Shortening

I was making cookies today for a party, which is a dilemma, (I posted about that first) but I got to thinking about shortening.  I bought butter-flavor shortening, and when I read the ingredients I noticed that there is beta-carotene added for color.

This struck me as kind of ironic. Here we have lovely, trans-fat packed grease, plenty to stick to the arteries, but we color it with something "healthy" instead of plain old yellow-lake 5 or whatever the bad stuff is. 

I think the truth is that beta-carotene is fat-soluble, so it colors this pound of fat better than other coloring, but it still made me chuckle.  I think I'll stick to my natural yellow-colored olive oil, with the occasional saffron for frying.