Have you ever worked with someone whose actions made you hear your mom’s voice inside your head saying things like “Everyone gets a turn,” or even “Let’s be nice”? When my friend Dee’s kids complained about the seemingly unjust behavior of certain teachers or neighbors, she would suggest they consider them “negative role models.” Just as it’s important to have good examples in your life, it’s also valuable to have examples of behaviors you would rather avoid.
Year in and year out, I post recipes that have a lot going for them. I am always on the lookout for good examples of nourishing recipes made from whole foodstuffs, with plenty of produce, legumes, nourishing fats, and high-quality protein. Today I am trying a different approach: I am dissecting a recipe that has nothing going for it. This angel food cake mix is a negative role model. Its best use is as an example of what not to eat.
As usual, the packaging for this ultraprocessed product contains verbiage designed to influence purchasing patterns. “This homemade angel food cake has straight-from-the-oven taste and warmth.” So we have established that, yes, it tastes like cake, and it’s warm when you remove it from the oven. While it’s made at home, I’m not sure it qualifies as “homemade.” The package offers that “fresh raspberries top this wonderful cake and sticky raspberry sauce runs down the side.” An emphasis on even meager amounts of fruit is common in the marketing of ultraprocessed items; Big Food capitalizes on the fact that you know fruit is nourishing. Finally, the plays on the “angel” theme: “Your guests will think you’re an angel if you serve this cake,” and “Bake it tonight and make an ordinary dinner with the family heavenly.”
The recipe calls for 12 egg whites (one redeeming feature), one cup of cake flour, 1 1 /2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sugar, cream of tartar, vanilla extract, lemon extract, and salt. Cake flour is finer than all-purpose flour, so it is absorbed into the bloodstream faster. And 34 tablespoons of sugar? It disturbs me to consider how people have been led to believe that angel food cake is more nourishing than chocolate mousse or pumpkin pie. Finally, the raspberry-and-lemon-juice sauce includes four tablespoons of granulated artificial sweetener. As if it were not yet sweet enough.
There is only one reason to eat this cake, and that is if you absolutely adore angel food cake, in which case you should make it and enjoy it, though not very often. But you are not doing yourself any favors by serving this dessert. The amount of stripped carb in this recipe is sky high. Without fat to slow its digestion and blunt the rate of absorption, you can probably count on a significant blood sugar spike, followed by an inevitable crash.
If you’re thinking about dessert, consider a Portuguese orange cake or old-fashioned brownies with walnuts. Or a platter of fresh fruit and dark chocolate.