#751 Invisible Grams

Would you like cream in your coffee?
No, I’ll have some corn syrup solids and partially hydrogenated soybean oil please.
Yum.
Farfetched? Hardly. People indulge themselves daily in this pseudo-cream concoction. A staple in offices and restaurants worldwide, stable at room temperature for millennium, easy to transport, perfect for hiking, powdered cream substitute is the survivalist’s friend.
And here’s an interesting psychological fact. Yesterday, when I added some to my coffee it actually seemed to cool it like real cream too. No kidding. I was fully prepared to say the biggest advantage of fake cream powder was it didn’t chill your coffee when you added it like real cream. But my coffee felt cooler on my tongue. Maybe it was the taste of aluminum.
So, interested as I am in modern food chemistry, I looked closely at the nutrition and ingredients panel on the brand of powdered creamer I had.
There’s 10 calories in a teaspoon, none of them from fat, trans or otherwise. It has 0 grams of cholesterol and 0 grams of sodium. It contains 1 measly gram of carbohydrates and 0 grams of protein.
Which I find interesting since the second ingredient on the list is partially hydrogenated soybean oil. It’s another one of those “it’s not a full one gram so it’s 0 grams” evasions. Partially hydrogenated soybean oil would theoretically be a source of trans fat, fat, and protein but since there’s not enough to make a full gram in a teaspoon it doesn’t count.
Never mind than a microgram of LSD could send you on a one-day trip, 45% of a gram of trans fat is the official government FDA equivalent of nothing.
But that’s okay, because you also get presumably safe imaginary amounts of sodium caseinate and sodium silicoaluminate in your 0 grams of sodium.
The silicoaluminate, I’m told, prevents clumping.
Great, non-dairy kitty litter.
Silico means sand. Aluminate means, well, let’s just say aluminum from pans may not be the only Alzheimer’s point source for worry.
What’s wrong with Grandpa McCain, Mommy?
Creamer overdose.
Is he clumping?
Only in his brain.
America, ya gotta love it.