We’ve all seen the video of the Chick-fil-A sandwich that doesn’t mold.

After months left on the kitchen counter, it looks just as fresh as the day it was sold.

It’s fast food, so no one’s standards were astronomically high, but no mold? After three months? It’s bread and chicken.
At some point, you just have to ask yourself — what am I actually eating here? Because it’s clearly not just bread and chicken. It’s some shelf-stable, mutant patty built to withstand extreme conditions. What could that possibly be doing to my body?

Upon further research, the sandwich has an intimidating ingredients list. And if Chick-fil-A, the most Christian, ethical, least morally reprehensible fast food chain serves sandwiches that share ingredients with Silly Putty, then what is everyone else doing?

The immortal Chick-fil-A chicken sandwich is just the latest in a long line of products to be corrupted by extreme amounts of preservatives and stabilizers. Pricey fresh ingredients are no longer practical. Swap cream for xanthan gum to save money and extend the shelf life of your Great Value Ice Cream Bar. Egg prices, am I right?

If you read the nutrition label of a Great Value ice cream bar, you’ll find gums — carob, bean, cellulose, tara — that act to mimic the creamy texture of fat. These gums slow the melting process by preventing ice crystal formation. You’ll also find both monoglycerides and diglycerides, which act to preserve the texture created by the gums — they keep the fat and water evenly mixed, preventing separation.

With the combination of texturizers, emulsifiers and preservatives, you get an authentic mouthfeel and a box of ice cream bars that will last forever.

While the names may sound scary, most gums are derived from plants. Most emulsifiers are made from vegetable oil. So while not healthy, their origins aren’t as evil and deadly as they sound.

Even though the Great Value ice cream bar doesn’t melt, all of the preservatives used to make it are “generally regarded as safe.” A GRAS certification from the FDA gives manufacturers the OK to go crazy. Feel better?

When you consume preservatives, there won’t be any immediate deadly effects. The FDA says they are safe to consume in small amounts — there isn’t much evidence of acute toxicity.

But let’s be honest: how many times a week do you eat fast food? Do you really just eat the recommended serving size of Nerd Clusters?

What the FDA conveniently fails to account for is how easy it is to blow through an entire bag of Sour Patch Kids without even thinking about it. When you do that again and again — while eating fast food, and protein bars, and diet soda, and cereal and all the other processed food the average American consumes yearly — it starts to add up. It’s never just one scoop.

Consuming large amounts of ultra-processed foods over a long period of time damages metabolic health, puts you at a higher risk for cardiovascular diseases, Type 2 diabetes, some cancers and the development of depression and anxiety.

Hey, I’m no Robert F. Kennedy — I’ve been known to indulge in a Nerd Cluster or seven. I’m not going to tell you that you absolutely need to avoid preservatives and processed foods. It’s just unrealistic.

I’m not anti-stabilizer — if you want to manufacture and distribute ice cream across the country, transport it from grocery store to grocery store, from freezer to car to fridge, it needs to be preserved. We can’t all live on the Ballerina Farm.

But when the structural integrity of my ice cream — a product that ideally should have, like, three ingredients — is compromised, I worry.

Edy’s “frozen dairy dessert” won’t kill you, but it’s so chock-full of emulsifiers that it can’t legally be sold as ice cream. The milk-fat content doesn’t meet the FDA’s minimum requirements for products labeled as ice cream.

I worry about what it’s doing to my body — the effects aren’t visible or immediate, but part of me wonders that the day the ice cream finally melts, my insides will too. The day the sandwich begins to mold, will I? And it seems the data is pointing in that direction.

When you realize it’s legal to sell un-molding and un-melting foods that might give you cancer in a couple of years, you wonder what else it’s legal to do. It furthers your mistrust in the FDA, in the government and leaves you questioning the goodwill of humanity.

The Great Value ice cream bar won’t kill you upon consumption, but it’s kind of dystopian that it doesn’t melt. What does it say about the world we’ve created for it to live in? A world where it’s not economically efficient for ice cream to melt — it’s got to be a metaphor for something.

I remember when I was younger — the feeling of a melting ice cream cone dripping between my fingers. It was sticky and annoying, but part of the experience. It was never meant to last forever.

Claire Thatcher is a freshman at UT studying journalism and media. She can be reached at [email protected].

Columns and letters of The Daily Beacon are the views of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or the Beacon’s editorial staff.