Guess The Food: Salt Bag
I haven’t done a Guess the Food in a while so I thought I’d try yet again to stump you guys.
I usually fail at this, of course.
This guess the food has all the good stuff that you’ve hopefully come to expect from this series: Strange ingredients, an unexplainable use of high fructose corn syrup, and very little actual nutritional value.
But, if there’s one thing that I’d like to focus on for this Guess the Food it’s this:
Salt.
Salt is always a touchy subject in America because we hear so much about how most people eat too much of it. I’ve written about this issue before (like in this rant), but I think it bares repeating that most people eat too much salt not because they are using the salt shaker. Most people get too much salt because they eat too much processed food which is normally just filled with hidden salt.
Case in point: This guess the food. If you were to take away a few things, you’d be left with basically a big bag of salt here.
Nutritional Facts
There’s really very little to this “food” when you look at the nutritional panel.
The first thing I’ll point out is the serving size. I can almost guarantee that most people eat more than 3/4 of a cup of this, but I’ve never really been able to determine how manufacturers determine what, exactly, is considered a serving size.
I actually thought this food would have more calories in it. Guaranteed though that when people are eating this, they aren’t counting calories.
There’s very little fat and no cholesterol in this food. It’s basically a big block of salty carbs.
It’s Carbtastic!
But, what’s really concerning about this food is the sodium. At almost a quarter of your recommended daily amount of sodium, this product is salty.
Make no mistake. This product isn’t tasty because it uses quality ingredients or amazing spices and herbs.
It tastes good because it’s salty.
The Ingredients
There’s actually not that many ingredients in this food in the grand scheme of things. I thought there would be more frankly.
Let’s go through them though!
Unbromated Unbleached Enriched Wheat Flour - The fact that this flour is unbromated and unbleached is very good. Both of those processes are kind of ridiculous and unnecessary in my opinion. At the end of the day though, this flour is still not healthy. Don’t get it confused with WHOLE WHEAT flour. It’s not. It’s just normal flour that has had all the natural nutrients stripped out of it and then some nutrients added back in.
Water - Good old H2O as the second ingredient. Lots of water in this I guess…
High Fructose Corn Syrup - Listed as the third ingredient there’s a fair amount of this in the product. I have no idea why. I make this product from scratch at least once a year and I never put sugar in it. I’m at a loss as to why they feel like they need this.
Salt - Obviously lots of salt in this stuff.
Soybean Oil - Pretty generic oil made from soybeans. I think this probably helps with browning the product at some stage in the production process.
Yeast - If you need something to rise at some point, this helps!
Spices - About as generic as you can get. Who knows what kind of spices are includes.
Onion Powder - Funnily, I consider this a spice so they could’ve just lumped it in with “spices” in my opinion. What do I know though?
Calcium Propionate (to retard spoilage) - A preservative that’s used often in breads to keep them from spoiling. This is the reason why your homemade bread will spoil way before most bread products on the grocery shelves.
Malted Barley Flour - This is a dough conditioner that’s added to most flours in the US actually. It makes that dough really fluffy.
That’s it!
That’s all there is to this thing. It’s basically flour, water, HFCS, and salt and will set you back a solid $3.
The real question, of course, is if you can guess the “food”?
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Is this a bread stick dough mix? I LOVE your site. Enjoy the pictures and insight on all the food and recipes you feature. Keep up the great work, looking forward to more.
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Nick replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 1:34 pm
Thanks Carolyn! Not bread sticks though… ;)
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Pretzels, although I’m not positive since the serving sizes are in cups…
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Is it the supposedly healthy snack “Wheat Thins?”
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John replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 5:25 am
Although it looks like your nutritional info is from a bag, not a box. I’m still going to guess it’s some sort of snack cracker thing that purports to have some sort of veggie goodness.
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The serving size thing is also throwing me off. I’m guessing it’s some type of chip like a potato chip.
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Cape Cod potato chips?
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I guess pretzels also
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Are they pita chips?
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I’m going to go with pretzels too. :-)
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Garlic bread! Probably that thick-crust stuff, like Texas Toast style Garlic Bread.
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I should have read the replies and noticed the serving size confusion. I take my guess back. I’ll say instant stuffing mix!
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Nick replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 1:35 pm
Nice work! First person to get it.
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a type of biscuit or crescent roll?
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Pepperage Farm Herb Seasoned Cubed Stuffing Mix
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Nick replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 1:35 pm
Perfect. Nailed it! Even down to the brand.
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My first guess was pretzels, but based on the way the serving size is described I’m switching over to some sort of stuffing mix (besides, something tells me you’ll stick with the Thanksgiving theme you’ve had going on lately!).
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I’m going to go with stuffing as the commenter. Not sure the brand, but it sounds like stuffing if you make it once a year :D
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Nick replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 1:36 pm
Yep. I tried to give a few hints in there since the ingredients were pretty generic.
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Okay, I have no real guess, but the one’s already are soundin’ pretty good. My first instinct was stuffing mix.
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Nick replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 1:36 pm
Your first instinct was a good one! Stuffing mix it is. Nice work!
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Chips… But i don’t know which ones
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Lily replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 10:39 am
But since your theme this month is about Thanksgiving, I probably better change my guess to some sort of dressing/stuffing mix
Oh I don’t know… Out with it man! What is it!?
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Chex Mix?
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Goldfish!!!
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My first instinct is ramen noodles, for some reason…
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A good number of people got this, but the ingredients were so generic that it was a pretty tricky one I thought.
I think it’s highway robbery that they charge $3 for what is essentially a quarter of a loaf of stale bread.
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Larry Joseph Morgan replied: — November 15th, 2011 @ 2:41 pm
True, Nick…but maybe it has something to do with the rise in the price of sugar, LOL!
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Wow. You just made me realize why I’ve always hated stuffing until I started making my own.
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