No matter where you are shopping, there’s comfort in familiarity. A loaf of white bread is soft with perhaps a touch of sweetness, potato chips are salty and crispy, and granola bars are chewy, nutty, fruity, or chocolatey. Well, usually. When we picked up a box of granola bars from Costco, we were surprised by what we found.
The ingredients in granola bars are pretty standard regardless of brand: Granola, oats, nuts, sugar, chocolate, and other flavors and preservatives. But a glance at the back of a box of Kirkland Signature Soft & Chewy granola bars reveals the treats contain rosemary extract.
Those who dabble in the kitchen are used to seeing and using ingredients such as vanilla and peppermint extracts. These ingredients are usually purified versions of spices or herbs, where the ingredient’s oils are extracted and infused with a liquid to create a highly concentrated extract that’s most often used as a flavor enhancer. Rosemary can be used for cooking just about anything and is recognized for its strong aroma and flavor. But that’s not all it’s used for.
Why rosemary extract may be used in granola bars
It’s not immediately clear if customers who buy Kirkland’s granola bars can actually taste the rosemary extract. For our part, we tried them and found them to be chocolatey with a hint of coconut. One Costco customer was dismayed — and a little puzzled — at finding out the granola bars contained rosemary, but the reason it’s there may have nothing to do with flavor.
The reason rosemary extract is an ingredient in many packaged foods is to extend the shelf life of those foods and prevent them from spoiling. Rosemary’s properties prevent the growth of bacteria and the oxidation of foods, allowing them to stay fresh longer. Eagle-eyed Costco shoppers have also noticed that rosemary extract can be found in the store’s ground turkey and microwave popcorn, and posters have pointed out similar finds at stores such as Trader Joe’s.
Apart from ground meats and granola bars, rosemary extract’s preservation properties have led it to be added to sauces, salad dressings, snack foods, beverages, oils, fats, and more. Because it’s found in such a variety of food items, there’s a chance that grocery shoppers have purchased and eaten foods with rosemary extract and not even realized it.
