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What’s in a Pickle?

June 1st, 2010 Leave a comment Go to comments
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Who doesn’t love the taste of a crunchy dill pickle? Whether sliced in a sandwich or whole as an accompaniment to a meat dish, the combination of salty, sour and sweet in each crunchy bite adds excitement and zest to the meal.

And it counts as a veggie serving, right?

Not so fast. True, pickles are made from cucumbers. (Actually almost anything can be “pickled”, but the term “pickle” is saved for pickled cucumbers.) But cucumbers are rather lowly vegetables when it comes to nutrition, especially compared to tomatoes or carrots. And once pickled, they gain lots of sodium.

So lets take a look at Vlasic’s Original Dills to see what else goes into industrial pickles these days.

What you need to know:

Sodium is the main concern in pickles. A serving here contains 390mg of sodium, almost 20% of the daily recommended max. If you think that’s high, we have even more sad news for you -  a serving size by Vlasic’s definition is only HALF a pickle.

Here’s the ingredient list:

Cucumbers, Water, Distilled Vinegar, Salt, Calcium Chloride, Alum, Natural Flavors, Polysorbate 80, Yellow 5.

We get the first 4 ingredients (bold). That’s how grandma used to make pickles. She also added lots of dill, which is missing from this ingredient list. But we do get 5 “bonus” ingredients here…

Calcium Chloride is an irritant that doubles as a food preservative. It provides an additional salty flavor without adding sodium.

Alum is a chemical compound that can be bought in powder form in some supermarkets’ spice section. It helps maintain the firmness of the pickles.

Natural flavors can be anything that improves the taste of the pickle, so long as it comes from nature, not a lab. Be sure that a lab creates the natural flavor from a varied source of “natural ingredients”, but the manufacturer is not obliged to disclose the exact formulation. It is a trade secret. By our book, a product that needs a flavor boost from a lab, is inferior – its main ingredients are past their prime, or perhaps never reached a flavorful prime.

Polysorbate 80 is an emulsifier used in ice creams to keep them texture smooth. It  is also used as a solubilizer, helping to dissolving ingredients that would not otherwise dissolve. Not sure why it is needed in pickles – to dissolve the calcium chloride and the alum?

Yellow #5 is an artificial color that is being phased out in European countries, as some studies have shown it to cause hyperactivity in children.

In summary, we’ve got a dill pickle without any dill, but on the bright side, it glows in the dark.

What to do at the supermarket:

Though you wouldn’t expect it, even a simple product such as pickle can have a long ingredient list. If you can, get your grandma to teach you the simple art of pickling. If you’re too late, opt for the products that have only ingredients your grandmother would have used. Yes, these products have a shelf life that is a bit shorter, but better than your life shorter…

Anyone want to share their pickle preparation prescription with us?

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Categories: Food Label, Inside the Label, Recipe, Vegetable Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
  • Kate

    Although I agree with you that more additives is generally bad, I have to take some exception to your language here, especially your descriptions of calcium chloride and alum. Calcium chloride may be “an irritant”–but so are sodium chloride, vinegar, and hot water (which is most likely what is used to make the pickles). Why is the salt (sodium chloride) in the ingredient list “okay”, but the calcium chloride is not? Calcium chloride is not really any more toxic than sodium chloride (and might be less, if you are concerned about hypertension). It’s just another kind of salt. And as for alum being a “chemical compound”…well, yeah. So is the water, and the vinegar, and the salt, and–guess what? every single component of the cucumbers. A lot of homemade pickle recipes (even grandmas’) include alum. In addition to keeping the pickles crunchy, it helps make them sourer (because it’s acidic). Alum is used in a lot of recipes, and is included in baking powder. Calling it a “chemical compound” makes it sound scary and dangerous.

    I do respect your goal to raise awareness of processing and food additives, but using biased and scary language makes the information sound less reliable. “Glow in the dark”? Really?

  • Jason

    My main concerns are with the ubiquitous “natural flavors”, polysorbate, and food coloring. I’ve had GREAT pickles that used NONE of these ingredients (not to mention the alum or calcium chloride). Why can’t we get more natural off-the-shelf foods at our local grocery stores?

    I’m sure it has something to do with cost and being able to mass produce goods so they can sit on the shelf for eons without going bad, though they are already awful in my book.

    You really can’t shop there anymore (and I don’t) if you want to avoid all the added preservatives, colors, flavors, hydrogenated fats, GMO corn/soybean derivatives, etc. I’m compelled to shop at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and local farm markets.

    • Sdaeemackenzie

      Whole Foods products also use Polysorbate 80. I just looked at their ingredients on their quiche and whipped cream. Scary!

  • bill

    Even the “good” pickles I get at Whole Foods have calcium chloride in them.

  • http://www.livingitupcornfree.com kc

    No one seems to notice that the distilled vinegar is made from GMO corn. I am allergic to corn and avoid GMOs as well. I have yet to see any pickles in my store that are made with organic apple cider vinegar so I learned to make my own. Pickles can be really good for you if you make them at home using lacto-fermentation (think sauerkraut). Lacto-fermented pickles are simple to make and contain probiotics and more nutrition than the cucumber alone. No need for water bath canning or any of that nonsense since it just kills the probiotics (live active cultures such as the ones in yogurt) anyway. My pickles contain cucumbers, water, sea salt, garlic, dill and pin oak leaves (instead of alum). I put the vegetables in the jar and then fill with brine made from the sea salt and water. Let sit for three days on the counter and then refrigerate. Delicious pickles with no fuss and no muss, so easy a child can do it.

  • bill

    1) Why would you make white vinegar with anything else? 2)Why would you make a dill pickle with apple cider vinegar? That just wouldn’t taste right.

  • http://rjbaker.org.uk Robert Baker

    This article starts off with a factual error; ‘the term “pickle” is saved for pickled cucumbers’. Not in Britain it isn’t; in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen pickled cucumbers as such, though we do have pickled whole gherkins. Over here, the most popular type of pickle (hence the type most likely to be known as a “pickle” without qualification) is the pickled onion.

    I agree with some of the above comments; although this appears to be a mostly good article, unfortunately it’s been spoiled by sensationalist and biased language. (“Glows in the dark”? — is this Fooducate or Cracked?) As others have already pointed out, “chemical” means only that something is made of physical substances instead of pure energy, and in particular “calcium chloride” is just ordinary salt (aka sodium chloride) with another alkali metal taking the place of the sodium — and thus probably [b]healthier[/b] than salt.

    One genuine cause for concern is the “Yellow 5″; I don’t know what this is, but from the symptoms described it’s one of the azo dyes (probably tartrazine, quinoline yellow or sunset yellow FCF, those being the main yellow ones). It would be interesting if someone who knows the E-number could post it.

    Incidentally, I have in the past pickled my own onions, and they taste far better than any commercial onion; and when I last made lemon pie filling, to get that lovely vibrant yellow colour I added a tiny pinch of turmeric, which worked great.

  • http://rjbaker.org.uk Robert Baker

    Never mind, I found the answer to my “Yellow #5″ question on this very blog — http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2009/04/09/a-dozen-things-to-know-about-the-dubious-food-coloring-called-yellow-5/ . It’s tartrazine — nasty stuff, and UK manufacturers are starting to use circumin (turmeric extract) instead.