Easy as ABC Monday: X is for xanthan gum
Just kidding. I’m not going to actually write about xantham gum though I will tell you it’s not one of those especially scary and creepy food additives so don’t worry too much if you see it in your ice cream ingredients.
Sadly X is one of those letters that’s not going to get me much food ingredient mileage. The only other ingredient I could find that starts with the letter X is X-cat-ik, a type of chile pepper I’ve never heard of. So instead of the letter X I’m moving on to the letter C- for cupcakes!
Gothamist reports that Assemblyman Michael Benjamin of New York is pushing to make cupcakes the official state snack as a way to foil school cupcake bans. Many schools, in response to the obesity epidemic have restricted cupcakes from classrooms, even for birthday celebrations.
Benjamin said, “Making the cupcake the official state children’s snack is my way of saying, ‘Let’s put some brakes on what’s happening to the cupcake.’ The way the American eagle is the official national bird and it’s illegal to harm one — my thought is, you make the cupcake something similar, and leave the cupcake alone.”
Oddly, I kind of agree with him. As much as I think school cafeterias need to clean up their acts and start serving tasty, healthy foods on a daily basis, I think that banning cupcakes is ridiculous the same way I think that banning all food at classroom parties is ridiculous. Let parents decide what their children can and cannot eat and teach them how to monitor their choices. Why make all the kids suffer? I LOVED when kids brought cupcakes in for their birthdays when I was in school and hated that my birthday almost always fell during spring break so I almost never got to bring them in for my classmates. What was better than homemade Halloween cupcakes with candy corn on top or Valentine’s Day cupcakes decorated with red hots? Even we Jewish kids appreciated the cupcakes decorated with green and red sugar for Christmas.
Michael Benjamin, I applaud you for taking a stand, no matter how insignificant it may be. Teach parents to cook for their kids instead of buying them Happy Meals every night and let them bake some cupcakes for a school party a few times a year. Kids (and teachers) need to celebrate once in a while.
photo by Orange County Girl on Flickr
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October 3rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Did you know I have a friend who named her son Xanathan (inspired from Xanthan Gum, seriously)?
Once again, I’d like to state that my opinion on the matter is this: occasional (I would even say daily) sugary treats are not the problem with diabetes, obesity, etc.). The problem is the corn syrup poured into everything we consume. If you took all of that out, and ate a cupcake every day, you’d STILL come out ahead.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:08 am
[...] Healthy Foods With the Rainbow by Summer Minor I was reading about the cupcake bans going on in some schools in New York and was suddenly ovrcome with the urge to bake cupcakes. Why? Because as a homeschooling family I [...]