For those of you who are new here at the Hedonist, I should let you know that I have an ongoing series of me poking fun with Kraft foods. Sure this feud is one sided, and actually kind of lame, but hey, it keeps me busy and off the street.

It's not that my issues with Kraft are unwarranted. After all, they sell a pistachio pudding made with more almonds than pistachios, they sell a Macaroni and Cheese which doesn't contain any cheese that I can determine, and ...oh yeah...they own nearly every popular food product you can think of . Granted, that last bit isn't really a good reason to be annoyed by them, but I needed three things to list.

At any rate, today's quiz time posits the following question: Which is bigger A "Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese Strawberry Cheesecake Snack Bar" (I believe their use of the word 'snack' is unintentionally ironic) or the list of ingredients it takes to make the snack bar (my own use of "snack" is definitely ironic).

To the right is a picture of said snack bar. It is 1 1/2 inches by 3 inches.

Now if one were to look at the box, you would barely be able to read the list of ingredients. So I've altered the list to be readable by the average Joe...which presumes that the average Joe has the word "Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose" come up in everyday conversation. To make it readable, each ingredient is listed on its own line, and in 8 point font. It's still small, but at least it's readable. However, in a compromise with Kraft, I allowed the list to remain only 2 inches wide, which is as wide as the box that these ironic snack treats comes in. I also did not list any ingredients listed inside parenthesis. This also works in Kraft's favor.

To see the results and the ingredient list, jump below the cut.

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Here is the list of ingredients that are on the box

• Milk
• Sugar
• Partially hydrated soybean
• Palm and Cottenseed Oils
• Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour
• Cream Cheese
• Skim Milk
• High Fructose Corn Syrup
• Glycerin
• Modified Food Strach
• Water
• Corn Syrup Solids
• Corn Syrup
• Lactose
• Mineral Reduced Whey
• Whole Wheat Flour
• Eggs
• Strawberry Puree Concentrate
• Molasses
• Sodium Caseinate
• Egg Whites
• Mono- and Diglycerides
• Honey
• Cheese Culture
• Salt
• Citric Acid
• Soy Lecithin
• Fruit Pectin
• Calcium Propionate and Potassium Sorbate as Perservatives
• Dipotassium Phosphate
• Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose
• Ammonium Bicarbonate
• Caramel Color
• Natural and Artificial Flavor
• Carob Bean Gum
• Sodium Citrate
• Hydrogenated Cottenseed Oil
• Red 40
• Yellow 5
• Vitamin A Palmitate
• Apocarotenal
• Blue 1

So, which is longer, the snack treat or the ingredient list?

The ingredient list is almost twice as long as the snack treat itself! Amazing!

So, what does this prove, aside from the fact that I'm a tad immature? Well, nothing, except that Kraft puts a long list of stuff, including a fair amount of chemicals and compounds with names such as "Apocarotenal" and "Dipotassium Phosphate" into its food. I just got a kick out of the fact that the ingredient list for this second rate product was so large and wanted to illustrate what goes into a product like this.