French's Mustard 100% Natural?

Good morning!

I did the walk the dogs thing in the rain thing, made sure the wild kittens living under my deck has some dry food, poured more dry food in the bowl under the carport for the mama, sisters, everyone in their brother, went back upstairs and tried to talk Skylar into eating (she isn't feeling well and tried to bury it) and went to get my soup out of the microwave when it caught my eye.

 

It wasn't so much the fact I left it out last night, it was the fact I noticed 100% Natural staring at me.  The guys over at French's knew what they were doing when they added that to the front of the bottle.  

This isn't an ad for French's mustard.  I don't hawk products on my blog like some bloggers do to get free products so it isn't all about that at all.  It was the fact that it said 100% natural and I stood there trying to figure out what was so natural about it and how did it keep its shelf life being so darn "natural"?  Natural to me means no preservatives unless it was a "natural" preservative right?

So without looking at the back of the bottle, I tried to figure out what was in it.  I've been doing dumb things lately so this was a good test of my mental stability.  Day before yesterday I lost my glasses.  Had to go to the store wearing sunglasses like I was Marilyn Monroe or something. Did I feel weird and the sun wasn't even out.  Every time I wear my sunglasses in the store, I feel like people think I'm going to rob them.  Anyway, they're prescription sunglasses and I had to wear them.  I freaked when I got home.  Looked everywhere and the first thing that popped into my head was that I was going to have to shell out almost $500 for another pair. 

Well I found them.  In the cabinet.  I have a place I always keep them and that's in the case on top of my seasoning rack.  When I saw them gone I thought for sure these damn rescue cats whose asses are going out in the spring once I spay and neuter them knocked them off the counter.  They haven't made their way up to the counter yet but I knew it would be any day.  And yes I live in a zoo.

So I felt right foolish finding them in the cabinet I store pancake mix and stuff like that.  I was cleaning it out and I guess I threw them in there with everything else on the counter that I had sitting there waiting to go back in.  And didn't even remember doing it.

So, when I saw the mustard bottle, and saw the 100% natural, I stopped in my tracks and that's when I tried to figure out just what was so darn natural about it.  Without looking at the back of the bottle, I tried to guess what it had in it.  Okay, mayo was the only thing I could come up with.  Is mayo 100% natural?  I couldn't take it any longer and looked at the back.

STONE GROUND 100% MUSTARD SEEDS.

Get. Out. Of. Town.

Nahhhh..that can't be all that's in it.  The spices that I presume are all natural make up for the yellow color.  So the ingredients are...drumroll please...distilled vinegar, water, mustard seeds and spices.  Snap, I forgot vinegar, sure.  And NO mayo. 

Well I didn't stop there.  Mustard actually came from the Romans.  And it isn't rocket science to make the stuff at home.  You just need mustard seeds.  At a little over a dollar a container for French's, I'm okay but if you want to get back to the basics, mustard making isn't really all that hard.

Here's more on it: http://honest-food.net/2010/10/18/how-to-make-mustard/.

This recipe: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Mustard-from-Scratch calls for adding sugar which would make it not so natural unless you used natural sugar cane, right?

Anyway, I have loads to do but I've got to give French's a brownie point for giving me a good topic for a blog post today.  Anyone make their own mustard lately?