Do You Really Know What's in That Store Bought Cookie?

Do you really know what is in the foods you buy? Say you go to your friendly supermarket and decide to purchase a couple dozen chocolate chip cookies either from the bakery department or a prepackaged variety. You may decide to pick up a 10-inch deep-dish apple pie with crumb topping on it and take it home to your family to enjoy. It is entirely possible that the cookie, pie or baked good you and your family are eating could have a whole list of artificial ingredients in them. Maybe less if it comes from the bakery department than the item that was a baked good off the grocery shelf.

It’s important to realize that most prepackaged baked goods are made to have a long shelf life. The factory must first bake pre-made bake goods. Then package them and ship the prepackaged baked goods to the stores for customers to purchase. Think of this. Have you ever noticed that most of these type of baked goods can sit on your counter at home for days and even weeks and still may not be going bad or even begin to get moldy. Could it be all those preservatives keeping it from spoiling so quickly? I would bet that if that cookie or pie had been made from scratch using wholesome ingredients, it would not last but a couple days. I would also bet that a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie would not last long anyways, because your family will love the wholesome homemade taste that you just don’t get from store bought prepackaged bakery items. Nothing says home better than when you pull that cookie sheet out of the oven and your family comes running into the kitchen to partake in the freshly made cookies you just baked.

Furthermore, take a real hard look at the ingredient label. Ingredient labels list product based on the most to the least in the listed order. Often you see sugar or high fructose corn syrup as their first ingredient. Words you can’t easily pronounce or yet know what it is like monosodium glutamate, disodium guanylate, ammonium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate erythorbic acid, sorbitan monostearate, polysorbate 60 appear normally at the end. How many times do you see the words "artificial flavor"? I think we all know what the word artificial means. If you can’t pronounce some of these words, then I would be hesitant to eat anything made with them.

As a baker by trade, I personally would prefer making my baked goods from scratch by using wholesome ingredients like real eggs, vanilla, butter, granulated sugar and so on. I know what is in the pie or cookie that I bake. Even if you are not the seasoned baker, using a box mix in my opinion would be far better than buying prepacked baked goods with ingredients you don’t know. Yes, the box mix would have some of these same ingredients in it, but you are also adding "real ingredients" like whole eggs and real butter". You have the choice to add what you want and not have to be the recipient of ingredients someone else added. Your family will love you when they experience eating that hot, gooey, fresh from the oven, melt in your mouth chocolate chip cookie made from real, wholesome ingredients. Have Fun With Baking.