Prior to writing this entry I sauntered down to the local store and with my cap pulled low to my eyes purchased a box of Mac & Cheese. The reason why I sunk so low is that I needed to get a better feeling of the chemistry involved in this modern day concoction. Granted, being cheap I bought the store brand but prior to purchase I ran a quick comparison with the “premium” brand (the good crap) and found that with the exceptions of a few compounds they both had essentially the same formulation. Specifically, you got your partially hydrogenated oil, your yellow 5 lake, your titanium dioxide, your disodium phosphate, your yellow 6 lake and your plain yellow 5 & 6. Just imagine the GodAwful color this stuff must have naturally to require this much paint to cover it up. By the way, check this out if you want to get some idea of the nature of some of these dyes from the Chemical database of Environmental Chemistry.com . Do you really want to be feeding this to your kids?
I know you don’t. So here’s the alternative. Real food. An amazing concept. This recipe involves basic things such as real cheese or cheeses you can cut and eat. There are also some ingredients that look unsuitable for young pallets (a tiny bit of red pepper sauce for instance). But trust me, you can’t even detect any heat is in there. What you will get is a creamy dish that tastes of real cheese. And this topped with some prepared bread crumbs (very easy to do and well worth it) will taste extraordinary. In fact, I have some teenagers who hoard it an have it for breakfast the next morning.
The recipe with a shopping list you can print out is on the recipe page. You can do some of the prep ahead of time if you like, get the kids involved in the cooking and just have fun and start enjoying real food, good food. Have fun and live naturally.
