Dalrymple explains in New English Review that he tried to keep a notebook of the little lies he encountered daily. One day this entailed simply copying the list of ingredients from the “Naturally Fresh” salad dressing served by various airlines:

Water, soybean oil, tarragon vinegar, olive oil, multidextride, salt, dehydrated onion, sugar, mono- and diglycerides, spices, dehydrated garlic, dehydrated red and green bell pepper, nonfat dry milk, xantham, guar (food fiber), lemon juice powder.

To which, having copied it down, I appended the note:

This year’s harvest of multidextride has been exceptionally good.