Herbs & Spices were once traded as the World’s most sought-after jewels. In fact, until only a couple of centuries ago, only the affluent had access to such wonderful flavours. Today however in our world of fast food, 15-minute meals and supermarket chains, what were once treated like gold have now become just an agricultural commodity.
Herbs and spices are no longer treated with the respect they deserve. They like many other food items are mass produced, harvested, processed, blended, packaged, sold and consumed. What was once an appreciated item, respected for the exotic flavours they offer, is now stacked side by side on supermarket shelfs, and sold for almost peanuts.
But did you ever wonder how they can be sold so cheap?
Most brands process herbs and spices with fillers to get more in the jar at a lower cost. Some of these fillers can include flour, salts, corn starch and in some cases even saw dust. Products like Turmeric, Paprika and Ginger are often embellished with toxic or potentially harmful dyes to hide the ageing of the product or the presence of fillers themselves.
Real A grade un-altered dried herbs and spices are high in value by weight, which makes them a prime target for ‘cutting’ down. This problem has become so prevalent in Europe that the EU have sponsored a special project called SPICED, which seeks to reduce the industrial chemical alterations to and ensure 100% authenticity of spices and herbs.
We at PtoP have made it our mission to only support the trade of high-quality A grade, un-altered herbs, spices and blend’s ALL of our products are natural, preservative FREE, additive FREE and filler FREE. We believe it is imperative that only authentic product make it onto our plates, after all its our families we cook for too.