Word for the day: KONJAC

These little jelly tubs came in the Christmas stockings the children were given at their carolling event. When I had a close look at the packaging, I saw the words "contains no konjac"printed on the top.

I'd never heard of konjac before and to use a quote from Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men, "I don't know what it means, but it sounds pretty bad."

If a food product is trying to reassure me that it doesn't contain a certain ingredient, it must not be something of which I would want to ingest great quantities. So I decided to educate myself via the internet and found that konjac is an Asian yam-like plant often used to make fruit jellies (surprise, surprise). Unlike gelatine and some other commonly used gelling agents, Konjac fruit jelly does not melt on its own in the mouth. It must be properly chewed before being swallowed. However, there have been several reports of young children and elderly people somehow inhaling the jellies and suffocating. Konjac fruit jelly has been subsequently banned in the US, Canada and the European Union.

So try to avoid konjac in your food at all costs.

Hey, it does pay to enrich your word power.