What's YOUR favorite Entenmann's?

Apparently the company famous for soft chocolate chip cookies and crumbly coffee cakes has taken its classic tag line into the age of social media with a new blurb on the box that reads, "Everyone's got a favorite. Like us on Facebook and tell us yours." I'll be sure and do that. Sounds like a really exciting conversation.

But let me explain. On my way to work yesterday, I dropped my beloved glass water bottle on the sidewalk, where it shattered and all the people at the nearby bus stop stared as I did my best to pick up the pieces. Not a great way to start the day. I ducked into a convenience store to get another bottle of water, and decided on impulse to try and cheer myself up by grabbing a snack to share at work. I figured with Corn Free July coming up, I should get all my junk food cravings out of the way before my month of sad, lonely deprivation.

But a (actually maybe not-so) strange thing happened. I really didn't enjoy my Cheese Danish Twist. Don't get me wrong, I ate a lot of it, mainly because all those empty calories don't keep you satisfied, but it pretty much just tasted like cake someone put extra frosting on to cover up for the fact that the cake part is a little too dry.

What? That's exactly what it is? Oh, OK then.

I mean, it looks pretty...kind of.

The good thing that came of this was that I was reminded how Corn Free July and other challenges like it aren't really about deprivation at all; they're about focus on the things that you will actually want, enjoy, and benefit from. I'm getting very excited to have a solid reason not to make mistakes like this for a month. And especially to bake my own goodies from scratch that will taste better, be healthier, and not leave me feeling yucky like this one did.

Incidentally, for anyone who's interested, this particular dessert, from a company that, to paraphrase their own advertisement, has been baking fresh and delivering daily since 1898, contains...drumroll please....45 ingredients. And that's a conservative number, since I wasn't counting the sub-ingredients in parenthesis, you know like "enriched white flour: [processed flour, bleach for coloring, all natural nondescript nutrients, bakery workers' tears]"

Of these 45, I recognized at least 8 to be derived from corn, and 3 from soy. Including high fructose corn syrup! Now that high fructose corn syrup has gotten so much bad press, you may have noticed that a lot of junk foods have gone out of their way to replace it with other sweeteners, but apparently Entenmann's isn't even taking that sad excuse for a step in the right direction.