The Big O

What’s on my mind? The word “Original,” cap O. Sometimes, the entire word is capitalized, as though it were doubly true. Listen up! The statement is often false. 

I’m talking prepackaged foods, where this bit of “puffery” seems to be common and accepted. A lie is a lie is a lie. Frequent repetition doesn’t make a lie true.

Like Kraft Dinner, which really should be called “Crafty Dinner.” It takes a lot of chutzpah to label this stuff  “Original.” The package design isn’t original. And nor is the taste.  

There were no microwave ovens when Kraft Dinner really was “original.” Using smaller macaroni than Kraft did years ago means quicker cooking, blah-blah-blah. I don’t care how fast it cooks. It shouldn’t be called “original” unless it really is. Nor are the trendy (but wise) directions to add non-hydrogenated margarine and skim milk “original.”

It’s the flavor that bothers me most. Trust me, I remember how the “original” of 40 years ago tasted, and this ain’t it. There may well have been an earlier “original” of this “original.” If so, I wasn’t around in those horse-and-buggy days.

While I’m shadow-boxing with Kraft (today, called Kraft-Heinz, with sales of something like $26 billion) allow me to touch on the company’s individually wrapped cheese slices. It wasn’t too long ago that consumers who bought this product had a choice of thick or thin slices. 

I must admit, the thicker slices tasted like cardboard. They also didn’t melt well in a grilled cheese sandwich, or on a barbecued burger - which may be why Kraft later produced one thickness, somewhere in the middle between thick and thin. 

If my recollection is correct, Kraft soon made those slices thinner, and over time, thinner still. Himself recently made me a grilled cheese sandwich; he had to use three slices. If things keep going this way, consumers may end up with an  empty package of plastic permeated with the “original” scent of cheese.

And Wagon Wheels! Having read the description on the box that these were “original,” fond memories kicked in. You remember Wagon Wheels - surely you do! Everyone does. Foolishly succumbing to the promise that these were “original,” I bought a package. 

The box also read: “Made Better.” Better than what? The Wagon Wheels I bought 30 years ago were sensational! I don’t mean to whine about the “good old days” - that’s tedious and boring. But trust me, if you’re younger than 40, you don’t know what you’re missing. What you’re consuming today is dreck.

What a disappointment ... The “Made Better”reference must have been to the box - certainly not to its contents - because these Wagon Wheels weren’t even close to the “original.” The  taste has changed for the worse. Half the size of the “original” Wagon Wheels, there isn’t even the familiar blob of red jelly at the centre. Cost-cutting, I suppose.

The marshmallow filling used to be delicious. No longer. The  decadent chocolate coating has been replaced by a “chocolatey coating.” Want to know what’s in today’s Wagon Wheels? Let’s start with that “chocolatey coating”:

Sugar, hydrogenated modified palm kernel oil; oil, cocoa, salt, sorbitan tristearate, soya lecithin, artificial flavor. And the rest of it? Wheat flour, glucose-fructose, sugar, modified palm oil, canola oil, whey powder, corn starch, fancy molasses, salt, gelatine, glycerine, baking soda, natural and artificial flavour, ammonium bicarbonate, potassium sorbate, soya lecithin, mono-calcium phosphate.

As everyone knows, food additives serve a useful purpose,  extending a product’s life, preventing spoilage, and maintaining a food’s texture and color. All of that reduces the manufacturer’s costs and (in theory) saves consumers money.  

The best-before date on the Wagon Wheels I bought extended more than six months into the future. The trade-off? A longer shelf life = more additives = inferior taste. As in over-sweetened “chocolatey” (not chocolate, but “chocolatey”) hockey pucks. 

The Big O is the Big Lie among food manufacturers. The term “original” is now so widespread that I suspect its use produces a known uptick in sales.

While many prepackaged foods are convenient, tasty, and nutritious, I’m sad to say many others are over-priced crappola. Manufacturers boldly dodge truth-in-advertising and get away with it. Perhaps the rationale is that each of us is also an “original” - even though we look nothing like we did when we were five years old. 

© Nicole Parton, 2019