Planters is nuts for this one.
A concerned consumer is calling out the snack brand after discovering an alarming ingredient disparity between two versions of their dry roasted peanuts: salted and lightly salted.
Over 240,000 have viewed the TikTok video shared by Vanessa Stevs, or @ness.stevs, a physician assistant student who frequently shares health guidance on the app.
The latest tip reportedly came from Stevs’ mom who noticed the difference while on a recent grocery store run.
“Watch and learn — Salted right?,” her mother began in the new clip as she flipped over the container of Planters Dry Roasted Salted Peanuts.
“Look at that! Sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, ok?” she continued while reading now the list of ingredients shown in the video. The original version also contained honey, peanut oil, fructose, dried red chili peppers, natural flavor, paprika extract (color) and xanthan gum.
Then she zoomed in on the lightly salted style. “Peanuts, sea salt. This goes in the cart,” she said as she tossed the canister into the biggie.
Viewers were stunned to learn the truth — and thankful for Stevs’ post.
“Thank you so much for posting I live a busy life with a lot of crap and sometimes I don’t have time to read the labels. Now I’m going to choose the second option making my life more healthy,” one wrote.
“Perfect example of why reading labels is important,” echoed another.
The finding begs the question: why are so many ingredients needed to make some peanuts salted?
Per Planters’ website, their dry roasted lightly salted peanuts are cooked without the use of oil, and seasoned with “a touch” of sea salt without all the sodium.
Meanwhile, the original dry roasted peanuts contain seasonings “to bring out the nutty flavor,” the brand claims.
Conventional salted nut products lose many of their natural properties and flavors during processing are known to be made with a variety of additives including salt, sugar and fat to make them “tastier”, according to the nut experts at Nuturally.
