That's right, the hottest thing to hit the grocery store aisles, this year's break-out star, is cellulose. Better known as "wood pulp," this leftover of the timber industry is now being cleverly repurposed as a food ingredient. It's true!
Now granted, humans cannot digest cellulose. And sure, it's a tasteless filler that bulks out your processed food products without adding any value to the consumer. But hey, the FDA says it's harmless, so go nuts!
Got wood pulp?
The Street has a fascinating slide show illustrating which products actually contain wood pulp. Having eaten some of the listed products in the recent past, I have to say: I am not surprised. (Zing!)
I was surprised to see an industry spokesman waxing so poetic over the industry's enthusiastic adoption of wood pulp as a food ingredient. It will help you shed those extra pounds! Really fast! Because it's indigestible fiber! You like fiber, right? You guys buy stuff with fiber all the time! Why not skip a step, and just eat ground up paper meal instead?
We've secretly replaced these diners' food with wood pulp! Let's see if they notice!
Granted, that's what he gets paid for. But I was still pretty impressed to see someone extolling the virtues of something which is clearly virtue-less for the consumer. It's obviously quite virtuous for the producers, who get to sell you the same size food at the same price, but with a bunch of the actual food content replaced with cheap, cheap wood pulp.
Wood pulp: it's what's for dinner!
If you ask someone like Michael Pollan, I'm sure they would say that this is just the most obvious manifestation of a long-standing problem. Pollan's phrase "edible food-like substance" comes to mind. Except in this case, I'm not sure if you could call wood pulp "edible."
It reminds me of the "swill milk" scandals of the 1800s, when sub-par milk was artificially whitened using ingredients like chalk. I'm sure those guys had a pretty good explanation at hand, too. Chalk: it builds strong bones and healthy bodies!
You could argue that anyone who voluntarily eats (e.g.) Pillsbury Buffalo Chicken Crescent Pastry Puffs deserves their fate. But Weight Watchers ice cream bars? Really? And I just learned that the Betty Crocker SuperMoist yellow cake mix that I bought at the store (only $1.25 a box!) contains wood pulp, too. So I guess you can flatten my thorax and call me a termite, because I eat wood pulp, too.
Wait long enough and I'm willing to bet all our food will be heavy on the wood pulp!
Now granted, humans cannot digest cellulose. And sure, it's a tasteless filler that bulks out your processed food products without adding any value to the consumer. But hey, the FDA says it's harmless, so go nuts!
Got wood pulp?
The Street has a fascinating slide show illustrating which products actually contain wood pulp. Having eaten some of the listed products in the recent past, I have to say: I am not surprised. (Zing!)
I was surprised to see an industry spokesman waxing so poetic over the industry's enthusiastic adoption of wood pulp as a food ingredient. It will help you shed those extra pounds! Really fast! Because it's indigestible fiber! You like fiber, right? You guys buy stuff with fiber all the time! Why not skip a step, and just eat ground up paper meal instead?
We've secretly replaced these diners' food with wood pulp! Let's see if they notice!
Granted, that's what he gets paid for. But I was still pretty impressed to see someone extolling the virtues of something which is clearly virtue-less for the consumer. It's obviously quite virtuous for the producers, who get to sell you the same size food at the same price, but with a bunch of the actual food content replaced with cheap, cheap wood pulp.
Wood pulp: it's what's for dinner!
If you ask someone like Michael Pollan, I'm sure they would say that this is just the most obvious manifestation of a long-standing problem. Pollan's phrase "edible food-like substance" comes to mind. Except in this case, I'm not sure if you could call wood pulp "edible."
It reminds me of the "swill milk" scandals of the 1800s, when sub-par milk was artificially whitened using ingredients like chalk. I'm sure those guys had a pretty good explanation at hand, too. Chalk: it builds strong bones and healthy bodies!
You could argue that anyone who voluntarily eats (e.g.) Pillsbury Buffalo Chicken Crescent Pastry Puffs deserves their fate. But Weight Watchers ice cream bars? Really? And I just learned that the Betty Crocker SuperMoist yellow cake mix that I bought at the store (only $1.25 a box!) contains wood pulp, too. So I guess you can flatten my thorax and call me a termite, because I eat wood pulp, too.
Wait long enough and I'm willing to bet all our food will be heavy on the wood pulp!