Skipping over the gastronomic adventures of the past couple weeks, I’ll get right to the terrible bit of information I just discovered.

We got into Amsterdam day before last. Yesterday morning Karine popped out to the grocery store to pick up some breakfast provisions, including a small jar of Nutella. When I saw the Nutella, I sighed. “Delicious,” I thought, “but all that nasty hydrogenation!” I felt a bit wistful for the days before I knew how horrible hydrogenated fat was, before I could graphically envision every Jif sandwich I’ve ever eaten, all still stuck there on the walls of my arteries.

Later, when I was savoring my Nutella on a day-old baguette (what? you thought I wouldn’t actually eat it?), I looked at the ingredients: sugar, peanut oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk powder, whey powder, soya lecithin, unspecified “aroma.” No word, in Dutch or French, remotely resembling “hydrogenated.”

About the same time, Karine said, “A friend of mine says European Nutella is better than the American version, but I can’t remember why.”

A flurry of Internet research ensued, and lo, American Nutella contains:

Sugar, Peanut Oil, Hazelnuts, Cocoa, Skim Milk, Reduced Minerals, Whey, Partially Hydrogenated Peanut Oil, Soy Lecithin; An Emulsifier, Vanillin; An Artificial Flavor.

So–what?! Americans are so squeamish that any possibility of visible liquid oil needs to be eradicated? Americans stock their bunkers at Sam’s Club, and require their Nutella have a shelf life of 10 years? Americans only have one mental category for bread-spread, so everything must behave exactly like Jif? Either one of these things, or the American food industry is actively trying to kill its customers, which is untenable from a business standpoint.

Now I feel it’s my duty to eat as much Euro Nutella as possible before I return to the US next Wednesday. Excuse me–it’s breakfast time.