Hold it just a minute. . . what the. . . I see this stuff printed
on a package of cookies I just bought. The package is about three
inches wide by about 9 inches long and there's printing all over
the package. The entire package is covered with printing. How
much can you possibly say about these cookies? Does anybody read
this stuff? Some of this writing is required by law. The rest
of the printed material is there to confuse the reader or to contradict
the other words. I wonder; does the government set the minimum
or the maximum amount of printed material allowed on a food product
package?
Check out this one: "Home Style Cookies". I envision
a factory with hundreds of little old ladies with hundreds of
little stoves baking cookies all day long. I live in the middle
of a large apple growing region but these cookies, that I bought
a half mile from my house, are made 80 miles from here. Right
underneath that it says "Artificially flavored apple cinnamon
cookies". So, what's artificially flavored, the apples, the
cinnamon or the cookies? All three?
I look at the list of ingredients. They are listed in order of
the amount used in the recipe. It has the usual cookie ingredients,
just like you'd use. However, the list goes on to itemize other
things that I guess they only sell to cookie manufacturing plants
because, not only can't you pronounce these words, you can't even
look them up in a dictionary, let alone try to buy them yourself
to put them in your cookies. Some of these chemical ingredients
are included to retard spoilage. Since when do cookies last more
than a day in any home? But in these cookies they've added anti-spoilage
chemicals twice. Yes, once in the cookie and again in the filling.
The selling points listed on the package: "Soft, Delicious,
Delivered fresh." There's no expiration date on the package
so I guess these things must be eternally fresh! Home Style, eh?
Oh look, more artificial flavors. They're listed twice too. Just
to make sure they have taste. Like they realized when they were
done they still didn't have any taste in their cookies. Yum. Last
on the list of ingredients is dried apples!
I can see right through the plastic wrapper that there are what
look like apple-cinnamon cookies inside. Just in case I'm from
another planet, up in the right hand corner of the package there
is a little square box that says: "Purchase information -
Apple Cinnamon Cookies". Now, this wrapper . . . some kind
of wonder plastic. You need a pair of Ronco Miracle shears to
open this thing. When you do finally get it open, well, you don't
need to be a scientist to know that these babies are chock full
of chemicals. You can smell them. These things do not smell like
"Home Style Cookies", not even close. (Who's home, I
wonder.) But, in the interest of consumer protection, I tasted
some. In fact, I tasted the whole package. Yep, this is manufactured
food alright. No doubt about it. Industrial strength.
© Martin Scherer. Webmaster Martin Scherer. Last update 9/98. E-mail: mscherer@tesserak.net