the end of an era: say farwell to tortilla chips...

Okay, so I'm supposed to be finishing my last final of the quarter. (Thank God, but I'm not done yet, so cross your fingers.) But, I need a momentary pause to go on a tirade.

It's a little after midnight and I just opened a brand new bag of my favorite, locally manufactured tortilla chips. Yummy, yummy, right? Well, I am an obsessive nutrition facts label reader. (It's sick, I know.) But, my favorite thing about these chips, besides their oh-so-yummy taste, is that they are made with only three simple ingredients: corn, lime, and corn oil. Woohoo for simplicity! So, tonight I'm munching away and habitually start to read (uh... reread) the label and to my surprise, there is a new ingredient I've never seen before: "tHBQ as an oil additive." What on earth?!?! So, I hop on the internet and do a little research, only for my dismay, disdain, and general sadness to grow in sickly measures.

tBHQ, or tertiary butylhydroquinone, is a petroleum-based food additive being used to replace partially hydrogenated this, that, and the others which are known for their contribution to high trans fat numbers (also yucky). The glorious thing about tBHQ is that numerous studies have linked it to bladder and kidney cancers and it’s been used to predictably induce tumors in test animals. And, just as an added bonus, it's a member of the same family as BHA and BHT, both of which have been banned in England, because they have been proven to be carcinogenic. I am totally lucking out here. And the FDA lets them put this shit in my food!

Plus:

According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, "tBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food... which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of tBHQ can cause 'nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse.' Ingesting five grams of tBHQ can kill."

(from An Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan)

So, my delightful tortilla chips, once prized so highly for their natural ingredients, could now contribute to my getting cancer and/or tumors. So excited about that.

And thus, I must now bid farewell to my favorite tortilla chips (seriously the best I've had in my whole life), write a nasty letter to the company (El Ranchero Food Products/2547 S. Kedzie Ave./Chicago, IL 60623), and seek simpler times, when a girl could count on corn, lime, and corn oil to be all she needed. I am so disappointed...