tBHQ, gross!

I spent some time last year writing for a website called FitFare, part of the Well Fed Network. I stopped doing it because I just didn't have the time to work for a living, write on the side, keep up with the stuff I need to do at home, and keep in touch with friends and family. I loved the writing, but the deadlines just became too much. Anyway. I still read the site and the other day there was an article about a food additive called tBHQ and I am completely grossed out.

Check out the article on FitFare here, for more background info, but briefly, it is a food additive that manufacturers are using to replace the bad trans fats; but here's the gross....tBHQ is a petroleum derivative. Yuk! Many pre-packaged food items that have the "No Trans-Fat" screaming label have tBHQ in them. I don't use a lot of pre-packaged stuff (Hamburger Helper and the like), but I do admit to liking Zatarain's jambalaya rice as a quick-fix meal from time to time. So after I read the article the other night, I was hungry and I headed to the kitchen to make myself something to eat, and I spotted the box of jambalaya. I started to make it, and then read the label as I was waiting for the water to boil and my jambalaya mix has this petroleum additive in it! Apparently, this stuff is not only legal, but sold as an anti-oxidant and is sometimes not listed on the ingredients list but somewhere else on the label in such a manner that you might not notice, as in "tBHQ added as a preservative" in tiny print. That's how it was on my jambalaya mix, small, at the end of the ingredients list. Icky. So I won't be buying that anymore.