In a perfect world, all our baked goods would be fresh from the oven, with a shelf life of only a day or two. In the reality of a modern supermarket, however, products need to be able to last for weeks, or even months, on the shelf and in our pantries. To achieve this unnaturally long shelf life, manufacturers of packaged baked goods have increasingly relied on a cocktail of chemical preservatives. These additives prevent mold and keep products soft, but they also represent a major shift away from the simple, clean ingredients that consumers often expect.
