Interesting, isn’t it, this equivocation, that the cookie “may contain” Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil (PHCO). You would think that the manufacturer (I don’t say baker) that mass-produced these cookies would know positively one way or the other. How could they not? If you or I baked a batch of cookies, we’d damn well know if we included the flour, the sugar, the nuts, the partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil, and so on. To put it another way: If your dinner guest asked you what was in that tasty meat loaf you served up, chances are you wouldn’t say, “Well, Charlotte, it may contain bread crumbs and paprika.” You’d know. Unless of course you had dinner catered by the same people who make airplane cookies.

As we bounced through the turbulence, I wondered, what would have been the better option—cookies with or without PHCO? I was happy to read that the cookies also contained oats and raisin. I’ll take those two ingredients in pretty much anything, except a Martini or steak tartar. But let’s say that in the one I may or may not have been eating, they left out the PHCO. How might that have affected the taste, texture, nutritional value or its shelf life? Who knows? I get the feeling they don’t want you to know. It’s mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a cellophane wrapper.

Then there is the second, more disturbing issue. Namely, that the cottonseed oil that may or may not have been included was only “partially” hydrogenated. Why only partially? Did they run out of hydrogen? It’s hard to believe that that could happen. Hydrogen, otherwise known as “H” (not to be confused with Heroin) on our periodic chart, is the simplest, lightest, most plentiful gas we have. “H” is also highly flammable and explosive. Hence, the “H” in H-bomb. Hydrogen is not to be confused with its harmless, funny cousin, Helium, or “He,” as in hee, hee, hee, because of the funny voice you can make when you talk after breathing it, and because Helium is also the gas used in Helium balloons that bring smiles and laughter to countless faces of children of all ages.

Perhaps it’s hydrogen’s volatility that makes partial hydrogenation safer, more sensible choice than full-bore hydrogenation. However, whether it’s full or partial, I sincerely hope the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has established clear and stringent guidelines for the hydrogenation process. Imagine a multi- megaton explosion at the airplane cookie factory, resulting in a mushroom cloud of radioactive cookie dough malignantly roaming the Earth. Talk about a cookie monster.

As much as we may abhor government intervention, perhaps the time has come for a full congressional investigation into the shadowy worlds of full and partial hydrogenation. For too long have these merchants of death prospered from their specious recipes and secretive baking practices. We need to be fully accountable. Partial answers won’t do.