You probably already assume that Hot Pockets aren't the healthiest food option around.
At least a few unpronounceable ingredients are to be expected. But what's actually in
them may still surprise you. Here's what you're really consuming when you bite into a Hot
Pocket.
Hot Pockets and Lean Pockets are basically bread stuffed with meats, cheeses, and sometimes
vegetables. That's probably not the type of meal you expect to taste sweet or to feature
sugar as a primary ingredient. But pretty much every Hot Pocket contains between two
and eight grams of sugar. Of course, sugars occur naturally in vegetables and milk products,
so it shouldn't come as a surprise that a product with cheese would include some sugar.
But if you're trying to stay away from added sugars in your diet, it's important to pay
attention.
According to the Mayo Clinic, people sticking to a 2,000 calorie-per-day diet should try
to consume no more than 48 grams of sugar per day. If, for example, you have a BBQ Recipe
White Meat Chicken Lean Pocket contains 8 grams of added sugars, you'll need to be careful
about how much additional sugar you consume in your other meals and snacks throughout
the day. The reality is that sugars are often included in processed foods like Hot Pockets
because they add texture and flavor, and they help bread to rise. Considering that the Hot
Pocket brand prides itself on crispy crusts and breads, it makes sense then that there's
a little sugar in each one.
"Give me some sugar, baby."
Considering that the bulk of a Hot Pocket is wrapped in a casing of crust or bread,
you might think that food coloring would be unnecessary. But you would be wrong about
that! Pretty much every Hot Pocket product does in fact use some type of food coloring,
especially caramel coloring for beef or meatball products. And there's also annatto or turmeric
to enhance the yellows of cheese and eggs.
According to the American Chemical Society, processed foods like Hot Pockets need food
coloring to make them more appealing to the eye. Without food coloring, hot dogs would
be gray, which certainly sounds a lot less appealing than the brown that we've come to
expect. And while you're probably not spending a ton of time dissecting what your Hot Pocket
looks like after that first bite, you would probably notice if it looked gray. And then
you would probably stop eating. Hence, the food coloring.
"Textured vegetable protein" sure doesn't sound very appealing, but if you've enjoyed
a Hot Pocket recently, you probably didn't even notice it was there. Textured vegetable
protein is often used as a meat replacement or meat extender. In essence, it's a soy-based
protein that looks and tastes similar to ground beef. Also, it's less expensive than beef.
So when companies like Nestlé, which is Hot Pockets' parent company, add textured vegetable
protein to their products, it's almost certainly to make it appear that there's more beef in
the product than there actually is.
This addition allows food manufacturers to use less ground beef while maintaining the
flavor and texture of meat and reducing the overall cost to make each product. And if
customers can't taste the difference, it's actually a smart business ploy.
If you prefer to stay away from imitation cheeses, pay close attention to which Hot
Pockets you purchase. The ever-popular Pepperoni Pizza may tout that it's "made with real cheese,"
but Chicken Broccoli & Cheddar, for example, features "imitation cheddar cheese" right
alongside real cheddar cheese on its ingredient list. Imitation cheeses function similarly
to textured vegetable proteins, as they offer companies a way to "extend" a natural product
with an imitation that looks and tastes a lot like the real thing. The milk fat in imitation
cheeses is partially or entirely removed from the cheese and replaced with non-milk-based
alternatives, often vegetable fats.
The result is almost identical to regular cheese, and the flavor is often very similar.
This allows companies to provide more cheese flavoring and texture without the expense
of actually adding more real cheese. The catch is that it's unclear why some Hot Pockets
products use imitation cheese while others don't. So if you like your cheese real, pay
attention and read the ingredient list carefully when you're making your next Hot Pocket purchase.
If you've ever melted cheddar cheese in a dish, you've probably witnessed what happens
when the cheese cools down. The fat separates from the solids and you get a weird congealed
mass of what remains of the hard parts of the cheese in a gross puddle of grease. It's
not exactly the creamy, melty goodness that makes food look appealing. The experience
is different with American cheese or with products like Velveeta or canned nacho cheese.
When these cheeses are heated, they have a smooth consistency that's perfect for cheese
dips or grilled cheese sandwiches.
The secret to these products is sodium citrate, which is a salt solution with a sour-salty
taste. Older or harder cheeses that have less liquid content are harder to melt with a smooth
consistency because when heated, the fat breaks away from the solids and separates. When sodium
citrate is added, it substitutes itself for some of the calcium that makes these cheeses
stick together, preventing the fats from completely separating, and providing for a smoother,
easier melt. Not all Hot Pockets contain sodium citrate, but with the ones that do, you can
expect a creamy and smooth consistency with the cheese.
If you've ever eaten a Hot Pocket, you've eaten a dough conditioner, which is an ingredient
that's included in every single Hot Pockets product. But what in the world are dough conditioners?!
They're ingredients or chemicals that improve dough processing and the quality of baked
goods in high-production environments. In other words, when companies need to make a
lot of identical products all at once, and they need to turn them over fast, dough conditioners
help ensure and improve the quality of bread and baked goods. Simply put, it helps to guarantee
the consistency of the product time and time again.
Dough conditioners can be credited for improving crust development and color, general appearance
and symmetry, shelf life, and crumb structure. Considering that the Hot Pocket brand places
a very high value on the crispy, flaky texture of its bread, it makes sense that the company
would use a dough conditioner during the production process.
Lactic acid isn't a term that people usually throw around when talking about cooking. It
comes up more often when discussing a tough workout, as it's what causes the burning sensation
that you feel in your muscles as you push yourself to exhaustion. But lactic acid bacteria
is also included in the ingredient list of most Hot Pockets products.
So why exactly is this the case? Lactic acid bacteria are often used in food fermentation,
as with cheese, yogurt, and kimchi. These are "good" bacterias that help kill bad bacteria
and keep food safer. The lactic acid in Hot Pockets is most often listed as a part of
the "seasoning" along with ingredients like salt, onion powder, garlic powder, and cheddar
cheese powder. It's also included as a component of pepperoni. It isn't entirely clear why
lactic acid plays an important role in the production of Hot Pockets, but it's most likely
used as a preservative to extend their shelf life and safety.
Buttermilk powder probably isn't an ingredient you'd automatically assume is included in
most Hot Pockets varieties. But all of the breakfast versions in fact include buttermilk.
When you think about it, it makes sense. Nothing says breakfast more than a hot, buttermilk
biscuit, after all. So when you think about it that way, why wouldn't Hot Pockets amp
up their breakfast crust with the sharp and sour addition of buttermilk powder?
"Recently they introduced the breakfast Hot Pocket. Finally! I can't think of a better
way to start the day."
If you've never heard of buttermilk powder, it's a "secret" baking ingredient for many
chefs. Alice Osborne, a writer for the Cook'n blog, is a big advocate for adding it to biscuits,
cakes, fried chicken, and even soups. According to her, it's a much better option for long-term
shelf life than buying and using liquid buttermilk from the dairy aisle. That's just more proof
positive that there's an art to making irresistible processed foods like Hot Pockets.
You might be familiar with whey from the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme.
"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey."
Or you might know it in the context of cheesemaking, as it's considered a waste byproduct of cheese
production. Or perhaps you know about whey protein powder, which is used as a nutritional
supplement. But what you might not be aware of is that, according to 2018 research published
in the Journal of Dairy & Veterinary Sciences, whey is frequently "recycled" in the food
industry as a part of making secondary dairy products.
The reasons for this are two-fold. First, the whey produced during cheesemaking is actually
the bulk of the milk needed to make cheese, as about 80 percent of the volume of milk
used during cheesemaking remains as whey. Cheesemakers have to figure out an environmentally
safe way to dispose of this waste. Second, whey is highly nutritionally dense. While
it may be considered "waste" to cheesemakers, it contains roughly 20 percent of the protein
found in milk, hence its common use as a protein powder for nutritional reasons. When whey
is added to foods, as with many Hot Pockets, it usually functions to increase cheese yield
and protein content without affecting the flavor or consistency of the cheese. For companies
like Nestle, this is an efficient way to keep the flavor high and the costs low.
If you check the ingredient list on almost any Hot Pockets product, you'll see "palm
oil" listed at least once, if not multiple times. For many people, the inclusion of palm
oil in processed foods is a bit of a red flag. It's gotten a bad rap for many years due to
its high saturated fat content. Because palm oil is semi-solid and stable at room temperature,
companies that produce processed foods started using it as an affordable alternative to trans
fats after the United States banned the addition of trans fats to foods sold in grocery stores.
The good news is that the high saturated fat content found in palm oil doesn't need to
scare you. While too much fat in your diet, particularly saturated fat, should be avoided,
palm oil contains vitamin E and tocotrienols, which function as antioxidants that may help
protect brain and heart health. As long as you're not eating Hot Pockets or other processed
foods too excessively, and you have an overall balanced and healthy diet heavy on fruits
and vegetables, then a little palm oil here and there is unlikely to be harmful.
High fructose corn syrup has gotten a pretty bad rap. There's certainly some merit to the
concerns about the addition of this sweetener to many processed foods. But just because
a product like Cheddar Cheeseburger Hot Pockets contains high fructose corn syrup, that doesn't
mean you should immediately nix it from your grocery list.
"That has high fructose corn syrup in it."
"And?"
"You know what they say about it?"
"Like what?"
The reality is that many food companies started adding high fructose corn syrup to processed
foods as a slightly less expensive ingredient than regular table sugar. And as sugar intake
as a whole increased in the United States, so did health concerns like Type 2 diabetes
and heart disease.
But the real concern here shouldn't be with high fructose corn syrup itself, but rather,
the total increase in sugar intake in the American diet. While some people have voiced
concerns that the body processes high fructose corn syrup differently than it processes regular
sugar, research studies have failed to support this assertion. It's generally more important
then to keep track of your overall sugar consumption. According to the Mayo Clinic, people consuming
a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet should consume no more than 48 grams per day. So if your
sugar intake as a whole remains reasonably low, having a little high fructose corn syrup
in your diet is unlikely to be the downfall of your overall health.
"And that comes with a side of Pepto."
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