Thursday, April 7, 2011

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Which product features the following warning?:

NEW USERS: Increase your fiber intake gradually. Gastrointestinal discomfort may occur until your body adjusts.

A. Metamucil Original Blend (orange flavor)
B. Metamucil Lite for Women (acai berry flavor)
C. 5-hour Energy Drink
D. Organic Broccoli Florets - 12 ounce bag
E. Fiber-con Fiber Supplement pills
F. Taco Bell "It's-Beef-to-Us" Chalupa Supreme
G. Centrum Copper - Specially Formulated for Women in their 30s
H. Vintage 1999 Lays Potato Chips - original Olean formula
I. None of the Above

If you said I, then you know your packaging (or you talk about yourself a lot)! And that I J K! I was just kidding (and you don't talk about yourself a lot, I'm the one blogging, right?). I don't know if the above products exist. But I did happen to purchase and consume the product whose box includes the above warning label, set apart from the rest of the text in a way that makes it seem like they were legally required to inform me of the potential for gastrointestinal discomfort. The above warning belongs to the fine folks at Kellogg's and their glorified granola bars "Fiber Plus Antioxidants." I realize now that that is the actual product name. There's nothing suggesting a food base is under all this "health." Even the flavor assigned to this product is not quite owning up to being a real flavor. "Chocolatey Peanut Butter" is not chocolate, and it's not peanut butter. It's like what, a flavored version of a flavor? Peanut butter that tastes like chocolate? Is the chocolate not chocolate? Ha! I just read the ingredients more closely and NO, no it is not chocolate. There's some cocoa powder, but there's nothing that's identifiable as chocolate itself, apparently. You know what there is a lot of? (In addition to dangerous levels of fiber, apparently) SUGAR. Not only is it the fourth ingredient on the list, it's the second ingredient on the list of sub-ingredients that comprise the third ingredient on the list. So, to recap:
fiber powder
oats
rice that's mostly sugar
sugar

And we haven't even scratched the surface on hydrogenated oils! So, now having basically consumed a candy bar, I get to the notification that this sweet treat might tear me UP! Awesome. This just cannot be good for me. I think this is what broccoli is supposed to do. Even chocolatey broccoli.

There are a lot of promises here that these allow one to "treat yourself to better nutrition," but I sort of feel like the "TM" logo after that phrase should instead be an asterisk warning "actual nutrition most probably not that much better..."

I do get:
7 grams of whole grains
zinc
vitamin E
antioxidants
a buttload of fiber
and a rich chocolatey layer (TM) [note: real chocolate not promised]

This angst at a product that sells nutrition when it's actually a granola bar is most probably sourced by my having given up some desserty treats for Lent, and supplementing their absence with all manner of "nutritional" bar items. These FiberPlus Antioxidants are an egregious offense to the integrity of my efforts. I mean, quite frankly, these are a not-too-shabby approximation of the flavors found in Girl Scout Samoas (now Caramel Delites) cookies. So it's really like I'm feeling gastrointestinal distress in my SOULLLLLLLLLL. Well, more so in my...ahem...moral fiber.

Thank God I'm supplementing!



1 comment:

  1. samoas were always called caramel delites for me growing up! guess we were ahead of our time.

    ReplyDelete