Recipes, Not Formulas

In an ongoing effort to keep food as real and as good as possible, Jason's Deli is very proud to announce that we have eliminated MSG from our menu and are also in the process of removing High Fructose Corn Syrup from many menu items.
Pure and simple.

You may remember that Jason's Deli was years ahead of the industry in eliminating artificial trans fats from our food. It took political and consumer pressure to prompt other companies to respond, but for whatever reason, the industry has taken some small steps to treating you better.
Well, here's to hoping we start another trend.
You see, the further away we get from serving real food, the less interesting the food becomes. Remember, good food isn't about formulas it's about recipes.

A little background. Processed Monosodium Glutamate, better known as MSG, is a food additive, or as many in our industry like to call it, a food "enhancer." Although MSG does occur naturally in certain foods, it was not isolated until 1907, and it has been mass-produced ever since. It is most commonly used in canned soups, beef and chicken stocks, frozen dinners and snack foods. MSG has remarkable preservative properties, with the ability to "lock-in" flavors over long periods of time. It has therefore made a huge impact in the mass production of food, in both shelf-life of the product and the bottom line for producers.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is any of a group of corn syrups which have undergone enzymatic processing in order to increase their fructose content. They are then mixed with pure corn syrup to reach a final form. The process is only a few decades old, and wasn't perfected until the mid-1970s. But once it did take shape, it rapidly took over the soft drink industry, and by the mid-1980s, it dominated the market. The appeal was obvious. Corn was cheaper than sugar beets and pure cane sugar. It was a liquid, so it was easier to transport. And, of course, it led to a significantly longer shelf-life.

Studies have been conducted, scientists have been published, politicians have been lobbied, and still nobody knows just how bad these chemicals are for you. None of these studies say they are good for you, and most of them say that after several decades, scientists still don't know what these products do to your body.

So, why did we give you all this information? Simple. We aren't concerned with what those studies find or don't find. Why go through all that trouble studying and analyzing these chemicals, when you could just use real food? The same food that nature has been perfecting for centuries.

"The farther away from the food chain you get, the less good the food will be."
So says Pat Herring, director of Research and Development, for Jason's Deli. That's the attitude you want from someone who buys all the food that we're putting on your plate. "When you're cooking at home, you don't have all this stuff…you have a recipe that says ‘pinch of salt,' ‘some garlic."

Because at Jason's Deli, it is all about real food. We believe in recipes, not formulas. When buying food for Jason's Deli, Pat has a simple rule: "I look at the list of ingredients, and if it has more than two or three lines, I don't buy it. The more food is changed, the worse it gets."

Pat is very passionate about the effect of the removal of these chemicals on the taste of our food. "People get used to MSG and high fructose corn syrup, so when you take it out, they'll say ‘where'd the flavor go?' But the flavor didn't go anywhere. The flavor is still in the food. We want you to taste the food, not the other stuff."

How hard has the change been? Not hard at all. Jason's is in the process removing the high fructose corn syrup from many of it's menu items. In fact, Jason's Deli eliminated HFCS from its ice cream last year. Did you notice? Probably not. Because our Research and Development team tinkered with the recipe to get the flavors just right. "You can make the flavor of the food better, without adding all those chemicals," says Pat.

But what about our suppliers? Lance Crackers, after having removed all artificial trans fats from their crackers a few years ago, has agreed to make their crackers without using High Fructose Corn Syrup. Why? Because they believe in our vision. Of course, it's not always that easy. It would take Coca-Cola years to make the changeover, and we understand that. Coca-Cola products will remain as the only exception to our omission of High Fructose Corn Syrup from our menu. But we are purchasing Dr. Pepper from the plant in Dublin, Texas, the only plant that never switched over to HFCS. We will also offer other alternatives, such as Boylan's sodas, that will be free of HFCS.

"The closer to the food chain, the better it is for you." That's Pat's motto. And that goes for the rest of us too. That's what drives us to make real good, real food. All we're doing by eliminating these chemicals from your food is to make the food more real.

Pat Herring does have some closing words for the reader: "Don't ever buy food where you buy gas." Simple enough.