September 2008 - The Guess The Product Contest

This month's column is all about naming the product. I want each reader to study the ingredients in the contest at the upper right, and send me a guess. I've offered more clues than just the ingredients, so my email inbox should be overflowing with correct answers. But I want more:

If you guess the product correctly (and I will respond to your email to let you know), I want to know if you, dear reader, intend to continue to eat this product or serve it to your loved ones. I know folks who absolutely do not care what's in their food, " ...as long as it tastes good."

In this era of chronic disease and obesity, our nation suffers from malnutrition. Oh, we have plenty of "food" and calories, but very little nutrition. That's why we need to know what is, and is not, in our food.

This product was invented (yes, indeed, invented) in 1983, so many, many readers of all ages know this product intimately. This product is readily available here in the USA as well as in many countries around the planet. Bear with me, we ARE going somewhere with this . . .

Ingredients (not necessarily in order by volume): Thirteen of the thirty-eight ingredients in this product are derived from corn and include modified corn starch (to bind), mono-, tri- and diglycerides (emulsifiers), dextrose (sweetener), lecithin (emulsifier), chicken broth and chicken (both from corn-fed animals), yellow corn flour, more modified corn starch, corn starch (as a filler), vegetable shortening, partially-hydrogenated corn oil, citric acid (as a preservative - yes, it comes from corn).

Some other plants have bit parts in this product: Wheat, soy, canola or cotton oil act as some of the hydrogenated oil in the recipe, depending on which oil is cheapest the day the product is made.

Now for the yummy part -- the synthetic ingredients, from a petroleum-refinery or chemical plant. These synthetics keep organic materials from rotting in the freezer or in your car. Ready?

Leavening agents include sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate. These synthetics prevent rancidity. Anti-foaming agents (WHAT?!) include dimethylpoly-siloxene which keeps starches from binding to oxygen; this is a suspected carcinogen and an established mutagen, tumorigen, and reproductive effector. By the by, it's also flammable.

But that's not the worst of the synthetics. How about a little tertiary butylhydroquinone, also known as TBHQ? TBHQ is an antioxidant derived from petroleum and is either sprayed on the product or sprayed on the inside of the packaging to preserve freshness. TBHQ is a form of butane (Hello! That's lighter fluid!) which processors are allowed, by our FDA, to include in tiny amounts in our food.

In this product, no more than 0.02% TBHQ is allowed. And that's actually a GOOD thing, believe it or not, because ingesting just one teeny, tiny gram of TBHQ brings on nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, sense of suffocation, and/or collapse. Five grams or more kills.

Who wants to eat garbage like this? We do! Why? Because we don’t know what’s in it! Why not? It’s either not disclosed, cloaked in euphemisms (natural flavoring, etc., doesn’t necessarily mean, well, natural as in nature-made.), or not commonly known (i.e., how many reading knew what dimethylpoly-siloxene was?)

How many readers care?

Allow me to step down off the soap box and once again ask you to pay attention to the labels. Pay special attention to what you give your children and grandchildren as food. Feed them well -- feed them real food, food that is vital and nutritionally outstanding -- and cook it at home.

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