Macheesmo

For today’s issue of Guess the Food, let’s tackle a product that’s very familiar to me.

I used to be completely addicted to this stuff.  I used it daily and still like it on occasion although now I realize that it is basically sugar water.

Nobody’s perfect right?

Anyway, let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of the nutrition and ingredients information and see if there are any hints that can help you guess the “food”!

A Big Hint

Normally, I like to take photos of the actual nutritional panels for Guess the Food posts, but I just couldn’t do it for this one.

I tried and tried to photograph (and photoshop) the real label, but there was no way to hide what the food was.  People would’ve gotten it immediately!

That, in itself, is probably a pretty good hint and the only one you’re going to get.

The Nutrition Facts

Well, this is obviously something that you are supposed to use in short supply because the serving size is in tablespoons.

Note that I said supposed to use in short supply.  In my experience, a lot of people (including myself in a previous life) glugg this stuff.

When you just glance at this, 35 calories seems small.  But for one tablespoon of something, that’s actually a pretty high amount of calories.

Just for a reference:

– A tablespoon of sour cream has 30 calories
– A tablespoon of whole milk has 10 calories
– A tablespoon of ranch dressing (the real stuff) has 80 calories

So this tablespoon falls somewhere between sour cream and ranch dressing.

Besides sugar, a pinch of salt, and some saturated fats, there’s really nothing else going on here.

Let’s move onto the ingredients!

The Ingredients

 Again, I had to copy this from the website because it was just too obvious on the packaging.

Let’s dive in!

Water – With water as the first ingredient, I think it’s pretty safe to say this is a liquid.

Sugar – See all that sugar in the nutritional info?  Had to come from somewhere!  I would almost guarantee that this would be high fructose corn syrup if this were made in the US, but this is actually a Canadian company (hint hint).

Hydrogenated Coconut Oil – Oil extracted from the meat of a coconut.  According to Wikipedia (not always a perfect source), when you hydrogenate this you automatically make trans fats, but obviously there isn’t a large amount of them here or they would have to be listed in the nutritional info.

Sodium Caseinate – Casein is basically a protein from dairy.  There seems to be some controversy surrounding it these days. It’s a very common additive in foods (as well as in other things like wood glue).

Flavour and Artificial Flavour – I really wish we spelled flavor as flavour here in the states. It just seems more classy.  Anyway, this isn’t helpful obviously if you are trying to guess this food.  I’ll tell you that the one that I bought is, I think, there most popular flavor.

Dipotassium Phosphate – A pretty common food additive that is basically a salt that easily dissolves in water.  Interestingly, it’s also used as a fertilizer.

Salt – Just plain old salt.

Monoglycerides – An emulsifier that is effective in very small amounts.

Acetylated Tartaric Acid Esters of Mono and Diglycerides – Well, that’s a mouth full!  Another emulsifier.  As an aside, I found this awesome dictionary that the Canadian health department produces that lists every single food additive that’s allowed in Canada and what the additive is used for.  Cool stuff!

So, there are some tips there… it’s a liquid.  It’s Canadian.  It’s in a container that’s impossible to photograph without giving it away.

Can you guess the food?