The White Center of Oreo

Oreo has to call the white center "creme" instead of "cream" because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) doesn't allow manufacturers to use the word to describe a food that contains no cream at all.

Oreo lists the ingredients on the back of the package, but the order of ingredients doesn't distinguish between cookie and filling. 

That being said, using simple methods of deduction, we were able to gleam from the ingredient list that the filling is likely made of sugar, palm and/or canola oil, high fructose corn syrup, and soy lecithin, and artificial flavor.

The omission of one particular ingredient is glaringly obvious: cream. Because there are no dairy products used in Oreo cookies, the FDA does not allow Nabisco to call their filling cream. The easy get-around? They spell it "creme".

Without any animal or dairy products, these chocolate sandwich cookies are basically vegan. ("basically" because there can be some cross-contamination with milk during production). 

But it hasn't always been this way: The original recipe for the filling actually got its creaminess from pig lard! In 1997, Nabisco switched to a vegan (and kosher) option by using vegetable oils.

follow me on IG