The 6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods

[CoolBreeze]

1. Spray-Can 'Easy Cheese'

Kraft’s Easy Cheese cans combine the soulless tastelessness of its cheese products with the convenience and simplicity of whipped cream cans.
According to an exposé in Wired magazine, Easy Cheese achieves this amazing texture by containing lots of unhealthy crap, such as the stain-removing chemical trisodium phosphate and a healthy dose of canola oil that keeps the cheese from solidifying. Oh, and they also load Easy Cheese with about twice the amount of salt you'd normally find in natural cheddar cheese.

But the best ingredient in Easy Cheese is calcium phosphate, which is used as a calcium supplement. "But wait," you say. "Why does a cheese product need calcium added artificially?" Well, as Wired speculates, the sodium phosphate could actually negate the calcium in the natural cheese. Thus, Kraft had to put in an additive that would make up for the calcium that's taken away through food processing. Genius!

2. Oreo Cookie Death Filling

No one will ever accuse it of being good for you, but at least you're eating fairly natural fats. Oreo stuffing, on the other hand, is basically sugar-flavored Crisco. Seriously, that’s what you’re consuming when you eat an Oreo.

Oreos' death filling is so bad it even inspired an ill-fated lawsuit in California a few years back that tried to stop the sale of Oreos to children.

3. Condensed Soups

Consider that a mere half-cup of Campbell’s Vegetable Soup contains a heart-stopping 890 mg of sodium, or roughly 37 percent of your daily recommended sodium intake. But wait, there’s more! The typical Campbell’s soup can contains one-and-a-half cups of soup, meaning that one can of soup contains more than 90 percent of your daily recommended sodium intake.

4. Spam

Spam is derived primarily from pork shoulder meat (seriously) and combined with water, sugar, sodium nitrate (of course) and copious amounts of salt. The result is a meat-like goo that derives 80 percent of its calories from fat and that delivers a whopping 790 mg of sodium per two-ounce serving.

5. Artificially Flavored Blueberry Bits

Frozen waffles are fairly non-nutritious. Indeed, the only real way to get any sort of vitamins in your waffles each morning is to buy blueberry waffles that contain….

But, hang on! It turns out those aren’t blueberries at all! They’re more like…well, just what are they? An apt description would be "purple globs of sugary goo," but they’re actually called "artificially flavored blueberry bits." Their ingredients include sugar, dextrose, soybean oil, soy protein, salt, citric acid, cellulose gum, artificial flavor, malic acid, Red 40 Lake, Blue 2 Lake and…that’s it. Notice anything missing? Oh yeah: blueberries!


Kraft’s Avocado-Free Guacamole

This right here may be the pinnacle of processed food magic. Kraft has managed to make a food product without an actual main ingredient. Then what is it made of, you ask? How about some modified food starch, coconut and soybean oils, corn syrup, food coloring…in other words, you’re eating green-colored oil.

For the record, Kraft is no longer selling congealed green oil as "guacamole" but rather as "guacamole-flavored dip." It’s an improvement, I suppose, though I think somebody should file a suit against Kraft that prevents the company from ever again describing its products as "foods."

This has been abbreviated. See the entire article here:

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/ ... ds/?page=2

[Big Media]

mmmmm Oreos

mmmmm sugar flavored Crisco


I'm hungry.

[Bob Campbell]

I think it all depends on how you eat the Oreo.
Do you know exactly how to eat an Oreo?
Well, to do it, you unscrew it.
Very fast.
Cause a kid'll eat the middle of an Oreo first,
and save the chocolate cookie outside for last.

[genlock]

Spam is good.

[cgarison]

I grew up on Campbells condensed soup and Oreos. Even worse than Spam, Mom kept cans of Armour Treat in the cupboard for a quick and easy meal at least once every two weeks.

I am still alive. Must be some of that crazy science that is the foundation of global warming is a result of CO2 and not the natural cycle of the earth's climate.

[CoolBreeze]

The absolute worst was "Deviled Ham". You opened it and saw lots of tiny white specks all through it that appeared to be pure fat globules. This paste was made of the snouts and oinks of the pig. I doubt anything was left out.

[genlock]

Spam is good.

Stunted my growth tho.

[AmpedNow]

I was eating one of those candy cane flavored Oreos the other day thinking about the peppermint Crisco filling.

It was pretty good.

Back in the day before anyone knew or cared about saturated/trans fats, they used to use actual lard in the filling.

A package of Oreos from 1962 would probably still be edible.

[Dave Allen]

I was always a huge fan of potted meat. Its good on a simple sandwich..you can add mayo to it...put it on grilled bread. Its simply wonderful. I've always thought you could put it on crackers and serve it at some high society do-ins and they would think it was something gourmet.

[genlock]

Peanut butter remains one of he most wonderful foods on the planet.

[Lester]

1991 - If you purchased a new Nissan hardbody pick-up from the local Guam dealership, you would also receive a 50lb bag of rice and a case of SPAM.

You can't make sh*t like this up.

[Scott Reppert]

1. Spray-Can 'Easy Cheese'

Two Wednesday nights ago I went to Food Lion with B-Note and his parents. We were getting snacks. B came up with this box of "Betty Crocker Double Chocolate Fudge Swirl Rounds" and all three of us "adults" pointed a finger at the box at the same time and at the same time said "NO!"

So B goes back to replace them and to get his snack for the evening. What did he come back with? Two cans of spray cheese, to which his Dad intoned: "I'm not spending seven dollars on cheese that isn't cheese"...

2. Oreo Cookie Death Filling

You just couldn't pay me to eat an Oreo.

3. Condensed Soups

I do a ton of fasting (three days a week, extended fasts up to forty days) and sometimes drink broth. I learned that you have to go with the low sodium stuff or your feet will become "tingly" and swell up. Now granted I had no "food food" in my stomach to absorb anything when I consumed the higher-sodium regular broth, but it still severely affected me.

Which brings up the fact that they can make a 5mg of sodium chicken broth that tastes (to me) just like the 950mg regular chicken broth. So why make the 950mg one? Probably so it can help flavor other stuff that you may throw into it was my theory...

4. Spam

Can't do it every day, but every couple of months here at work we have a "Treet fry". And all of us are under the thinking that Treet blows away Spam.

Plus, I have been craving a bizarre concoction that I came up with about fifteen years ago: deviled ham fried wontons. Delicious...

5. Artificially Flavored Blueberry Bits

I don't know about these, but one of my favorite things to eat in the world are the dehydrated strawberries that they put in cereals. They don't taste like strawberries, but they are great, nonetheless.

Same goes for me and dehydrated onion. It in no way tastes like a real onion, but I love them. That's why I always rocked hamburgers at Burger King and at The Nickel at Fairmont State...simply because I could load them up with about a quarter cup of dehydrated onions!

6 Kraft’s Avocado-Free Guacamole

Now this just isn't right at all...

[jag]

Treet over Spam?

Again, Scott, we must respectfully disagree. Treet has the consistency of an old Dixon-Ticonderoga pencil eraser, and smells not unlike cheap, canned dog food.

Spam is available, to its credit, in different varieties. The Turkey Spam is not bad, but the real surprise is the Bacon Spam...not as redundant as you might think (and lower in sodium than original Spam). Surprisingly, the Low Sodium Spam has the best taste. (Yeah, there's a low-fat Spam, but we're getting close to Treet in texture and flavor.)

As for the condensed soup thing, well, there are low-sodium varieties. Also, a can of soup--even reconstituted--is more than one "serving." Ah, there's the catch!

[Big Media]

I am in the Treat camp, too. I love Treat, blackened, on plain bread with a little mayo, or if you're really adventurous, try it with some Kraft Sandwich Spread, which is like a combination of tarter sauce and thousand island dressing.

[Jet Black]

Kiss all that stuff goodbye. How long do you think it will be under socialized medicine before the Healthnic beaurocrocy subpeonas Kroger Card records to see who has been eating Spam? Before Jeanine Bitchofolo complains on tv about Cheeze-Whizzing Teabaggers? Before you will have to buy Oreos in over-21 establishments, stocked on shelves between cigarettes and porno magazines? Oh, rue the day!

C'mon, Scott, 40 days? Seriously. No wonder your toes tingle.

[genlock]

New York cesspool rescue on Fox News Channel right now.

[Jay Nunley]

Kiss all that stuff goodbye. How long do you think it will be under socialized medicine before the Healthnic beaurocrocy subpeonas Kroger Card records to see who has been eating Spam? Before Jeanine Bitchofolo complains on tv about Cheeze-Whizzing Teabaggers? Before you will have to buy Oreos is over-21 establishments, stocked on shelves between cigarettes and porno magazines? Oh, rue the day!

C'mon, Scott, 40 days? Seriously. No wonder you toes tingle.

It will be worse if they make them completely illegal like marijuana and heroine. Then we'll have jails full of people sentenced to manadatory minimums for selling someone a pound of spam next to a guy doing a mandatory minimum for being caught with a joint in his pocket. Rapists, murderers, corporate raiders, and corrupt politicians will do one third of their overly light sentences and Joe the pot smoking spam eater will do 20 years for harming no one but himself (and not really harming himself all that much).

Also, how long before the first drive by shooting or old lady mugging stemming from the black market junk food trade?

You can't make people behave the way you want them to. You can't make everyone a bible thumping,hypocritical, faux patriotic, gay hater nor can you make everyone a tofu-eating, anti-business, faux environmentalist, douchebag just because that is what you want them to be. You can't legislate personal behavior. You can only legislate and regulate our dealings with each other, not what we do to or with ourselves.

[Bob Campbell]

Seriously, you guys have eaten Spam? And Treat? And Potted meat?
ooooohhhh, my tummy hurts.
But, Spam is the favorite food of the Phillipines.
Of course, the climate there is much better for raising the little spams. I think treats are only raised in New Zealand. And of course we all know there's no meat in potted meat. At least animal meat.

[jag]

Scott, you say you like "deviled ham fried wontons," "fake strawberries found in cereals" and Treet.

I think I understand why you fast for as long as 40 days, my friend! Surely, if I ate such things, at any given time, I'd put off eating anything, again, for as long as I could!

Incidentally, I've done fasting, too. Of course, like most who have worked in small market broadcasting, it's often a matter of having no choice at the end of the paycheck!

[Scott Reppert]

Incidentally, I've done fasting, too. Of course, like most who have worked in small market broadcasting, it's often a matter of having no choice at the end of the paycheck!

Ba-dum-bum! Okay, folks, he's here all week. Enjoy the veal. If you're not fasting, that is...