Have You Had Your Protein Today?
It’s easy to pinpoint a few things I’m not thankful for: McGriddles® and Tyson Protein, not that I’m against fast food breakfast sandwiches or chicken strips. It’s just the wording. There’s something weird about naming a product in the plural. I can’t even recall the exact storyline in one of the new McDonald’s commercials, but at the end the clueless guy who can’t seem to get that the girl sitting across from him likes him says, “I guess it means that I’ll have to buy another McGriddles.” Urgh, I know it’s the registered name, but it’s just playing into that horrible habit where people add S’s where they don’t belong, like when someone says Nordstroms or Peter Lugers.
Most Americans are already far enough removed from where our food originates (not that I’m a farm girl, by any means). And more and more I’m hearing people using non-food terms for food. Maybe it started with the Atkins craze when breads, grains and pastas (amongst a host of seemingly innocent items) became an abstract enemy simply lumped together as carbs. Now, protein for all forms of meat (and presumably tofu), is becoming unappetizingly ubiquitous. That new Tyson campaign where middle aged folks apparently start playing basketball and hang gliding after eating poultry products, has a tag line exclaiming, “have you had your protein today?™” Gross. Did you know that Tyson is “the world’s leading protein provider and America’s most trusted protein brand”?
Oh wow, I should’ve guessed that there was something religious to this whole puritanical pleasure-denying, functional approach to food. Just in time for the holidays, Tyson is offering a booklet of mealtime prayers. I do have a certain fascination with prayers, but there’s something offbeat about them being on a mainstream commercial website.
What I am thankful for is an intrepid and tenacious mom who managed to track down a couple of Jones Soda regional packs with the coveted salmon pate flavor. I haven’t seen them here in NYC (though I did get the standard set at Target) and from what I gather, getting them in the Portland, Oregon suburbs was only slightly less tricky. It took trips to Thriftway, Fred Meyer (not Meyers, as even I’m wont to say) and a couple of phone calls to finally find them near her trailer park (yes, I said trailer park) on the Beaverton/Hillsboro border. Score. I’m not cracking them open until my dinner party next Saturday, so I’ll reserve comment until then.
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Don’t drink the Jones!
I only had the Target pack, but holy crap was it bad!