Growing up in Brooklyn, there were lots of bakeries around. Every nationality had a bakery and most of them had very tasty products. I always liked the black & whites and the layer cakes from nearly any bakery. When you watched the baker making the goods, there were usually just a few ingredients and while the items were clearly heavy on sugar, I can’t imagine they were full of horribly bad stuff.
I was in a Walmart recently and the “baker” was in the process of putting some of their “freshly baked” cupcakes near the register. I had a look at the cupcakes and they looked good so I looked a bit closer at the label. This scared the crap out of me – and the label was on the top of the package in plain view! I asked the baker if she would give me a label and she agreed. Below are the ingredients that are included in a cupcake when you buy it at the Walmart bakery. I am not talking about a pre-packaged cupcake like a Hostess, but in their “bakery”. What I’ve been learning as of late is that so many grocery stores and big box stores have bakeries but they are really just “cookeries”. The products come into the store already made and the cookeries just heat up the product. This sure ain’t like the Butterbun bakery I grew up getting pasteries from!
I can buy a baguette at the local supermarket bakery and while it looks freshly made, it’s really just freshly baked. When I go to Whole Foods and buy a baguette, it’s freshly made from scratch with 4-5 ingredients. But to the average consumer, is there a difference? Both look on the surface to be the same product, cooked and created the same way. But they aren’t anywhere near the same.
Here’s the ingredients list – just look at all of the artificial colors! Some of the ingredients I like are: carnuba wax (used this last week to give my car a shine), sodium acidpryopohospate and all the oils and partially hydrogenated syrups. I remember growing up there was some big movement about how bad yellow #5 was, and now eating one of these cupcakes you get about 10 artificial colors.
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