April 24, 2025 – There is an on-going nationwide discussion on how to make our food healthier … less industrial secret formula flavors from complex mixtures of chemicals that modify and manipulate the taste and smell of our food.
One example is the food history of the chocolate-chip cookie. You can make the original Toll House recipe with organic flour, eggs, organic sugar and chocolate chips but there are still additives. Did you know a chemical stabilizer is added to the chocolate chips to retain their shape during baking? We might also use an industrial seed oil spray to make cookies slide off of the baking sheet. In the chocolate chip cookie archives, the industry competition against the chewier Toll House cookie recipe created through their science crunchier chocolate chip cookies with new chemical ingredients to increase shelf life. Today, similar preservatives and stabilizers are used in chips and crackers to retain their crunchiness. We have learned to enjoy both types of sweet and salty snacks with the crunchy feeling in our mouths.
What do I mean by the “Stick”? Our snack choices have vibrant colors from artificial dyes. Years ago, Rob and I attended a national beverage conference and one of the keynote speakers was the CEO of Pepsico-Frito Lay. She used the industrial term of “stick” to describe the proprietary powder seasonings (or “Doritos Dust”) that cling to the chips (and our fingers). She told us that she hides her treasured snacks in her purse and is always tempted to lick the dust off of her fingers after eating them. I recently purchased a dust-free healthier “puff” option for kids without artificial preservatives, industrial seed oils, artificial colors or artificial flavors plus grain and rice free and lower in trans fats and sugar compared with regular puffs. They look bland (missing sodium-based dust) with a flavor and crunch that cannot compete with my other favorite salty snacks. Just like we learned to crave crunchy chocolate chip cookies, it seems to be time to throttle down to less-than-spectacular colors and crunch in our snacks as healthier alternatives.
How Can Watt-Ahh Make Food Healthier?
One of the challenges in food science is how to emulsify oils and water to extend the crunchy shelf life of snacks. Watt-Ahh is used in at least one recipe for high-quality salmon-oil cookies on the market. Watt-Ahh emulsifies and stabilizes oils without either chemical stabilizers, emulsifiers or preservatives. It is a 100% active water product that could make our favorite snacks healthier for us with less chemical additives that trick our taste buds.