The Myth of "Miracle" Whip.

There I was, in our neighborhood supermarket, when I encountered this unspeakable and ghastly sight:

I was scarcely able to contain my horror. Normally, I take great pains to avoid the mayonnaise section of any grocery store. I was little prepared for this devilish tactic, perpetrated, no doubt, by tireless and diabolically clever mayonnists. Here were two crates of the white menace placed smack-dab in the middle of the dairy section of my local Acme store, practically in my back yard.

I recovered my senses and moved closer. My mayonnaise radar (maydar) was telling me that something was different. This wasn't your everyday display of Hellmann's; I was looking at jar after countless jar of an equally menacing creamy white substance.

Miracle Whip.

It was an ingenious scheme. The offending spread was positioned within arm's legth of a small child. Should one have somehow broken, a chain reaction would have been triggered, resulting in a large scale environmental catastrophe and an unthinkable human death toll. I took a quick look around, aware that my mayonnist enemies are constantly watching. The coast was clear. I pulled out my preferred device of high-tech espionage, my "camera phone," capable of snapping and storing up to 5 pictures in a matter of minutes. I captured this shot right as two heavies in trench coats turned the corner. I broke a jar at their feet and lost them in a cloud of noxious gas, but not for long. I bolted to the parking lot, finally eluding my trailers with the cloaking device recently installed in my turbocharged, Mach-11 Honda Civic, the McBonemobile.

Having narrowly escaped to McBone heaquarters, I sent the photo to our lab, where McBone analysts quickly confirmed my fears, that the white spread contained in those jars was indeed Miracle Whip.

Which of course begs the question, what exactly is Miracle Whip? A simple question, with a surprisingly simple answer. Here's a list of ingredients: WATER, SOYBEAN OIL, VINEGAR, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, SUGAR, SALT, ENZYME MODIFIED EGG YOLKS, MUSTARD FLOUR, ARTIFICIAL COLOR, POTASSIUM SORBATE AS A PRESERVATIVE, PAPRIKA, SPICE, NATURAL FLAVOR, DRIED GARLIC, BETA CAROTENE (COLOR). That's a lot, eh? Look closer and you'll see some familiar ones, like oil and egg yolks! Oil and eggs blended together. In other words, mayonnaise.

Some miracle.

You are warned, McBoners, not to be fooled by the long list of ingredients. Though it contains mustard flour, Miracle Whip is not mustard, and paprika does not make it Hungarian. Miracle Whip may boast 60% less fat than mayonnaise, but the presence of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup immediately disqualifies Miracle Whip as a health food. Try as it may to offer itself as some kind of ersatz mayonnaise, the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.

I think each and every mayonnaise hater in the world has been asked this seemingly innocent question at one point or another, the one put forth to me this very evening by my cousin-in-law, Graham, while engorging a heaping plateful of potato salad: Do you eat Miracle Whip? The answer, my now-under-heavy-surveillance friend, is a very definitive no. I eat neither mayonnaise nor mayonnaise in disguise.

The agents of evil (K.R.A.F.T.) never rest, but you can sleep easy, McBoners. McBone and the AMA are on the case.

nwb