Snack rant

[muckefuck]

Just had breakfast. On the back of the bag of trail mix, it says:

DID YOU KNOW--that nuts are a natural food product, not created in a laboratory...

Jesus, Mother of God! Are we so alienated from the means of food production in this country that we have to be told that NUTS GROW ON TREES?

monshu informed me recently about the revised FDA regulations on insect parts in food and about how some people are protesting that they aren't stringent enough, should be better labeled, etc. You just want to smack them and say: "HELLO! Unless you're a Jainist constantly wearing a gauze mask you eat bugs all the time! The air is full of them, your body is full of them, they're going to get in your food." No, we shouldn't have to pick weevils out of our rice as we eat it, like Third Worlders do, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we live in a world where total purity is possible.

I'm not a back-to-the-land kind of guy, but I think this level of ignorance about where food comes from, how it is processed, and so forth is just inexcusable. And it leads to unrealistic policy, as people try to legislate a world more contaminant-free than it can ever actually be.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Not to mention wastefulness. If we don't remember that ALL the food we eat was once alive, it's easier to not use it and just throw it away when it gets squishy.

Here's an idea for new packaging

[bunj.livejournal.com]

"DID YOU KNOW--that bugs are a natural food product, not created in a laboratory..."

Tout their protein value and what-not. Make the little critters a feature rather than, well, a bug.

Re: Here's an idea for new packaging

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

BUGS ARE NOT FOOD. Bugs are evil and scary and must be killed---but by someone other than me, because I'll be cowering in the corner shrieking.

Spiders are fine, tho still not food.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

I want a sign on all my meat products saying "Did you know meat comes from delicious animals and is not a plastic product?"

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

Unacceptable orders of Insecta:

Orthoptera, Phasmida, Dermaptera, Dictyoptera (except mantids, which are acceptable), Isoptera, Siphonaptera, Coleoptera, Diptera

Acceptable orders of Insecta:

Ephemeroptera, Odonata, Lepidoptera, Hymemoptera

And, of course, the arachnids are acceptable EXCEPT FOR SCORPIONS

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

You probably don't call everyone you know "dude," either. ;-)

[0595.livejournal.com]

I thought nuts were coming from, like, plants in the ground or something. I don't like nuts themselves, but I love peanut butter and I'd prefer to think peanut butter is made by some magical faeries.

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

And after this cheery little spar, I shall have to friend you now.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

See, muckefuck? The "laboratory" thing is misdirection. They're really trying to reassure the nervous consumer that the nuts are natural as opposed to supernatural. I.e., to make clear that they're grown by good sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, rather than by soulless longaevi whose motivations we know nothing of.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Strangely, peanuts do grow on plants in the ground. But they're not really nuts, which confuses everything.

But I can understand that misconception given the whole grown-up-in-Oklahoma thing. In Missouri, we had walnut trees.