#1160 Soy-Ganic

Yesterday I wrote about why we say “not to mention” in our conversation and then go ahead and mention it anyhow. “The rain is coming down hard, not to mention the creek's rising.”
Obviously, the perpetrator of that sentence did mention the creek was rising. My friend Rick pointed out how perceptive my observation was.
How did I reply? I said, “Don’t mention it.”
Fortunately for my ego he already had.
But here’s something I will mention. It’s what I found out when I read the ingredients list on my “Organic Soymilk” carton, which I had acquired to make vegan fudge.
Organic soymilk sounded good, because I’m all for things without artificial additives and suchlike. Turns out I have no idea what organic means.
The top ingredient said the box contained organic soymilk, which it said (in parentheses) included organic soybeans and filtered water.
That’s my idea of organic. Unfortunately, then it went on to list 10 other ingredients. When I tasted the organic soymilk, I noticed it was very sweet. Sweeter than I remember soybeans tasting. The second ingredient on the list explained that. It was “organic evaporated cane juice.”
If you were to, say, take a chunk of sugar cane, wring it out, and let it dry, you would have evaporated organic cane juice. You would also have a pile of sugar.
Which can be sticky, so you need to add the next ingredient on the list, tri-calcium citrate. Not an organic day goes by that I don’t wish I had some tri-calcium citrate.
The next ingredient was sea salt, one hopes evaporated from seas not near major industrial or sewage outfalls.
After that was my favorite food additive, second only to guar gum, carrageenan. Always sounds like that Kung Fu guy David.
Then there were two ingredients in succession that perplexed me. One was “organic vanilla flavor,” the next was “natural flavors.” Couldn’t they have included organic vanilla under natural flavors? Or is there something un-organic about natural they’re not telling?
The final four ingredients were vitamins. I suppose to make organic soymilk more like milk from an organic, um, cow.
America, ya gotta love it.