topic Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients in Recipes

Big food companies using substitute ingredients

novamc1 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:23:34 GMT

If your favorite name-brand foods from big food companies taste slightly different..........it's the supply chain shortage, of course.

A long story in the New York Times recently described how food manufacturers are busy in their kitchens trying to replicate the same flavors, texture, etc. with different ingredients because they can't get the usual ones on time or at all.

One substitute mentioned was using cornstarch instead of the almost nonexistent tapioca.

Just another example of "engineered food", I guess.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

4kitties — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:20:32 GMT

Just another reason for me to avoid processed food........

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

geezerette — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:24:49 GMT

I've suspected this for a while.

I also am pretty sure they're doing the same with pet food. At least according to my picky eaters.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Kachina624 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:31:00 GMT

I don't consider substituting corn starch for tapioca to be much of a big deal. I'd rather they did that than remove a product I use from the market. I'm betting most of these changes are very minor.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Forbidden Fruit — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 19:46:18 GMT

@novamc1

I have not read the article but they are already using cricket flour in certain foods. You know, "good protein."

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

cookie16 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:09:41 GMT

@Forbidden Fruit - please expand on your statement. I am trying to understand cricket flour. I know I have been killing crickets who moved into my welcome mat in fear of them hopping into our house. I can't even imagine eating them.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Mom2Dogs — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:16:18 GMT

@cookie16 wrote:
@Forbidden Fruit - please expand on your statement. I am trying to understand cricket flour. I know I have been killing crickets who moved into my welcome mat in fear of them hopping into our house. I can't even imagine eating them.

I have noticed on social media people circling ingredients on well known products...cricket flour is one of the 'new' ingredients. I am a label reader for sugar and carbs, now I will have to read further down the list, ugh.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Forbidden Fruit — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:22:32 GMT

@cookie16

Yes, but I will be short because it makes my stomach turn. I saw a news story about cricket farms being the wave of the future. They had the crickets in a barn like structure and describing how they are "milled" into flour. There are companies putting the cricket flour in chips. The cost was insane (because the crickets have to be in a air conditioned controlled environment) and the crickets will replace the protein we will get from meat. I'm not joking. Several groups are pushing this. You can search cricket protein and you can buy it from Amazon (and others I am sure). Don't hate me, it's out there and easy to find.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Forbidden Fruit — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:26:45 GMT

@Mom2Dogs

I have not seen it on social media-not on it (except here)-- but what I saw was on "mainstream" meaning they are getting the public conditioned to seeing it as common. Nicole Kidman even did a PSA regarding eating bugs as meals.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

chrystaltree — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:28:09 GMT

They've always done. Hence the ingredients that look more like scientific formulas than food. It's just that they are doing it more now.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Kachina624 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:30:24 GMT

Considering the price of cricket flour, definitely a specialty product, at about $40 for 1/2lb, I doubt we'll see it used commercially any time soon. Certainly not a viable substitute for wheat flour.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

proudlyfromNJ — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:30:54 GMT

Cricket flour is not new. We've also had threads about it in the past.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

rms1954 — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:40:24 GMT

@Forbidden Fruit wrote:
@novamc1

I have not read the article but they are already using cricket flour in certain foods. You know, "good protein."

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

SurferWife — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 20:44:47 GMT

@Forbidden Fruit wrote:
@Mom2Dogs

I have not seen it on social media-not on it (except here)-- but what I saw was on "mainstream" meaning they are getting the public conditioned to seeing it as common. Nicole Kidman even did a PSA regarding eating bugs as meals.

As long as I am alive I will NEVER consider this common. I consider it disgusting.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

bmorechick — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 22:01:34 GMT

Yikes...don't mind substitutions but crickets😳😳

I have the bug man here every quarter to spray all around my house and in garage to kill crickets, ants, spiders anything that walks low to the ground and could get inside omg I couldn't imagine ingesting bugs in any form. Now, I know many many countries and cultures regularly consume as food, what we chemically exterminate and Anthony Bourdain educated me on the many ways to fry, stir, sauce and roast bugs or even to crunch on them while still wiggling. Not this chick, scared to death of a cricket and it will drown in Raid if I see it.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Mom2Dogs — Thu, 15 Sep 2022 00:43:24 GMT

@Forbidden Fruit

If 'they' think that having an actress tell me to eat bugs is going to make me eat bugs, they are very wrong.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

house_cat — Sat, 17 Sep 2022 11:19:26 GMT

I know that eating bugs is quite common in many parts of the world, but it won't be happening in my kitchen in my lifetime if I can help it.

As @Kachina624 and a couple of others mentioned, food companies are always looking for ways to cut costs. I can't see them adding such an expensive ingredient unless it's a specialty product of some kind.

Re: Big food companies using substitute ingredients

Mindy D — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 00:58:04 GMT

@cookie16 @It's a flour made from ground up crickets.