NaBloPoMoNoProFoNo #11: Disappointments - musings on foods that didn't make the cut.

This post is about a few products I'm either going to miss or cheat for as I transition to a completely (?) unprocessed diet...and times when label-reading unpleasantly surprised me :(

 1.  My prechopped garlic.  Food snobs, avert your eyes, but yes, I use prechopped garlic. I loooove garlic and I loooove being able to add lots of it without any effort on my part whatsoever.  I always thought this was just garlic in water with maybe some oil, but it turns out it has phosphoric acid as a preservative.  I mean, considering that the shelf life is approximately "forever" I probably should have guessed there was a preservative involved. Sure, I also buy and use regular real garlic, but I am really going to miss my huge garlic jar when it runs out.  POUT.

 2. My chicken base.  Call me naive, but I thought chicken base was chicken stock that had been boiled down to remove most of the water? Um, no.  Here are the ingredients in my chicken base:  

"Chicken Meat including Natural Chicken Juices, Salt, Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Chicken Fat, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Dried Whey (Milk), Flavoring, Disodium Inosinate and Guanylate, Turmeric. Contains: Soybean, Milk."

WAAAAH, so many unprocessed fails.  ...Corn syrup?  WHY?? (And what exactly is "flavoring"?)

I'm using it up because one of the ingredients used to be alive, but man.  I am going to miss this stuff, it is SO HANDY and I can't find any sort of chicken base product that passes The Kitchen Test.  I will begrudgingly admit that maybe chicken broth isn't meant to be in shelf-stable paste form. (And yes, I know chicken broth is really easy to make from a chicken carcass but who eats that many whole chickens??)

 3.  OK, this one wasn't a surprise per se.  I knew my Favorite Candy of All Time was going to fail The Kitchen Test, I just didn't realize that its preservative was TBHQ, aka tert-Butylhydroquinone, aka "wow they can put that in food???".  I suddenly regret all the bagsful of these I ate as a kid :/

 And just for good measure...

4.  I don't actually like these, but my husband does, and it turns out they contain yellow #5, a dye so nasty that its use is regulated/banned in other countries. I am seriously considering just throwing this bottle away but I guess maybe I should figure out a replacement product first.