Thursday, October 21, 2010

A Tale of Two Cakes


The cake on the left a "Pumpkin Pie Cake" was baked today, by yours truly. It contains pumpkin, flour, sugar, eggs, oil, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.


The cake on the left would not win a beauty contest with the cake on the right. It needs frosting, but is most likely slated for a glaze, or maybe something with cream cheese. Or maybe just whipped cream?

The cake on the right was baked, well, I don't know when it was baked but it has to be sold by October 27, 2010. It contains sugar, bleached wheat flour, whole eggs, partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, cocoa, soybean oil, nonfat milk, corn syrun, high fructose corn syrup, leavening, cornstarch, modified food starch, salt, propylene glycol mono & diesters, natural and artifical flavor, mono Y diglycerides, guar gum, xanthan gum, locust bean gum, coconut oil, soybean lecithin, phosphoric acid, polysorbate 60, potassium sorbate & sodium bensozate , dextrin, confectioner's glaze, carnauba wax, may contain FD&C colors: Red 3&40, Yellow 5&6, Blue 1&2, Lakes Red 3& 40, Yellow 5&6, Blue 1&2 Blue. Contains wheat, soy, egg & milk products.

I am not allowed to bring the cake on the left to Duncan's school for the cake walk at his Fall Carnival. Instead, I must bring the cake on the right. So, instead of taking home a cake baked with ingredients you can pronounce, and probably have in your own pantry, you could walk away with $4.99 worth of crap you can't pronounce and you get to pump your kids full of it! And isn't propolyne glycol the same as anti-freeze?

Stupid.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:08 AM

    OK, this was my area of expertise for years. Propylene glycol can be used as an antifreeze but mostly the antifreeze manufacturers use ethylene glycol. Small quantities of PG are in just about every baked good you buy in the store (and have been for years)...it's used as a preservative. And yes, large (very large) quantities can, ummm, end your life if you drink it straight. But drinking large quantities of water have put pepople into cardiac arrest too.

    Our pre-school much preferred bought goodies because it helped them with children who had severe allergies. Our K-8 school is a bit more relaxed as long as there is not a child with severe food allergies in the spciific class for which you are bringing the food. I understand the liability issue.

    Nadine

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  2. Anonymous7:47 AM

    OK, I typed my comment too late last night. PG isn't necessarily used as a preservative, it used to maintain moisture so baked goods don't dry out as quickly on the shelf.

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