…, like lactococcus, lactobacillus, and streptococcus, which turn milk into curds, whey, and eventually cheese.
Disodium Inosinate/Guanylate
Flavor enhancers that work like MSG. While they have no flavor on their own, these sodium-based additives stimulate your taste buds, making them more sensitive to meaty and savory flavors.
Ethyl Alcohol
The same stuff in your chardonnay. A minuscule bit dissolves the vanilla flavoring in the apple dessert. (It works a lot like the alcohol in vanilla extract.)
Polysorbate 80
It pops up in shaving cream and cosmetics. In your dinner, it keeps oil-based flavorings from separating so your food doesn’t dissolve into greasy slop when you nuke it.
Propylene Glycol
A cousin of antifreeze (yes, antifreeze) that’s also found in condom lubricants (yum). But no worries: It’s nontoxic, and only a tiny amount is used. This FDA-approved chemical keeps the oils and fats used in frying, as well as other ingredients, from gunking up.
Sodium Aluminosilicate
A white powder mined from rocks such as feldspar and zeolite. It’s listed as an ingredient in the dried sweet cream, where it likely is used to stop the powdered cream from getting lumpy, although it’s hard to know for sure, as most product recipes are top-secret.
Soy Protein Isolate
A powdered product made from soy flour, it thickens the pasta sauce and enhances the texture so it doesn’t turn into a watery mess.
Sugars
Of the 75 different ingredients listed, 12 are a form of sugar: dextrose, molasses, corn syrup, maltodextrin, and high-fructose corn syrup, to name a few. Why so much sweet stuff? Sugar is part of several ingredients–the sauce, the apple crisp, etc., but the form of sugar used may vary, from sucrose to, say, corn syrup: The manufacturers list all of the possible ingredients so they don’t have to reprint the box if substitutions are made. For a real sense of how much sugar is in the total meal, look at the nutrition facts label, not the ingredients list.