My Guilty Pleasure.

As I was reading Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, I was thinking to myself that he wrote in a manner that had me expecting him to have a list of "Commandments" for consuming food. Coincidentally with his new novel, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, low and behold, he has created a list of (twelve, not ten) commandments:

1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."
3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."
5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."
6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."
7. "Pay more, eat less."
8. "Eat a wide variety of species."
9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."
10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."
11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."
12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."

My guilty food pleasure, Cake Batter icecream from ColdStone's breaks all of these commandments. For example, here is the ingredient list, courtesy of ColdStoneCreamery.com:

SWEET CREAM ICE CREAM (Cream, Nonfat Milk, Milk, Sugar, Corn Syrup, Guar Gum,
Cellulose Gum, Carrageenan, Mono & Diglycerides, Polysorbate 80, and Annatto Extract), CAKEBATTER (Enriched Flour Bleached (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate,riboflavin, folic acid), Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Leavening (sodium bicarbonate, sodium aluminum phosphate, aluminum sulfate, monocalcium phosphate) Corn Syrup, Dextrose, Food Starch-Modified, Emulsifier (soy lecithin, propylene glycol monoester, mono-diglycerides), Salt , Xanthan Gum, Natural and Artificial Flavors (contains milk derivatives),Annatto (color), Turmeric (color))

I put in bold the ingredients I actually could identify. As you can see, both corn and soybeans are an ingredient in this product and as Pollan taught us through his book, they are unfortunately the backbone to many food products in the United States. You wouldn't think in that scoop of icecream were traces of corn and soybean! Also, of course milk is an ingredient and Pollan's book has scared me away from consuming non-organic dairy products!

Alluring as it may be to get a cold scoop of Cake Batter icecream for me as a tasty treat on a hot day, Pollan's book has truly opened my eyes. I now find myself scrutinizing labels, and have made the switch from generic chain grocery stores to the more organic Trader Joe's. Pollan's book, in a sense, has changed my life. In the least, it has changed the way I look at food and has instilled in me an awareness that wasn't present prior to reading Omnivore's Dilemma.