So, the other day, I was making some fries, you know, the usual. Grabbed the Hunt’s ketchup bottle, and suddenly thought, what’s actually in this stuff? Been eating it for years, never really looked closely.
Turned the bottle around. Expected a nice, clear list. Nope. The text was tiny, like ridiculously small. And red text on a mostly red label? Come on, Hunt’s. Seriously hard to read. My eyes aren’t what they used to be, but this felt like a challenge.
Stood there squinting for a good minute. Almost gave up. Felt a bit silly, getting worked up over ketchup ingredients, but it kinda bugged me. Why make it so difficult? Some other brands have it way clearer.
Couldn’t make it out properly under the kitchen lights either. Fine, I thought, I’ll just look it up online later. Put the bottle down, ate my fries. Almost forgot about it, happens all the time.
Later that evening, remembered my little mission. Fired up the computer. Typed in something simple like “hunts ketchup ingredients list”. Didn’t want anything fancy, just the facts.
Took like two seconds. Found it on some grocery store site, I think, or maybe Hunt’s own page, can’t recall exactly. Wasn’t hard once I actually looked online.
Here’s what I found:
- Tomato Concentrate from Red Ripe Tomatoes – Okay, expected that. Good start.
- Distilled Vinegar – Yep, standard stuff.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup – Ah, there it is. Knew it. Almost everything has it these days.
- Corn Syrup – Wait, both? Okay… guess they really like corn syrup.
- Salt – Of course.
- Less than 2% of: Spice, Onion Powder, Natural Flavors. – That “Natural Flavors” is always a mystery box, isn’t it?
So, that was it. Mostly tomatoes, vinegar, salt, and a double dose of corn sweeteners. Nothing too shocking, really. But still, knowing is better than guessing. Glad I took the minute to look it up, even if reading the bottle itself was a pain. Just wish companies would make labels easier to read for us regular folks.
