Junk food on Passover

There are many categories of junk food on Passover. There is prepared food that is kosher for Passover, there are candies and snacks, and there are sweets you make from scratch. Plus the entire phenomenon of making everything out of oil, eggs and matzah meal, it just can't be healthy!

Some would argue that nearly every processed food you can buy for Passover is junk. For one thing, they are almost all made with cottonseed oil. You can taste that this is not the best thing, it often has a slightly off flavor. I totally don't want to get into the dreaded fats and oils discussion, I have read a lot and mainly it seems like people who advocate healthful diets do not agree on which fats and oils are healthful. Saturated fats are bad! No, they are good! Polyunsaturated oils are health promoting! No, they are unstable and rancid! Aargh.

Don't worry, you will be fine. But I am using olive oil anyway.

My number one nomination for disgustingly junky Passover food is the fake wasabi sauce made out of cottonseed oil mayo and regular old horseradish, and dyed green with food coloring. It resembles wasabi in no way whatsoever and is just disappointing.

I did make my own mayonnaise from scratch this year. Why? Because while we were visiting my parents, I made my baby Russian dressing out of Passover mayo (probably made with cottonseed oil) and Passover ketchup. He LOVED it. He began asking for "salad dressing" and dipping everything in it. The Passover ketchup is extra sweet and contains cloves. When we got back home my husband got some of the ketchup but the mayo was unavailable, so I made some with my kosher for Passover mini Cuisinart, organic egg yolk, organic lemon juice, and olive oil. It was splendid with the disgustingly sweet ketchup. Do I normally make concoctions out of raw eggs? I do not. Some eggy madness grips me at this time of year.

This brings me to another point. Many Jewish people who don't buy mayonnaise, or candy, or cookies, or soda pop, or potato chips, during the year, buy them kosher for Passover. Why is that? Or maybe it's only people who live in urban areas with big kosher supermarkets. It's like we lose our minds! I did not do that this year...as much. I did buy a can of chocolate macarooons before the holiday. My husband bought marmalades (the candies also known as fruit slices, or jelly candies).

He also bought potato chips. My mom bought pop (which I did not drink, amazingly--I usually find it difficult to resist) hard candies and fruit taffy. She used to also buy Israeli chewing gum, when we were growing up. It was really weird, we never had pop or gum in our house, and suddenly we had pop, gum, fruit slices, hard candies with soft goo in the middle, homemade cake, homemade brownies, and usually chocolates brought by guests.

Now why do we feel compelled to create so many amazing and strange cakes and candies for Pesach? We make them from scratch when we don't buy them.  You know that now that the holiday is over, Jewish families are looking ruefully at several cans of macaroons, chocolate covered matzah, chocolate lollipops. My husband is sad because he didn't get any Barton's seder mints or his mom's special sponge cake. On Saturday I had the most delicious thing, my friends made it but I am definitely making it next year.

I am not sure why Pesach is so junk-filled. In our house we also eat a lot of vegetables at the same time. Maybe the junk food is just to prove we can?