Contraband

I thought it was important to let you know that occasionally some food item made with more than one ingredient finds it's way into my life. I have said before, but I think it bears repeating, that if you invite me over to your house, I will happily eat whatever you are serving. Whether it is Wishbone Salad Dressing, coffee cake from the supermarket bakery, fried Twinkies, or something made in a laboratory from sodium stearoyl lactylate and Yellow Number 5. I will not judge you, I will just be happy to be eating a meal I didn't have to make. Also, if I have reason to eat in a restaurant, I will order whatever I like. I don't go out of my way to eat in restaurants, but I don't go out of my way to avoid them either. I almost never pick up take out in lieu of cooking, or in any other way use it as an excuse, but in the normal course of being a person living in the city, opportunities to eat in restaurants arise, and I don't make any limitations on my orders. If it's not made in my home, it seems a little ridiculous to parse hairs on what "homemade" means. All this being said, I do make a pretty strong effort to keep these types of items out of my house. But every so often there are leaks in the seal. Sometimes it's me coming up with a harebrained justification in the grocery store for buying guacomole, and having to live with the guilt when I get home. Sometimes DR buys yogurt or salsa when he's at Trader Joe's unsupervised.... But I didn't feel I could let this one go unmentioned.

This is the ingredient list. I think it is the longest one I have ever seen. Definitely the longest one since I began this project. In my defense, I did not buy these cupcakes. My mother-in-law brought them over on Friday when she came to watch Baby J while I was working. Now, in keeping with my hospitality rule, I think it is very bad manners to refuse gifts from people who are caring for your children for free, and I really don't like to let food go to waste, even when it's claims on being food are dicey at best.  I thought you might enjoy a good old trip down memory lane as I list the component parts that are now part of my body:

Cupcakes Chocolate & White, Ingredients: sugar, vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated soy and cottonseed) mono and diglycerides, corn starch, natural and artificial flavors, salt, gums, polysorbate 60, Artificial color, water, cream, vegetable shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean &/or cottonseed oils, propylene glycol monoesters, mono diglycerides, lecithin, sodium stearoyl lactylate) cocoa with alkali, glucono delta lactone, Potassium sorbate, butter, enriched wheat, (thiamine mononitriate, riboflavin, folic acid), eggs, leavening (baking soda phosphate, aluminium sulfate), food starch modified, rice bran extract, fruitrim(TR) (fruit juices, natural grain dextrins), non-fat milk, soy lecithin, propylene glycol, monostearate, dextrose, caramel color, propylene glycol, citric acid, enriched wheat flour bleached (flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid) decoration (sugar, hydrogenated soybean oil, corn starch, lecithin, confectioners glaze, dextrin, cocoa processed with alkali, artificial colors (red 3, red 40 lake, yellow 5, yellow 6 lake, blue 1 lake) artificial vanilla flavor.) Artificial color (blue 1 & 2, Red 3 & 40)

There are 12 words in this list that the computer doesn't recognize.

This is what that looks like:

I have eaten two of them. Good gracious.