Tag Archives: Discussion

Glutton for punishment, or just plain glutton?

18 Mar

I love meat: steak, bacon, chicken wings… I’m a proud omnivore.

So will someone please tell me why I insist on reading books that flip my stomach and plague me with guilt about environmental repercussions? Before I even crack the cover, I can anticipate 85% of the message. And my intention in reading these books isn’t ever to give up meat.

Yet here I am, reviewing Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, which I just recently finished reading. The horrors of factory farming aren’t news to me… I’ve read My Year of Meats, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and An Omnivore’s Dilemma (not to mention The Jungle) so I’m all too familiar with the cramped the living conditions, the engineered skeletal systems, the unnatural diets, the cruel methods of slaughter and the quantities of antibiotics and growth hormones these creatures are doused in.

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You say tomato, I say cockroach

17 Mar

OK. People in Florida need to end their denial: I hate to break it to you, but there is no such thing as a Palmetto Beetle. It is simply a tourism marketer’s renaming of a cockroach!

How do I know? Because I’ve killed two of them since arriving in Florida Sunday, and they sure look like cockroaches to me.

I tried to convince myself that they really weren’t that disgusting because – hey – they were palmetto beetles, not roaches. But guess what? I’m not buying it. I tried to calm my nerves by googling “palmetto beetle,” and you be the judge (especially top right and lower center):

And if I’ve killed two of them while staying in a high-end home that was literally just built (we’re only the third people to stay here), I can’t imagine how infested most of the houses down here are. Remind me of this when I decide to retire to Florida when I’m 70.

To quote a wise man: never trust a fart.

26 Feb

This is about the last existing photo of WOW chips. Lay's has done an amazing job scrubbing any reference to WOWs from the internet. That's SEO well played.

Remember when WOW potato chips came out in the late 1990s? They were the first – and to my knowledge – ONLY food to ever bear the warning that they may cause anal leakage. At the time, they were the subject of many late night jokes, and my colleague Sara dared to test the warning by consuming an entire bag in one sitting.

Her response: “Wow!”

Apparently the chip was well named and the warning well phrased. Score one for marketers AND the USDA. (Ironically, they ended up re-branding as “Ruffles Light” because they became infamous: deduct one for both marketers and Olestra.)

It got me to thinking that THAT was a good practice. Why don’t companies include warnings on any food that might spoil a date (as opposed to simply including a spoiled-by date)?

Based on the number of times the word “shart” has worked itself into a text from one of my friends (and you know who you are), I’m thinking there are PLENTY of foods (or people) that would be well-served by a cautionary label.

I won’t share the stories that accompany these foods (must protect the innocent – at least until I have a bottle of wine in me) but here’s a list that may cause disastrous results if consumed:

  • Kashi frozen pizza
  • Kashi Go Lean Crunch
  • Fiber One bars
  • Atkins diet
  • Kielbasa and sauerkraut
  • More than three diet sodas in one day

This is by no means a complete list, but it’s a starting point. In any case, don’t say you haven’t been warned. And feel free to add to this list or add your own cautionary tales – consider it an act of citizenship.

In Search of the Perfect Breakfast Food

2 Feb

Breakfast of champions.

I just finished inhaling a plate of TGIFriday’s potato skins.

As I downed the last bite, I thought:

Is there a more perfect breakfast food than potato skins?

I mean, seriously: potatoes + cheese + bacon = HOME RUN.

(And yes, I realize this is the second post in one week about a cheesy potato. I think that constitutes an addiction of some sort, but I refuse to seek treatment.)

Please weigh in. Have I missed the boat and overlooked a critical breakfast selection?