The Secret Ingredients Please!

So what exactly is in them? Exactly what kind of ingredients, chemicals, tars and nicotines, and addictive substances do cigarettes actually contain that I've been inhaling into my body for over 30 years? I'm sure I could do extensive research, to actually find out, those ingredients, but humor me here. Go take a look at a pack or carton of cigarrettes.

There is NO ingredient list whatsoever on them! I've searched and searched. There's the surgeon generals different health warnings. There's a UPC code, there's the location where they are produced in West Virginia. There's some small stamps on the plastic outer wrapper, thanking me for the monetary contributions I've been making to my state and counties taxes by my buying cigarettes.

There's even a description, that one pack contains 20 Class A Cigarettes. Well thank God for small favors. I sure wouldn't have wanted to have been spending all those years smoking some kind of inferior Class B or Class C addictive substances, now would I?

There's even a description that tells me what smooth rich taste these cigarettes have, and a polite request asking me not to litter. But I can't find an ingredients list anywhere!

Doesn't that seem kind of odd to begin with? No ingredients listed whatsoever? Cigarettes have to contain something don't they?

A box of crackers, a jar of peanut butter, a can of soup, all list some kind of list of ingredients on their labels. Many of those might be some kind of preservative. Many I might not have ever heard of, or know what they are or what they're supposed to do or not be doing for me.

I might not ever make those kind of radical eating life changes where I will never again put emulsifier soy lecithin into my mouth, but at least I know that pack of hard candies, I've been substituting for cigarettes contains that emulsifier soy lecithin, whatever that is. But at least I can still choose not to ever have a butterscotch hard candy again, knowing, that emulsifier soy lecithin, is included on the ingredients label. I might not have a clue what emulsifier soy lecithin actually is or what it's doing or not doing for me, but at least I know they're part of those butterscotch candies, and hopefully emulifier soy lecithin adds to the taste and flavor of those hard candies, I'm enjoying.

I have to wonder how did the makers of Cigarettes get away with listing no ingredients whatsoever on their packaging for so long? Even things that aren't supposed to be swallowed or ingested contain a list of ingredients or poisen control centers or places to contact or things to do if someone swallows that diswashing detergent by mistake.

But Cigarettes have no ingredients listed at all. None, nada, zero, nothing. So you don't even have any idea at all what you've been inhaling, or even if you've been been inhaling the same things over time. Those chemicals could have been removed, replaced, revamped, remade, revoked, reoffered, and I wouldn't know what was in my cigarettes from 10 or 20 years ago, anymore then I know what ingredients there are in cigarettes today.

I know good cooks have their secret ingredients, they might not ever reveal in their recipes, but how is it, that every single ingredient in a pack of cigarette appears to be a secret ingredient? What's up with that?

That original cook, must be some high up official or something, with a whole army of security and intelligence people, hanging around them all the time. All those cigarette ingredients must fall under some sort of category like, "Stricktly Classified Ingredients". You don't have high enough clearance for a "need to know basis", or maybe it's just the tobacco industry's way of saying, "You really don't want to know... what we put in our products. So stop looking for silly things like a list of ingredients on the side of the pack or carton. We aren't about to tell you anyway!"

I haven't ever researched this either but I wonder if any politician in history has ever just flatly refused to accept political monetary sponsorship from tobacco companies, simply because there are no ingredients listed whatsoever on their packages? Or for other areas that produce things of questionable value, such as alcohol, tobacco, or guns.

I'm sounding too much like my late father. Tobacco, alcohol, guns, big money industries, that politicians badly need to fund their political campaigns. But as this old former hippie of 55 years of age, I might not ever get another chance in my life to protest these kinds of things, so I'm taking this blogging opportunity to protest them now!

Even a cleaning product that isn't supposed to be be swallowed, inhaled, or consumed by anybody, contains a list of ingredients, in case that mistakenly happens to somebody. But Cigarettes somehow remain exempt from having to list any kind of ingredient list at all? How did that ever happen, through history, and why does it stilll happen today?

I hope that alone, might give someone something to think about the next time that temptation sneaks up on them to light up a cigarette. So what kind of ingredients did you say are in a cigarette? Oh yeah that's right, you didn't say, did you?

It's not like cigarettes are like a box of cracker jack with a toy surprise inside of them or something. Some unknown surprises we would all be better off living without, especially when we don't have a clue exactly what kind of wonderful chemical surprises that pack or carton of cigarettes contains?

Hope that makes somebody pause for a second, while it's becoming harder for me not to preach from the pulpit about cigarette smoking.

Oh those twisted, tempting, evil, masquerading things known as....

I'm not going to go into preaching mode about the hazards of cigarrette smoking. Most people are aware those health hazards exist, without my having to say a word about them. Most of us so called "adults" don't generally learn much from the mistakes others make before us anyway. Many of us are still stubborn or stupid enough, that we end up having to learn it all the hard way ourselves anyway.

When I first started smoking at 19 years of age, there were no cautions on the packs and cartons of cigarettes back then. There were no indications of just how addicting tobaccco can be, and how hard it can be to quit smoking. There were no dire indications, no warnings from the surgeon general back then as to what kinds of future health problems smoking cigarettes could cause anybody.

I'm not even sure I knew who the surgeon general was, when he did make his presense known to me, or what his words of warning exactly meant to me anyway back then. I wouldn't have listened to him, or to anybody else either at that point, if someone had told me back then the things I'm paying the price for now! So now I'm one of those who is having to go through all of this the hard way. The very hard way!

But maybe I'll say one thing here that will somehow reach somebody out there! Maybe somebody, some young person, someone out there, might read this. Someone might be thinking about trying cigarettes, or maybe someone wants to quit before they reallly get started and get addicted to them, will read something I'm writing here, that gets their attention, that strikes a responsive chord with them. That at least gives them serious "food for thought" about this addictive substance.

Speaking of "food for thought" maybe someone will decide it's better to trade that phyical demanding need for nicotine, for something like a banana, a tangerine slice, or even a chocolate chip cookie, instead of the chemicals that cigarettes provide.

Oh the amazing cravings I'm having now. Cravings for truly "exotic" foods, like baked potatoes, with sour cream, cheese, and green peppers, or apples dipped in carmel. A junk food junkie like me? Suddenly having these cravings for things that might actually have vitamins, minerals and other good things in them, that might actually be good for me to eat? What in the world is going on?

I guess so many years of smoking on those twisted, tempting, deceptive, masquarading little cigarettes must have left my body having these strange physical cravings for all those vitamins, minerals and nutrients, my body must have not ate for way too long a time.

Who knows what will happen if I should start going through some kind of green pepper withdrawal, or I just can't seem to get quite enough of those little cherry tomatoes, that I just want to keep popping into my mouth and devouring. There might be even more "exotic" foods I've never even tasted before, that suddenly sounds good, or even just tempt me to give them a try for the first time ever.

The grocery stores are on alert now! They have been warned! Security is standing by, armed to their eyebrows with avocados or lentil beans.

I might be seen browsing grocery aisles, I never dared to venture into before. I hope those stores can supply with me some kind of lesson plan? Because I might now find myself having to learn for the first time ever, how to actually cut a kumquat, or the only proper way to participate in eating pineapple.

It boggles my mind, at the foods I might have some kind of craving for, that I've never had before, and don't even know how to eat it, let alone how to cut it.