Where is the real food?

I've been following an account called The Food Manufacturing Guy on X, and it's been quite eye-opening. I've known for a while that most of what is stocked on grocery store shelves is fake food, but learning about specific ingredients makes me even more mortified. On top of that, I cannot believe the loopholes in labeling and what the FDA allows. You can't really blame people for not understanding the health implications of what they're eating.

Here is one example he shared recently. I'd like to think that when I was a kid, movie theater popcorn came with real butter, but nowadays, it's anything but.

The butter on your movie theater popcorn isn't butter. At most theaters the pump is filled with buttery topping, which is soybean oil, artificial butter flavor and beta carotene, the same pigment that makes carrots orange. It can't be sold as butter. Federal law has defined butter since 1923. It has to be made from milk or cream, with nothing added but salt and color, and be at least 80% milkfat. That's why the jug the theater buys says buttery topping or butter flavored topping. Some brands also add TBHQ and citric acid to keep the oil from going rancid, and FDA caps TBHQ at 0.02% of the oil. At a lot of theaters the popcorn is yellow before the topping ever touches it. Gold Medal's Flavacol popcorn salt goes in the kettle, and its ingredient list is salt, artificial flavor, Yellow 5 Lake and Yellow 6 Lake. Some theaters do use real butter. Odell's sells theaters a real butter topping with the water and milk solids taken out, so it can ship without refrigeration.

That explains the times in the past when I required a quick exit once the credits rolled to the nearest men's room. I even had an event that required an exit mid-movie, which was particularly embarrassing on a date. I appreciate this guy's talent and showmanship, but I feel sorry for whoever consumed those buckets of GMO-corn coated in chemicals.

This gives me an idea for an October newsletter railing against the ingredients in Halloween candy. I don't mean to be a party pooper, but I want people to make informed choices, even if they choose to keep consuming all these fake foods. And I also want to share healthier alternatives in case people don't know about them.