Post Category → processed crap

You can almost hear the fizz in root beer gum

The Murdoch Crier had an amusing interview with the guy who runs the company that is now “the biggest distributor of salsa in the U.S.,” and that’s not counting the mole they define as “a Mexican simmer sauce.” What made it so entertaining was watching a 1 percenter essentially spin a corporate tool of a stenographer. Asked when his last Spam meal was, he sounded like $Palin: “Oh, all of them.” I know from gutless, but wouldn’t it have been great for the followup to be: And how does it go with the Chateau d’Yquem?

“Snap that gastric band”

Speaking of which, the push-back against our anti-gun mayor’s attempt to save the porky populace from itself has been rather fascinating. We actually now live in a world where a gallon of sugar water is considered not just a normal portion but something to be defended to the diabetic-and/or-obese death. If only all the money being thrown around on the misinformation campaign could be directed to free public gyms; soda swillers could have their vice but get some exercise, too. Instead, trickery rules. I’m half-embarrassed to say I read an op-ed in the print version of Faux News and was actually almost taken in: Poor little artisanal iced-tea company, suffering under rules designed to hurt big cola companies. So good on Marion Nestle for noting: David is actually owned by the same Goliath that bottles Dasani. If you have to put “honest” on the label, you must be lying.

Porm

While my consort and I were at the Greenmarket on Columbus on Sunday, a couple of beach-blanket bimbos (the color of Boehner, the vacuity of Ryan) handed us samples of that five-hour energy shot I keep seeing Tweeted. And they warned: Don’t take it unless you’re really tired; otherwise it won’t work. Isn’t that like serving green beans and saying: Don’t eat them until you’re starving; otherwise they won’t fill you up?

Espresso by Fiat, at 140kph

Just watched this to be sure I wasn’t going to be accused of anything unoriginal after dillydallying before posting, but: I decided eons ago I’d prefer to be cremated once I join the choir invisible. Now I’ve learned, thanks to the most beautiful food story in donkey’s years, that it’s not the most environmentally sensitive way of disposing of a body bent over from carrying Baggus for years. Given that I spared the planet any resource-sapping spawn, I’m not going to worry too much about eco-karma. But this does have me thinking Starbucks opening in a funeral home is just perfect placement: Who wouldn’t enjoy thinking “ashes to ashes” while sipping that burnt brew?

Flavored sunflower seeds

I’ve been so distracted by the Twitter this has been languishing, but: My kingdom for a fly on the wall in Grand Forks on the a.m. the Most Important Paper in America weighed in on the silly successor to the Wasilla Hillbilly’s own private happy meal. Apparently it’s a joke for a small-town reviewer to evaluate a chain moving in. But it’s service journalism for a big-city editor to order up a taste-test of the latest in chain stunts. I could maybe see it before Taco Bell invaded the city all those years ago. These days it’s about as exotic as 7-Eleven. You would never read a feature on how plastic slipcovers feel on a couch, or how a Skinny Girl cocktail goes down, but for some reason fast food is always treated like something the sophisticated reader needs to have interpreted. Maybe that’s because those chains don’t advertise and there’s no fear of a JC Penney backlash? Whatever. This is what bacon sundaes distract from.

MTing

–Only people raised prosperous enjoy drinking from Mason jars.

–What the world did not need: flavored bourbon. Does everything have to be raspberry-nachoed?

–Would like to think the heat’s making people stupid. But those confounded by checkout lanes at Holy Foods are probably just as addled in winter. [That place really needs a line tamer.]

–If food makes you either laugh with pleasure or weep with weepiness, you might want to adjust your dosage.

100 million sold in Wasilla

I also read an artfully regurgitated page out of a Marketing 101 textbook on how Big Food is appealing to Americans’ emotions. Somehow, when honesty and local and nostalgia are allegedly so big, a company is introducing “pizza dipping strips.” “Cheese” and “pepperoni” on “crust” you can dunk into a two sauces, one “a departure from the standard Ranch.” Why don’t they just fill each one with chocolate and coat it in Doritos?

Tempeh “tamale”

The internets is a very small place, so as much as I read of the obit for “artisanal” sounded awfully similar to the one for “facts.” But two things about the idea made me laugh. One is that mayonnaise would be the tipping point. Does no one remember Hellmann’s originated small-batch in a shop on Columbus Avenue 100 years ago? So what if it took all these decades for it be flavored like Brooklyn? And the second is that the word that really needs a stake through its heartlessness is “artisan.” Which is the noun being used as an adjective for Dunkin’ Bagels. Just as you have to wonder with “vegan terrine,” what exactly is the secret ingredient involved?

Back page at the Plaza

About the only thing to be thankful for this election is that the people behind POM do not see Willard as a wonder. Imagine if they could put $35 million into selling that cypher as healthful for America. Worse, imagine if news organizations realized, as the hometown paper did this week, that they could have their bogus elixir and drink it, too. All day the day of the FTC ruling, the home page was blinded by the blight of paid deception. Only the next day was it reported that the ads were not to be believed. But as I keep saying, at least they didn’t get us into a war with yellowcake this time.

Little Brownie Bakers, my ass

Way, way before the food world jumped onto the kids&obesity bandwagon, I was bitching that advertisers were routinely using chubbies&huskies to subliminally send the message that it’s normal and acceptable to eat and eat and eat some more. Apparently a certain ice cream chain has not gotten the message that thin is in again. An ad in my favorite part of the Sunday papers — the coupons — promotes sundaes made with Girl Scout cookies by showing a young’un and the doctor she’s grown up to be, each holding a honking huge cone. All you need to know is that it hid more in the first photo. The After had me looking for the insulin.

“Soap for people afraid of soap”

I guess Mencken is going to have to posthumously retract his famous assertion that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Nutella just settled a suit for $3 million after a woman lost her batshit on learning that the first three letters did not lead to nutritious. Sure, who among us has not looked at a jar of chocolate-colored nut-and-sugar paste and thought: Low calorie! But my cynical side started to wonder if the whole thing had not been a click/comment trap when I saw the company is not just giving refunds to anyone who asks but also printing coupons for a buck off on a fresh jar so smart moms everywhere can “turn a balanced breakfast into a tasty one” by adding fruit and a glass of milk. Ask the cuckoo woman: Doesn’t that work with Cocoa Puffs, too?

“Don’t forget the inexpensive Champagne”

Way behind on posting, distracted as I am by all the KKKraziness out there on the series of tubes, but I can’t resist responding to the pitch I just got. The one that was only slightly less Onionesque than yesterday’s promoting a weight-loss “cleanse” as a Mother’s Day gift (talk about shitting where you birthed). This is for a chain whose name will not be mentioned, hyping a new chef transforming its sandwiches (lemon aioli and lemon dressing!) He can layer all the “blank” Angus onto all the “ciabatta bread” he wants. I will still read “all natural chicken” and see the counter guy at LaGuardia one morning responding to my sad request for an egg sandwich by grabbing a round of yellow rubber from the prep bins, flapping it in the air and asking: “You wanna eat this?”