Sauerkraut is as good as sauerkraut, and dried fruit may contain preservatives, experts warn. They also advise customers not to buy Christmas Eve products in a hurry and to read the labels on the packaging carefully.
During the weekend, Poles will go shopping en masse, including: for Christmas dishes. Many tables will feature dumplings with cabbage and mushrooms, fish, and dried fruit compote served only once a year in many homes.
Experts from the Provincial Inspectorate of Trade Quality of Agricultural and Food Products in Olsztyn suggest not to put anything you can find into your basket, but to read the labels carefully, because even seemingly simple products, such as dried fruit for compote, may contain unhealthy preservatives.
How to buy good products for Christmas Eve?
Some dried fruits contain substances that are allergenic and cause intolerance reactions. Such a substance is sulfur dioxide (SO2), marked on labels as E220.
“Sulfur dioxide is used to preserve the light color of dried fruits such as apricots, pineapples or raisins. It is worth being aware that the unsulfurized variants of these fruits will be much darker, which is not a defect of these dried fruits and is due to the lack of sulfites used to fix the color. ” – indicate experts from Olsztyn.
Sulfur dioxide can have a negative effect on the human body and is an allergen. Additionally, dried fruit may contain sugar and saturated fat.
When choosing fruits for Christmas Eve compote, you should also remember that some of them may be smoked. The use of smoked plums or pears will give the compote a characteristic smoky note, which, however, not everyone likes.
When choosing ready-made dried mixtures for compote, it is worth checking whether any of the fruits are predominant. “The ingredients in the list of ingredients are placed in order from the one that is the most to the one that is the least. If none of the ingredients of the dried compote mixture has a significant weight advantage and if they are used in proportions that may vary – then the list ingredients will contain information such as: dried fruit in various proportions: apples, dried plums with stones, pears, chokeberries,” experts advise consumers.
Dried fruit marked as BIO or ECO differs from conventional products in that their production uses fruit grown without pesticides, plant protection products or artificial fertilizers.
Cabbage – sauerkraut, pickled, pickled
When buying cabbage for dumplings, it is worth knowing that producers use the words “sauerkraut” and “soured” interchangeably. “According to the principles of art applicable in food processing, no acetic or lactic acid should be added to sauerkraut, i.e. a product obtained as a result of the lactic fermentation process,” experts point out. If the label shows that acids have been added to the cabbage, it should say “pickled cabbage”.
We should buy mushrooms for stuffing dumplings in stores, because each package approved for sale is approved by a mushroom classifier. This means that bags of dried mushrooms will definitely contain edible mushrooms. Importantly – one species, e.g. boletes or bay boletes.
If someone wants to buy ready-made dumplings, either frozen or those that only need to be heated, they should check whether the packaging is not damaged and whether it is tight. Another element is the composition of the dish: the shorter the list of ingredients, the healthier the dumplings will be. “Make sure that the product does not contain any preservatives or other E-additives and whether the composition includes wild mushrooms, e.g. boletus edulis, or just mushrooms,” the experts emphasized. They also suggest that when reading the label, pay attention to the proportions of ingredients, because it may turn out that the amount of mushrooms is symbolic.
When choosing already cooked dumplings, you must pay attention to their expiration date.
What fish should I buy?
In turn, when buying fresh fish, we should check whether they have convex and shiny eyes, smooth, well-adhering scales and a flat and not bloated belly. If the gills are intensely colored, moist and shiny, the fish is fresh. When choosing fish, it is worth using your nose in addition to your eyes and smelling them – the fish should only have its own fishy smell. All the other smells we feel when smelling the fish should make us put it aside.
Experts suggest that when buying fresh fish, you should distinguish it from those that were frozen and are sold after thawing. Such fish will not have the word “fresh” written on the packaging, and the label should state that it is defrosted fish.
If we buy fish in packages, it is worth reading on the label where and how the fish was caught. “It is worth choosing products with the blue MSC mark – it is a guarantee that our tables will include wild-caught fish that come from a sustainable source or the green ASC mark, which can be found on farmed fish, but only those from responsible farms,” ​​experts point out.
When buying frozen fish, often covered with ice glaze, it is worth paying attention to the “net weight without glaze”, because sometimes there is more of the latter than the fish, and whether there are any food additives in this type of fish. In the case of frozen fish, they may these are phosphates defined with symbols E 338 to E 452. “Their task, among other things, is to retain water in the product,” experts point out and advise to choose frozen fish without preservatives.
When buying ready-made products, e.g. Greek fish, herring with additives, or carp in jelly, it is worth checking how much fish and how many additives are in the package. This information must be included on the packaging.
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