Speak Softly, Carry A Large Bastone

So yesterday, I baked some bread with my daughter.  She loves helping in the kitchen and recently, bread has been something that I have been focusing on creating at home. 

I encourage you to follow along here, so I'll give you a minute to get into the kitchen...  Ok, now go into your cabinets and get out the Azodicarbonamide, Calcium Propionate, and Ammonium Sulfate.  Sounds wrong, right?  After all we are attempting to make one of the oldest and most basic, life sustaining foods that appears in some form or another in EVERY culture in the world.  How could the Ancient Egyptians have baked their bread in 4000 BC without Ammonium Sulphate?

On my counter, right now, sits a loaf of Arnold "Country White" bread.  There is an astonishing twenty-six ingredients listed on the package.  Does that sound like a product from a bakery, or a product from a factory?

The bread I baked with my daughter yesterday has five ingredients, and I bet you could name them all.  Granted, my bread will be stale tomorrow and has a less-than-perfect shape but I produced that bread with my own hands, not a machine and I spent two hours with my daughter, teaching her to appreciate homemade food. 

Last year, I spotted an intriguing  package of over-priced ice cream in the store.  It was a pint of Haagen-Dazs "Five" as they call it.  The pitch here is that there is only five ingredients in this ice cream and how amazing it is to embrace simplicity (the latter being my own editorial insight).  I bought some of the Vanilla Bean "Five" ice cream.  I won't lie, its good ice cream.  As I sat and enjoyed my astronomically priced ice cream, I read the ingredient list;  Skim milk, Cream, Sugar, Egg yolks and "Vanilla" (Vanilla bean flakes and Vanilla extract).  Are they kidding me?  I just paid way too much for this "Five" ice cream that actually has six ingredients.  It is insulting to realize that Haagen-Dazs must have such an arrogant disregard for my own intelligence that they would market this product under clearly false pretenses. 

Subsequent to my initial frustrations, I started to consider all the companies these days, preaching to us of all the good they do and how they take the responsible path and so on.  Companies remove poisonous chemicals from cleaning products and replace them with similarly effective "Natural" alternatives and then proceed to bash those chemical and explain why they are now so much better.  Didn't they use those chemicals for years, lie and tell us they were harmless and safe for our homes?   

When I was ten years old I made ice cream in my kitchen.  I used EXACTLY five ingredients.  So the question remains, does Haagen-Dazs want me to send them an award for using five (actually six) ingredients?  Do they want people to acknowledge how responsible they are?  Maybe they see the handwriting on the wall like every other company these days.  Maybe they know that you are proving to be a better home cook than you thought you were.  Maybe they are realizing that we are becoming wise to their games.  Or maybe they have realized that we would rather make the product, enjoy the time with our families in doing so, and have absolute control over what we consume. 

I have the Haagen-Dazs award certificate collecting dust on my desk. If they would ever respond to my email from last year, I would know what address to send it to.  After all, they deserve it!