Wendyl wants to know: There's a lot going on in this Mexican mash up

Old El Paso Chunky Guacamole. $5.99 for 295g.

Each week, Wendyl Nissen takes a packaged food item and decodes what the label tells you about its contents

There is nothing much fresher or nutritious than a bowl of guacamole which takes minutes to make. Just mash up an avocado, throw in some tomato, onion and garlic and a bit of lemon or lime juice.

It's great as a dip or with many types of Mexican food.

This handy squeeze bottle does the work for you - guacamole ready to squeeze on your food.

Ingredients

• Water - This tells us that most of this product is made up of water.

• Avocado (14 per cent) - Guacamole is usually mostly avocado. At 14 per cent this means there's 41.3g of real avocado in here. A small avocado weighs about 150g so you're getting just under a quarter of an avocado.

• Tomato (10 per cent) - There are little bits of red in here representing 29g of tomato.

• Onion (7 per cent) - This will be in here for flavour.

• White sauce powder (wheat flour, whey extract, whey powder, calcium caseinate, rapeseed oil) - This must be a white sauce which has been dehydrated then added into the product, probably as a thickener and for flavour. It is made up of flour, whey (a byproduct of cheese making), calcium caseinate (a protein taken from milk) and rapeseed oil which is also known as canola oil.

• Cream cheese - Not something usually in a traditional guacamole but it will contribute to taste and texture.

• Cream - Not traditionally added in recipes but will be adding taste and texture.

• Potato flakes - This is just weird. Dehydrated potato in guacamole? I can only think they are in here for texture.

• Food acids (330, 575) - These are citric acid (330) and glucono delta-lactone (575) which is produced from glucose.

Thickener (1422) - This is acetylated distarch adipate, a treated starch.

• Garlic puree (0.9 per cent) - This will be for flavouring.

• Salt - Not too high in salt at 59mg per 15g serve.

• Cumin powder

• Black pepper

• Lime juice concentrate (0.7 per cent)

• Guacamole flavour - What exactly is guacamole flavour? It's not natural because they would state that on the label, so one can only imagine what's in this artificial flavouring.

• Sugar

• Dried jalapeno

• Coriander flakes (0.1 per cent)

• Colour (141, 161b) - These are chlorophyll copper complexes (141) which is a natural olive colour and lutein (161b) which is a yellow/orange colour obtained from marigolds.

My recommendation:

This product tastes nothing like the guacamole I make, but it is green.

It also has "guacamole flavouring" which isn't like "lemon flavouring" or something basic. It's an artificial flavour imitating the taste of avocado, onion, tomato and spices. This product is also made in Spain.

It takes five minutes to mash an avocado and make your own guacamole from five nutritious and fresh ingredients rather than these 26 ingredients.

Highlights:

• Uses "guacamole flavouring."

• Uses potato flakes, cream and cream cheese.

• Has added natural colour.