[siduri]

Originally Posted by shel

Would the major corporations that produce these products risk the potential problems that you suggest ...?

scb

They would if they could get away with it. No doubt, it has some function in the production of junk food and like with coloring that various times has been implicated in cancer (and it's not like we need coloring in our food, right?) and with saccharine, it gets approved in small quantites so the corporations can make cheap junk food. Is that a surprise?

[shel]

Originally Posted by siduri

[...] (and it's not like we need coloring in our food, right?)

Well, without yellow dye how else would we get pickles that glow in the dark? I was stunned to discover Vlasic pickles, a major brand here, contained yellow dye - sheesh!

[...] Is that a surprise

What surprises me is that I'm always surprised by what I find in our commercial "food products." I can't believe the garbage most Americans ingest as a matter of course!

scb

[Focus]

Originally Posted by RSteve

I'd be very surprised if the initiator of this thread didn't know full well that methylcellulose is the base ingredient for Citrucel, a very widely used laxative. It's been a very cruel gag ingredient in many a fraternity pledge party. It's also the key ingredient in most water based personal lubricants, i.e. K-Y Jelly.

Someone wrote: "It makes you fart." It does far more than that and shouldn't be used to play with someone's food. If someone with a severe disgestive disorder were to be subjected to ingestion of methylcellulose, even if no malice were intended, and they became ill, it is by definition felony battery.

Yep, I was aware of the other uses which is why I'm going to experiment on myself first (I have a titanium stomach). I'm no chemist, but I believe the term for this is a "hydrophyllic" compound meaning that after you disolve it in cold water, it takes a little time for it to fully combine with the water molecules. As I understand, the laxitive properties are effective if you disolve it in cold water, drink it, and it then gels as it warms up and "hydrates" in your system. Being a celluloid compound (derived from plant cellulose that's not digestable), it acts to "move things along."

Among the "molecular gastronomists" (which I am not, BTW, I'm just a foodie who watches too much Iron Chef), I understand that you disolve it in cold water and let it sit overnight in the fridge. It will "thicken" the water as it fully hydrates. Then, when you warm it up it gels to a jello-like consistency. Voila, "hot jello." Apparently, it's quite the rage to try to make "hot ice cream." Even weirder, it melts as it cools down.

Inspired by an episode of Dinner Impossible (the one with the Vegas magicians), I've got an idea to have a dinner party where everything looks like one thing, but tastes like something else. In that episode, Irvine made a "chocolate cake" that was essentially a high-end meatloaf and a "hot dog" that was actually desert (ice cream hot dog, jello tomatoes, shredded mango sherbert for cheese, cake for the bun). Like I have said, while I like "simple, natural, old fashioned" food and have nothing against those that eat a "purist" diet, what I'm going for here is the unique, bizzare, and innovative.

That being said, and in light of the tacit accusation by RSteve, let me document something publicly: I do not intend to "sneak" this in on anyone - period. I'm just a home cook and I know my house guests well enough not to give this or anything else to anyone who might reasonably expect to have an adverse reaction. I say again, I am not going to be anything but transparent with my friends that I feed.

[siduri]

The way you put it now makes a lot more sense. I can understand the occasional food for fun idea. I've seen ice cream spaghetti (put vanilla ice cream through a potato ricer, strawberries on top and coconut parmigiano) - though i;ve never been attracted to it, guided as i am by taste (i prefer chocolate ice cream, don;t like coconut, etc).

Still, we've been bombarded with chemical food "enhancers" by the industries who are not AT ALL concerned with good quality food, or nutrition or health or anything else and unless the laws block them will poison people if it can make them rich, so that there are kids who drink diet soft drinks so regularly that fruit juice tastes bland and water is unheard of. And adults who can't seem to taste the horrendous after-taste of saccharine and aspartame or notice the weird taste of synthetic fats and the way they leave your tongue coated.

So while you may consider me defensively purist I am pretty disturbed by this trend to make food a chemistry project rather than a more simple and direct taste-guided affair. But i guarantee you i'm no health freak - and i do ignore the fads in the other direction too, i salt my food abundantly (and have low blood pressure) i drink plenty of coffee, i use white sugar in it, and i always had lots of cheese, butter and animal fats, (and have low cholesterol). I moved to italy in the 70s, and when i left i ate all kind of processed junk - i loved commercial oatmeal bread, cookies, etc - things with an ingredient list that stretches the length of the packaging. I came here, and found simple food. I had to learn to make the things i loved back home, and now having had my own versions, i can taste all the chemical junk in the ones i used to like.

My various returns for visits to the States showed me one fad after another - one year i asked for salt and people were horrified (salt is bad for you - not the 20 other ingrients in the bread they ate, just the salt, not the saccharine they fed their kids in the half-gallon bottles of diet soft drinks, just salt). On another trip i asked for sugar for my coffee and they looked at me like i had asked for muriatic acid. Another time it was butter, heaven forfend, we eat margarine, no butter.

Anyway, my gut reaction is to wince when i hear complicated chemicals being added to food.

[Focus]

I heartily agree with you siduri on the issue of salt, butter, etc. For the most part, I use "the real stuff" or nothing at all and would rather have something fried in lard if I could get it although I give the waist a break and use the healthiest stuff I can find if I'm on a frying rampage at home. I don't touch diet cokes - not for the aspertame (although that's A, not THE reason) but because they don't taste good. I drink the fully leaded version or none at all. If I don't want to be fat, I don't eat a ton of fried food or a lot of sugar.

Thanks for the spaghetti ice cream idea. I'll put that one in the bank for future use.

Focus