What's Inside Fig Newmans? Ground-Up Bacteria!

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 12:30

What's Inside Fig Newmans? Ground-Up Bacteria!

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What’s Inside Fig Newmans? Ground-Up Bacteria! | Magazine

19.11

By Patrick Di Justo This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
November 1, 2011 |
12:30 pm |
Wired November 2011

Photo: Tom Schierlitz

Organic Barley Flour
For those allergic to wheat proteins, barley is an occasional substitute. But wheat-free does not mean gluten-free. Barley has just enough of that sticky protein to make celiac disease sufferers sick.
Organic Sugar
One serving (two cookies) has 12 grams of sugar—equivalent to about a third of a can of Coke. But it’s organic sugar, in the form of crystallized raw cane juice, so unlike the processed stuff, it retains some vitamin B2 (and its chic beige color).
Corn Syrup
Not the much-maligned high-fructose corn syrup and not GMO, but still not very hippie-friendly. Why opt for conventional instead of organic? Cost.
Organic Figs
Specifically Calimyrna, Conadria, and Black Mission figs. These varieties are man-made, developed by slow genetic modification (aka selective breeding).
Organic Brown Rice Flour
Brown rice with only the hulls removed. Delicious and nutritious, but it goes rancid pretty quickly. Newman’s flour is ground, bran and all, in a mill that generates heat: the heat stabilizes the bran oil, staving off spoilage.
Natural Flavors
Few companies will reveal what’s in their “natural flavors.” Newman’s comes clean: a lip-smacking combo of lemon and vanilla, without hydrolyzed protein. Nummy.
Organic Yellow Corn Flour
To keep the Frankenpollen out, farmers should grow non-GMO corn a quarter mile away or at a different time of year. But let’s face it, all modern corn is somewhat artificial, since it bears little resemblance to the Neolithic grass first planted 5,000 years ago.
Organic Palm Fruit Oil
Newman’s touts the health advantages of cholesterol-free palm fruit oil over palm kernel oil, which you find in some Girl Scout cookies and which is 83 percent saturated fat. But the fruit oil is still 51 percent saturated fat, more than is found in meat drippings, lard, or cream cheese.
Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate
By itself, sodium bicarbonate (plain baking soda) would cause the cookie dough here to rise in the oven. The addition of MCP causes it to rise before baking, thus making it fluffier.
Xanthan Gum
Wheat-free cookies can lack the gluten needed to hold baked goods together, which may be why Newman’s adds this polysaccharide thickener, made from ground-up cell walls of Xanthomonas campestris bacteria.
Soy Lecithin
Lecithin comes from the ancient Greek for “egg yolk,” from which this emulsifier was first isolated. Nowadays it can be extracted from soy.