Mayonnaise

From Season 4: East Coast Seafood

Mayonnaise might not be the most exciting item in the refrigerator, but given that it is a $1 billion industry, one thing is for certain: Americans buy the creamy, white condiment on a regular basis. Two products dominate the market, but with the surge in popularity of preservative-free, unsweetened, and "healthier" mayos (see our related tasting), we were curious to see if any of these newer spreads could challenge the favorites.

Our taste test included seven nationally available brands of mayonnaise along with Kraft Miracle Whip. Even though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not recognize Miracle Whip as a real mayonnaise, we included it in our tasting because of its popularity. The FDA defines mayonnaise as an emulsified semisolid food that is at least 65 percent vegetable oil by weight. Miracle Whip, which is also sweeter than regular mayo, weighs in with only 40 percent soybean oil. (Water makes up the difference.)

When you make mayonnaise at home, you whisk together egg yolks and seasonings (often lemon juice, salt, and mustard), then slowly whisk in oil until the mixture is emulsified. By contrast, the ingredients for commercial mayonnaise are premixed and then processed through a colloid mill, a machine that breaks the mixture down into tiny, uniform droplets and creates a stable emulsion with a light consistency. The biggest variations in brands of commercial mayonnaise concern the amount and type of oil, the amount and type of egg (both whole eggs and yolks are used), and flavorings.

The results of our tasting produced two strong favorites. What explains such a strong showing given that mayonnaise contains so few ingredients and that most commercial mayonnaises are manufactured in similar fashion? In an attempt to find out, we sent the mayonnaises off to our food lab to test for oil, egg content (both whole eggs and yolks), acidity, and total fat. The oil content for the group ranged from 78.5 percent to 85.3 percent, well above the minimum 65 percent required by the FDA, so oil level alone didn't yield any revealing information. But at first glance the type of oil seemed to matter greatly.

The past 15 years have been the halcyon era for canola oil as nutritionists have raved about its low saturated fat content. It was only a matter of time before canola oil made its way into commercial mayonnaise. But these samples ranked poorly in our taste test when compared to the products made with soybean oil. But why? At least one thing the two oils are considered to have in common is their bland taste.

With that in mind, we went back to the lab results to see if we could find another trend, but the information led to no conclusive findings. Acidity levels were similar (with the exception of tangy Miracle Whip) and total fat did not vary much. As we pored over the data, we noticed that the top two winners both had a very low egg yolk content, but our third-place finisher had the highest egg yolk content.

We then considered what natural flavorings were added. Manufacturers were mostly uncooperative--they told us that all manufacturing information was proprietary - so we wondered if we could run some tests to help us figure out which flavorings were being used. Unfortunately, natural flavorings can be very hard to detect in lab tests. To find what other factor may be at work, we went looking in our tasters' comments.

Tasters consistently praised the two top brands because they tasted like "what mayonnaise should taste like.” In the case of mayonnaise, many people grew up eating a certain brand. People like familiar tastes.