Saturday, October 20, 2007

Leave My Pretzels Alone



Who decides which snack foods should support breast cancer awareness? Is there a committee of junk-food purveyors who get together once a month and decide which snack is going to be this month’s poster child for breast cancer awareness? What’s the criteria for being chosen? Why do I care?

I’ll tell you. I only eat one snack food – Herr’s Whole Grain Pretzel Sticks. They’re made with 12 Grains, Flaxseed and Honey. They’re amazing! Well, they were. That was until Herr’s decided to turn them into the equivalent of an edible pink ribbon. The pretzels used to be about 2” long and had a lovely braided twist to them. They were light and crunchy and, like I said, amazing.

It’s not bad enough that Herr’s turned the bag PINK and adorned it with one of those annoying pink ribbons, they smashed the pretzels flat FLAT FLAT!! And twisted them into the same shape as the ribbon on the front of the bag.


I guess they had to do that to make sure you didn’t forget about the awareness campaign, between the time it took you to look at the bag and shove another handful in your mouth. Now the pretzels taste and feel stale even though they’re not. All of the gluten in the flower is compressed and rock hard. Gone is that light crispy crunch and the wonderful mouth-feel of baked pretzel flaxseed and honey. (Damn it.)

I’m all for breast cancer awareness and applaud any corporation that donates a share of their proceeds to fight cancer. But can’t you just change the bag without screwing with the product? What difference would it have made if they had just left the pretzels alone? If they wanted to make a real statement and educate us, then they should have put ribbon shaped pretzels into the bag with the normal shaped pretzels in proportions similar to the actual occurrence of breast cancer. If one out of 20 women is diagnosed with breast cancer, then one out of 20 pretzels should be in the shape of a ribbon. That would at least have been sufferable. Hopefully, this won’t last long and I’ll get my pretzels back soon.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am cracking up so hard at this: "What difference would it have made if they had just left the pretzels alone?"

Some idiot in the marketing department was all "I know!!!!" and the ribbon shaped pretzel was born. He probably got a raise, too.

Dennis said...

Yeah! You're probably right. I bet he sits in a cubicle too!

Well, I've started my protest campaign. When I stopped for coffee this morning, I bypassed my former favorite snack food and picked up a bag of peanutbutter filled pretzles. I'll probably regret it, but I usually make stupid food choices when I'm under extra stress, and I have a trial that starts Monday - That's always a good excuse to indulge.

Mad Kane said...

Hey, at least the pretzels aren't pink. :)

It seems like everything's pink these days -- even pink guns!

Anonymous said...

Indeed MK. That would have ruined everything. I wouldn't have even bought them.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Charity campaginers and fundraisers are always looking for new gimmicks, just like all marketing people.....

Bentley H said...

Thanks ffor posting this