Snax for All

A recent trip to the supermarket, to garner edible supplies, led me to the snack aisle.  When I talk about the snack aisle, I am referring to the more appropriately titled “potato chip” aisle.  Granted the newly-renamed potato chip aisle houses more than just potato chips, a la corn chips, cheese curls, popcorn, and pretzels, it now has more meaning as to where to locate certain foods.

 

Some food merchants enjoy throwing curve balls at their patrons filling their “snack” aisles with crackers and rice cakes.  Such blasphemy deserves legislation to prevent these practices from spreading nation-wide and becoming an epidemic.

 

In days of yore, snacks were never healthy or advertised as such.  If a snack has the word “diet,” or “lo-cal,” avoid them with vigor.

 

Snacks, by their very nature, are deadly.  Firstly, they taste great to encourage you to eat more.  Secondly, they taste great because of the fat, grease, salt, and high-carbohydrates, associated therewith.

 

Do-gooders will direct you to the pretzel area but, don’t be fooled.  It seems as though pretzels have 22 grams of carbs, compared to the 16 grams that potato chips offer.  I could rest my case here but, I still have lots of room and time left.

 

Those all so healthy rice cakes have 21 grams of carbs so, there!

 

Then, you have busy-bodies who will say, “Try the baked potato chips.”

 

That’s akin to eating boiled chicken instead of Southern fried.  Not much of a challenge, if you ask me.

 

My sainted wife will invariably return home with nacho chips which, when appropriately adorned, are edible.  Eventually, they make their way onto a baking sheet with sautéed ground beef, shredded lettuce, salsa, and generous amounts of Velveeta cheese, only to be pooped into the oven for flavor melding.  Now, they’re edible.

 

But, the newest fad appears to be those popcorn “puffs.”  These snacks come in different flavors, such as cheddar cheese and butter.  They are simply puffed corn without the hulls with salt and flavor.  By nature, corn has no flavor and merely serves as a vehicle to introduce those flavors.  As a note of importance, those flavors consist of a special concoction of chemicals that not only taste terrific but, also wreak havoc with ones intestinal tract to create copious amounts of methane gas.  FYI.

 

That same warning applies to flavored potato chips and rice cakes, as well.  But, I digress.

 

The snack aisle is not the magical supermarket area it once was, and is only getting more bizarre.  Today, its shelves are stocked with potato chips made from processed potatoes, ground corn formed into horns, and even ersatz onion rings.  Each of those are designed for a special need, such as totally uniform chips sold in cans, a scoop-like trumpet to get more dip, and a means of generating some of the worst bad breath in North America.

 

There are chips with ridges and without, some fried in “kettles,” and some cut into lattices.  All of these deserve their own accounting for their existence, likely in future stories.

 

Now to wash these treats down with a cup of some wholesome milk that contains only 12 grams of sugar!?!

Watch This

Recent television programs and movies show men and women going about life without wearing wrist watches.

 

This may not be the astounding news that I feel it is but, being punctual has always been my “thing.”  As such, I sport a wrist watch all my waking hours.

 

It used to be that nearly all male actors had watches adorning their wrists – even during those lurid bedroom scenes.  How odd, I thought, that someone cavorting with a beautiful woman needed to wear a timepiece.  Was he afraid she might pilfer it, or was he using it to time his best effort?  In any case, he had a chronograph.

 

Watches were hand made during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, and came in the form of a pocket watch.  Those watches were sometimes very ornate and used primarily by people needing to keep a schedule – railroad and Pony Express riders were some of the few ‘timely’ folks.  Bankers and shop owners of yore used them, too, to ensure no missed business.

 

It wasn’t until World War I that wrist watches became popular.  Being away from a zone scheduled to be bombed at a particular time, was important.  Pocket watches were subject to damage, and had to be fished out of a pocket to be read – difficult to do in a foxhole with people shooting at anything that moved.  Hence, the wrist watch was popularized.

 

Throughout the decades, modifications and improvements have made these time keepers evolve into more than just devices to tell time.  Some tell the date, some tell the day of the week, some tell the year.

 

I, personally, own a number of wrist watches and cherish them all.  Two, in particular, are tied for my favorite.  Both are Citizen brand, and both are meaningful.  One came as a retirement gift from “my only friend,” and the other is from my brother-in-law.  Each has its own special features and qualities, and each is handsome in its own unique way.

 

They possess the ability to be used as a stopwatch, calendar, and can even tell the temperature in Cairo, Egypt.  One is a pilot’s watch and come with a slide rule-type calculator; the other is a stylish dress watch with a leather band and is solar-powered.

 

My first watch was a Timex I received as a First Communion gift.  I have not yet received my last watch, though.  I love them as not only an effective means of telling time, but also as fashionable jewelry.

 

Making a full circle, it seems obvious that those without a viable means of telling time need a way to do so.  My associates who don’t wear watches tell me they use their cell phones as time references.  But, remember the aforementioned pocket watches?

 

I think I’ll keep my watches and feel and look fashionable.  But, you won’t see me wearing one in my lurid bedroom scenes.

Safety First

A trip to the grocery store for some provisions got me into a philosophical mood.  Salad dressing, ketchup, snacks, and beverages, rounded out my list for mid-week shopping.

 

Back in the early 1980’s, someone spiked Chicago-area Tylenol capsules with a poison that killed seven people and began the habit of sealing easily accessed ingestible products.

 

It used to be most bottles of pills merely had a screw-on cap that kept both the nine-feet of cotton and pills, in place.  It seems as though someone intentionally laced some Tylenol capsules with cyanide at the local level, rather than at the factory.

 

Foil and plastic shields suddenly appeared and were glued on the individual bottles of virtually every medication as a precaution from copycat morons.

 

It wasn’t long before everything had a special seal to either “ensure freshness,” or “guaranty safety.”  In any case, they became annoying then and are still annoying.

 

Acting as a sort of gasket, these tamper-proof devices serve as a method of detecting if a package has been opened, offering a warning to consumers.

 

My recently-purchased salad dressing may as well have been sealed with a glob of concrete with a pull tab attached.  The undersized tab needed needle nosed pliers to grasp lest it be torn off rendering it useless; I didn’t use the pliers, and I was rendered useless.

 

The same scenario was relived with the ketchup.  But, it is only speculation on my part that plastic jugs of oil and windshield washer fluid have those tamper-resistant seals because of leak prevention and not to preserve freshness.

 

Nonetheless, this exercise appears to be merely legal, in nature.  A precaution, for sure, but also somewhat phony in nature, sealing ingestible goods is only effective if all ingestibles are protected.

 

Allow me to explain.  Some grocery stores showcase “bulk goods,” which are unpackaged food products along the lines of cereals, nuts, and candies.  These bulk goods are usually heaped in barrels with handy scoops available to fill up your bags.  These no-frill, no-name foodstuffs are decidedly less expensive than those in colorful, brand name packaging.

 

Here’s the rub: Anyone could lace these unprotected foods with any number of poisons, and render countless numbers of consumers severely ill or mortally injured.  Why not the

urge to “ensure freshness” or “guaranty safety?”  Perhaps bargain hunters deserve neither.

 

The same scenario can be applied to baked goods, especially those doughnuts that are in those self-serve venues.  Let us not forget the produce departments around the nation, either.

 

Before I leave you, I must remind you of those ever-popular salad bars.  The next time you fill up your plate with head lettuce, fake bacon bits, over-strong onions, and garbanzo beans, think twice before you pour that ladle of dipped salad dressing on your creation.  Someone before you likely stuck their unwashed finger in the vat of dressing to see if it tasted like her own.

 

You’re welcomed.