This Is Not Food, Part One: The Bologna Sandwich

Americans love processed foods. For full disclosure, I do too. Some things though are just plain wrong and should not be done. I present to you...the bologna sandwich!



The classic. Wonderbread, bologna and american cheese. Maybe a little yellow mustard or mayo if you want but the trinity for this classic is "cheese", "meat" and "bread". No lettuce. No tomato. That would throw off this culinary trifecta. Salty, meaty and soft. Um hmm. Now why isn't this food you ask?

Bologna: the star of this show

Beef, Water, Contains Less than 2% of Salt, Corn Syrup, Sodium Lactate, Flavor, Dextrose, Hydrolyzed Beef Stock, Autolyzed Yeast, Sodium Phosphates, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Ascorbate, Sodium Nitrite, Extractives of Paprika

An amazing creation. A processed meat product that is pretending to be a world class sausage from Italy. I'm not sure who came up with the idea to create a cheap, heavily processed, floor scrap "sausage" and then name it after a town in Italy. I think maybe a town somewhere off the Jersey turnpike might be a little more appropriate.


One of the ingredients is "flavor". Does anyone know what that is? I wish I had some "flavor" in my pantry. I don't know what half of those ingredients are. If you don't know what more than half the ingredients are, it is not food.

American Cheese: U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!!


Use of the name "American Cheese" in this country has a legal definition under the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations as a processed cheese. It is not a type of cheese, it means processed cheese food. When a product has the word "food" in it's legal name you can be sure it is not a food. When a product is also referred to as factory cheese, government cheese, rattrap cheese, apple pie cheese, and yellow cheese it is not food. Sorry. It's not. It might taste good on a grilled cheese but it's not food.





Wonderbread: so white, so soft


Enriched Wheat Flour [Flour, Barley Malt, Ferrous Sulfate (Iron), B Vitamins (Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate (B1), Riboflavin (B2), Folic Acid)], Water, Sweetener (High Fructose Corn Syrup or Sugar), Yeast. Contains 2% or Less of: Calcium Sulfate (Ingredient in Excess of Amount Present in Regular Enriched White Bread), Wheat Gluten, Soybean Oil, Salt, Dough Conditioners (May Contain: Mono and Diglycerides, Sodium Stearoyl, Lactylate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Datem, Sorbic Acid and/or Calcium Dioxide), Vinegar, Soy Flour, Tricalcium Phosphate (Ingredient in Excess of Amount Present in Regular Enriched White Bread), Yeast Nutrients (May Contain: Ammonium Phosphate, Monocalcium Phosphate, Calcium Carbonate, Ammonium Sulfate, Ammonium chloride and/or Diammonium Phosphate), Whey, Cornstarch, Wheat Starch, Enzymes, Calcium Propionate (to Retain Freshness), Soy Lecithin.

Did you read all of that? When did bread become this frankenbread product? Flour, yeast, salt and water. That is bread, or at least that's what I thought. I'm going to pick just one of the dozen (I tried counting them all but got confused) or so ingredients listed there and fill you in on some of it's other applications. The mystery ingredient is...ammonium chloride!

Here are its other uses: Ammonium chloride is sold in blocks at hardware stores for use in cleaning the tip of a soldering iron and can also be included in solder as flux.

Other uses include a feed supplement for cattle, in hair shampoo, in textile printing, in the glue that bonds plywood, as an ingredient in nutritive media for yeast, in cleaning products, and as cough medicine. Its expectorant action is caused by irritative action on the bronchial mucosa. This causes the production of excess respiratory tract fluid which presumably is easier to cough up. It is also used in an oral acid loading test to diagnose distal renal tubular acidosis.

Oh no, that's not all for this "wonder" ingredient. Ammonium chloride is also used for contact explosives, diuretic and systemic acidifying agent. It is used in the treatment of severe metabolic alkalosis, to maintain the urine at an acid pH in the treatment of some urinary-tract disorders or in forced acid diuresis. It is used to luster cotton, in fertilizers, in safety explosions and in dying and tanning.

What the hell? I don't even know what to say about all of that. I'm actually speechless. Safety explosions? At least it's not used in unsafety explosions. Glue? Cleaning soldering irons? Wow.

To conclude, while Wonderbread may not be a food it is helpful in treating urinary-tract disorders and in forced acid diuresis. I'm going to try an remember that next time I'm in CVS and have a UTI.

A bologna sandwich is not food.