A new image circulating the web claims to show the exact ingredients that go into a jar of Nutella – and it may surprise you.
Instead of the typical label picturing chocolate-hazelnut spread, this image shows the famous jar filled with layers of the 5 ingredients that make up the product: palm oil, skim milk powder, cocoa, hazelnuts, and sugar.
The picture below is believed to accurately represent the proportion of each ingredient that makes up a jar of Nutella.
Shockingly, white sugar takes up half of the jar.
This picture below went viral on social media this week, circulating on Reddit where it was upvoted 28,700 times.
Following the recent Nutella cancer scare, which arose after a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) declared palm oil to contain more carcinogens than any other oil.
However, Nutella has since denied that its spread poses a cancer risk, saying that they use high-quality palm oil that is safe to ingest.
Ferrero, who makes Nutella, would not confirm or deny if the new viral image was an accurate representation of the proportions of ingredients due to their claims that the recipe is a heavily guarded secret.
The nutritional label on the jars and on the company’s website, Nutella reveals that in a 15g tablespoon of the spread, there are 8.5g of sugar – which calculates to 227.2g of sugar in each 400g jar.
This comes out to 75 3g sugar cubes per jar and makes up more than half the jar’s weight.
In addition to this, one of the other ingredients pictured in the Nutella jar is the controversial palm oil. According to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), palm oil is a “potential health concern”.
Nutella relies on palm oil for its smooth texture and considerably longer shelf life. They also insist that the spread would not be the same without the oil. But is it worth the risk?
Palm oil is the least expensive oil on the market, switching out this ingredient would cost Ferrero an additional $8-22 million a year.
A spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, Megan McSeveney, said “There is no US ban in place regarding the use of palm oil in foods”, and in one regulation, the FDA has designated the oil as “generally recognized as safe”.
Regarding the image above, Nutella released a statement saying “We don’t disclose the full proportions of the ingredients in Nutella as our recipe is unique and we wish to safeguard this.”
Of the recent cancer scare, it added: ‘The health and safety of consumers is an absolute and first priority for Ferrero and we confirm that Ferrero products are safe.
“The EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has analyzed the presence of contaminants in a large number of products and oils stating that the presence of contaminants depends on the oils and fats used as well as the processes they are subjected to.
It is for this reason that Ferrero carefully selects quality raw materials and applies specific industrial processes that limit their presence to minimum levels, fully in line with the parameters defined by the EFSA. In addition, our quality teams constantly monitor such factors and guarantee the food safety of our products to the consumer.”
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