Don’t minimize your preservative intake; eat Velveeta!

Out of Kilter presents:

Don’t Minimize your Preservatives Intake; Eat Velveeta

By Ken Carpenter

November 25, 2005

As I sit here typing with one hand and lovingly nuzzling a two-pound box of Velveeta pasteurized prepared cheese product that is clinched in the other, I am content. A couple servings of Velveeta, which has been maligned as a chemical concoction ever since it was invented in 1928, could comfort a whirling dervish.

The critics would scoff and say that my brain is numbed from an overdose of preservatives. They might spitefully add that my taste buds are permanently numb if they find Velveeta to be gourmet fare.

To them I say, “Hah!” I spit in the face of those who fear unnatural additives.”

If a healthy dose of sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, lactic acid, sorbic acid, sodium alginate and sodium citrate is what it takes to satisfy my palate, I’m all for it. They are all included in Velveeta, as are the mysterious sounding apocarotenal and annatto for color. Oh yeah, there is also milk, whey and milkfat, otherwise it might be marketed as caulking instead of a cheese product.

I could care less. It is not always found in my frig, but when it is, I savor every silky morsel. Everything is better with Velveeta melted on it or in it.

Getting back to preservatives for a moment; I am not so sure that I believe everything I read in healthy living manuals. They tell you to dine on fish four times week and buy organic veggies, studiously neglecting to tell you that if you are a normal middle-class family, you will blow your food budget for the week after the first two days. Then you read in the newspaper where some dude just turned 100 years old and credits eating a can of Spam a day for his longevity.

Just look at what preservatives have done for Mick Jagger, who has been the Rolling Stones’ lead singer for so long a granite boulder served as their first set of drums. Jagger is still prancing around on stage like a teenager at the age of 62, and he probably hasn’t had any preservative-free sustenance pass his lips since he nursed on his mum as a wrinkled baby boy.

Speaking of wrinkles, I have to admit that Jagger’s facial appearance makes me really hope that he is not a Velveeta consumer. He resembles a 160-pound, 160-year old, piece of petrified moose jerky. So, I guess if your motto is “Give me jerky, or give me death!” a heavily additive-laced diet is for you. Of course, I suspect many of his additives are of the illegal variety.

Personally, I think I am jerkified enough so I will use at least a little restraint in my daily diet. That will not stop me from treating myself to Velveeta and other artificially fortified delights occasionally, and during the holiday season restraint is definitely not my strong suit.

Velveeta is to cheese what wieners are to meat. That is to says, almost, but not quite. There are times that a good, old hotdog can be as tasty as a steak. In the same vein, while I dearly love extra sharp cheddar or a crumbling of bleu cheese, Velveeta at the proper moment, tastes almost as good.

Some of the ingredients in Velveeta that sound like they belong in a high school chemistry class are called emulsifiers. To me, that sounds like a potion you would use to stir up a clogged colon, but it is actually the component that allows oil and water to mix. Too bad an emulsifier for mankind can’t be invented.

I have promised my wife that I will treat her to some Velveeta fudge when Christmas draws near. From the look on her face and the suddenly greenish tint that appeared around her gills, I don’t think she heard me correctly. Perhaps she thought I said that I was going to make her some Velveeta sludge.

Hmmmmpf! She has informed me that there is probably no difference.

I’ll show here. Just wait until I serve her a steaming bowl of Velveeta and anchovy stew.

Now, that’s sludge.