Okay. Let me continue my rant on food rip-offs . . .

The other morning I put an 8 lb bone-in ham and 1 cup of granulated brown sugar into a crock-pot and let it bake all day and came home looking forward to a delicious dinner. And we did. But, I also thought we’d have this big chunk of ham for several leftover meals. But, when I peered through the glass lid, I saw this little shadow of the ham I had put in there, swimming in so much water it nearly reached the top of the shrunken ham.

Ham always has some liquid that wrings out of it when cooked, but this was rediculous! What should have been somewhat of a thick brown sugar ham flavored gravy, was a sweet watery broth.

Flabbergasted, I did some dumpster-diving (sorry, I exaggerate: I dug into our kitchen trash can) and found the wrapper from the ham. I’m ashamed to say that I missed the details. There, in plain sight, though rather small type, was the statement, “23% added liquid”. TWENTY THREE PERCENT? So, the 8 pound ham was actually about 6 pounds — actually much less when you consider that a good percentage of the 8lbs was the bone. I’m curious to see what the bone weighed!

If you do the math, I paid 1/3 more than I should have for this salty, watery ham!

If you are either trying to stretch your budget, or trying to cut down on salt, you really need to read the label! You could have the exact opposite of what you want!