Ruminations at 6:00 a.m. this morning.
“Let’s see, it looks like someone brought a big bag of treats into the lunchroom for us bleary-eyed coworkers. From the size and shape of the package, it looks like about a month’s supply of some crunchy snack from Costco. The package has drawings and cartoons, so that’s a little bit more suggestive of Trader Joe’s. Got to be one of the other. I’m gonna try to hold off until after lunch before I dig in and have a few pieces of whatever it is.”
Post-Lunch snack time
“Hmm, OK here we go. Time to check out those “Veggie Chips.” I’m looking at the label, and it feels like I am reading the Google “Do No Evil” credo, or maybe my physician pledge to “first do no harm.” These things pass every hippy-dippy requirement of the decade. The label says the chips are gluten-free (but I love gluten,) vegan (I love meat almost as much as I love gluten,) Kosher (good, tomorrow is Yom Kippur, but wait-I can’t eat on Yom Kippur,) free of dairy products (ice cream is my third love,) non-GMO (I think GMO’s will someday save the world,) and without hydrogenated or trans-fat (OK, even I don’t want hydrogenated or trans-fat anymore.)
“I flip the bag over and take a look at the ingredient list, see what tasty vegetables are part of this good for our souls and the world around us veggie snack food. Ingredient number one: potato flour. Ingredient number two: potato starch. Huh? Where are the veggies? I know that technically potatoes are vegetables, but who thinks of them that way? Finally, after I read through the salt and the sugar and the (non-trans, non-hydrogenated) oil we get to things like tomato paste (remember, ketchup is a vegetable,) turmeric (more of a flavoring and coloring than a four-star vegetable,) spinach powder and beetroot powder. And that makes these Veggie Chips? I think not. These are extruded potato chips. Pringles with a fancy disguise and a little red beet powder. And not even a stackable can.
“The question becomes, do I really want to eat any of these? I don’t see anything else laying on the table, and something crunchy/salty would be good, keep me from having food cravings all afternoon long. I think I will have one or two.”
Ten Minutes Later
“I can’t believe how many I ate. They are tasteless but addictive. I had better stop.
“Oh no, what’s this? Has a rep just brought in twenty bags of Garrett’s Popcorn? The caramel and cheddar mix? Now we’re talking. Pseudo-Pringles be gone, the King of Snack Foods is here!”
I made MY choice. Which would YOU choose?
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