afraid we would be completely misled, and think that it came from a cow.**)

I’m fully in support, then, of efforts to ban the use of terms such as “plant-based sausages” and “veggie burgers” in labeling everywhere—on restaurant menus as well as on products sold in grocery stores.

But these efforts do not go nearly far enough; companies should be banned once and for all from using all deceptive labelling.

I want to draw attention in particular here to two egregious examples. For as long as any of us can remember, mendacious companies around the world have used the name “peanut butter” to describe a product that contains no butter whatsoever. Let them call it what it is—squished peanut spread, or (shorter, simpler, and better), peanut goo. Calling peanut goo by a name that implies it came from a cow is utterly misleading and obviously unethical. It has to be stopped!

Even more urgent is the need to ban the offensive term “hot dog.” Some might argue that the term “hot dog” could perhaps be salvaged by making clear on the label what the main ingredient is—in much the same way that some companies already do with certain products, such as “all-beef hot dogs.” But that simply isn’t good enough; the term “hot dog” is itself powerfully deceptive. No one can fairly be expected to read a label with any care; even if the words “beef” or “pork” are included, thousands of innocent consumers are likely to continue to focus on the term “hot dog,” and thereby continue to be misled into thinking that the main ingredient in these products is dog meat.

And this is only the beginning. Some might imagine that the parties practising this sort of deception are all companies making products that are in reality plant-based. It goes further than that. As Maureen has pointed out to me, the so-called “head cheese” is not in fact made of cheese; it’s made from flesh taken from the head of a dead animal, which is then jellied. And it should thus be called “jellied head flesh.”

We have also discovered (we’ve been looking into all this a good deal) that “prairie oysters” or “Rocky Mountain oysters,” as they are sometimes called, are not oysters at all! They should be labelled as exactly what they are—cooked testicles.

And so-called “sweetbreads”? Bread is not in fact the main ingredient; they are pancreas glands, taken from young animals that have been killed—either calves or lambs. They should be labelled as what they are— “babe’s pancreas” would perhaps be a suitable moniker.

As readers, you are I’m sure already outraged. But it doesn’t stop there! I urge you to look in your medicine cabinets. Do you see “milk of magnesia” there? Like millions of others, you have been deceived; as Maureen has pointed out to me, there is no milk whatsoever in that product!

Please join me in the fight against this sort of outrageous mislabeling. I propose that we start as soon as possible an organization to fight such practices. Strict Honesty and Absolute Truth: A New Approach to Fighting Inaccurate Labelling (SHAT for short***) will be international, fair-minded, and relentless in pursuing those whose labels mislead. Please contact me right away if you are interested in joining.

* The European parliament recently voted 355–247 to ban “meat-related” names from being used on plant-based products. Sir Paul McCartney has protested, arguing that stipulating “that burgers and sausages are ‘plant-based’, ‘vegetarian’ or ‘vegan’ should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating.” With all due respect to Sir Paul, his argument is self-evidently absurd; it’s just too much to expect that we pay attention to the entire name of the product.

** A labelling issue that has yet to be adequately addressed is the question of whether what is normally in our society called “milk” should always be labelled “cow’s milk,” to distinguish it from the milk that comes from a human breast. But that might be taken to suggest that cow’s milk is actually intended for a baby cow, when we all know that the baby cows are intended to be taken away from their mothers at birth so that the mother’s milk can be drunk by humans. A full exploration of that topic, though, is perhaps best left for another day.)

***Some might regard the acronym as unfortunate; my own view is that the acronym may in fact assist the cause, by reminding people of one of the often-unacknowledged ingredients in sausages and other meat products—fecal matter.