Travel Day

Travel Day

Ah the dilemma…to discuss international events? Or food….
I guess that’s not really a dilemma at all, is it?

I traveled to my parents' house in Indiana today, and as I sat on my U.S Airways flight from Tallahassee to Charlotte, the beverage cart approached--something I was unusually excited about, since today’s increased security measures required that I surrender my bottle of water at the ticket counter.
The flight attendant handed me my short plastic glass, along with napkin and a small foil bag—a snack, I’m sure also welcome to those who had randomly been told to remove food before boarding as well. I eyed it and was happy to see I had recieved “Spinzels: Braided Pretzels.” As plane fare goes, plain pretzels are nutritionally about as innocuous as one can hope for—for me a choice superior to any kind of nuts or cheese product filled pretzel nuggets. Additionally there was a little foil picture of a farm house and the “Harvest Road” brand logo incorporates two stalks of wheat, all and all feeling very wholesome.

I opened the foil bag and popped a braided pretzel in my mouth, and as I chewed and swallowed, it occurred to me to wonder “Why do my braided pretzels taste like microwave popcorn?” I flipped over the pouch and began to examine the ingredients: Wheat flour, Vegetable Oil (may contain corn, canola, partially hydrogenated soy),

(PARTIALLY HYDROGENTATED SOY? In a PRETZEL? I could spend an entire post ranting just about this but I’m going to spare the readers in an attempt to proceed to the following ingredients)

…salt, ARTIFICIAL BUTTER FLAVORING, corn syrup, yeast.

Since when, even in America’s heartland, has a profound amount of salt on a flour based item not enough? Has the public been clamoring for artificial butter flavoring on their pretzels while I wasn’t listening?

Or do we just tolerate it? Or assume that in the same way my mother used to try to sneak bran into our pancakes to give us extra fiber, the corporations in our motherland are tossing in a little partially hydrogenated oil, artificial flavor and corn syrup into items to, uh…to…

Why DO creators of javascript:void(0)products like this feel the need to distribute, albeit in tiny quantities, substances that are--let’s not say poisonous; let's just say--banned in other countries, and/or associated with a myriad of health risks? Hasn’t anybody told them that there is no daily minimum requirement for corn syrup?

I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason, I’m just not sure I want to know what it is.