4/4/2007

Food Fright, Part 16

Uncle AndrewUncle Andrew
Filed under: @ 7:54 am

Food Fright Part 16

I snapped this picture in my local grocery store earlier in the week. Where to begin, where to begin….

First of all, one wouldn’t think that Oreos and organic anything would be capable of peaceful coexistence on the same shelf, much less the same cookie. I would have thought that such an endeavor would be like handing a thirsty vampire a glass of holy water. Upon introduction of the offending additives, you’d expect the cookie to emit an anguished squeal and hurl itself bodily out of the baking tray, like the alien-contaminated blood sample in John Carpenter’s The Thing. (Off topic: did you know that The Thing was banned in Finland when it first came out? Whoda thunk. It’s amazing the kind of useless crap you can learn whilst trawling for a hyperlink to reference.)

Secondly, what marketing genius decided that what Oreos really needed was organic ingredients anyway? What’s next, animal-testing-free rat poison? Fair Trade Certified hollow-point bullets? Dolphin Safe Strontium 90?

At 160 calories and 7 fat grams per cookie, you’d be better off eating the strontium.

Junk food is junk food, and nothing in the cookie arena is junkier than an Oreo. And that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with letting a little junk food into your life. Just don’t let it get out of hand. To this common-sense proclamation I would add a codicil: don’t try to tart up your junk food and pretend it’s something it’s not. Like healthy. Or good for the planet. Or even food, really.

I am reminded of that sage old adage, “You can’t polish a turd”.


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