Fish Food

From the bean of Green Bean.

Every month, a group of friends and I swap homemade snacks of some sort or another. It started out as an effort to reduce plastic packaging, save money, eat healthy and pack a waste free lunch in less time. Our third month in, the snack swap has done all that.

It's done quite a bit more though. It has exposed my family (and, I'm assuming, the families of my friends) to try new foods and pushed us to expand our palate. It is also challenged my inner pasty chef.

Exhibit A:


Oh yeah! I went ahead and baked me some goldfish crackers.

Pepperidge Farm's ingredients are not particularly scary (though I do wonder about their "rainbow" colored goldfish): Unbleached Wheat Flour , Flour , Niacin , Reduced Iron , Thiamin Mononitrate Vitamin B1 , Riboflavin Vitamin B2 , Folic Acid , Cheddar Cheese , Pasteurized Milk , Cheese Culture , Salt , Enzymes , Water , Salt , Vegetable Oils , Canola Oil , Sunflower Oil , Soybean Oil , Salt , Yeast , Sugar , Yeast Extract , Leavening , Baking Soda , Monocalcium Phosphate , Ammonium Bicarbonate , Spices , Annatto Color , Onion Powder.

The recipe I followed, however, boasted far fewer: local and organic cheddar cheese made from happy cows and purchased at a locally owned, independent grocery; locally grown and milled organic flour from the farmers market (within a 30 mile radius!!); local and organic butter from happy cows with a methane digester; and a little S&P.

Top that off with the kick-booty flavor and the lack of plastic packaging, and Pepperidge Farm can keep their Goldfish. My families' lunch boxes are full of fish food.