Food Additives and Preservatives: Is Pink Slime the Least of Our Problems?

 The uproar over "pink slime" is settling because it's being pulled from many products. But are Americans re-thinking other food additives or remaining willfully ignorant? Having eaten "pink slime" happily and safely for years at McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Burger King while being blissfully unaware of real food safety issues, what else have Americans been consuming without questioning?

Let's talk cake. A birthday cake purchased at a fancy bakery (not Safeway or Kroger). From week to week,  the cake barely changed. After six months, a little moldy fuzz had grown and it was finally trashed, the cake experiment over. Overall, the six month cake didn't look too bad. Nothing a little frosting couldn't cover up! How can you tell if the cake is fresh at the bakery if it takes month to see from the outside?





Timeline:
- Received mid-December
- Week 2, no change
- Week 3, no change
- Week 4, no change except some frosting slightly discolored
- Two months, finally some mold
- Three months, mold is more apparent
- Six months, oozing out at the sides, more mold, and cake is flattening.


Thanks to Anastasia and Wendell for doing this experiment and sharing the photos!