Mars

Here I sit, contemplating the goodness of God and the things of life in general, doing something not habitually a part of my life. This "something" is the munching of a delectable piece of confection otherwise known as a Mars chocolate almond bar.

Many very interesting things can be learned from the information on the wrapper of this candy bar. The serving size is listed as one bar, so if this has to be divided with one or more others, you only get a half or less of a serving - or basically you have not been fully served.

The ingredients were printed to be: milk chocolate, almonds, corn syrup, sugar, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, skim milk, butter, milk-fat, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavor. Fortunately these contents are contained in the bar in descending amounts in the order of the listing, as I would very much dislike to get a large glob of milk-fat or salt in the center of my candy.

I view some of these ingredient items as somewhat odd and/or confusing. First is the soybean oil - why just partial hydrogenation? All things should be done in a complete manner - either finish the job or don't mess with it at all.

Then there is the skim milk - the next two items after this are listed as butter and milk-fat - it seems to me that these two were what was taken out to make it skim, so why divide and then recombine? Sounds like a trick to me, maybe they were hoping we would stop reading after the skim part.

Finally there is the artificial flavor - that just makes me wonder what this bar would taste like without it - maybe like rutabagas or something?

I possibly shouldn't have read the ingredients at all, but I was curious and wanted to see what I was making a part of my body for the next several years.

In spite of that, I did enjoy the bar, am enjoying life in general and am constantly amazed by the daily, awesome, blessings of our loving Heavenly Father. ec