TALL TALES: NUTRITION COPS AT THE DOOR?

17 Feb TALL TALES: NUTRITION COPS AT THE DOOR?

Run—quick!—and hide the Kellogg’s® Special K® Chocolatey Delight cereal.

It’s not for my stash, never had a bite. We have one teenager left in the house. You know how it is.

Not that I can blame our 15-year-old daughter for any possible visit from the health police, who would, no doubt, leave our kitchen with a modest haul of processed junk. That is, if we get to Fahrenheit 451 levels with societal oversight over the quality of our caloric intake.

Pay no attention to that crack-like ice cream in the freezer—Ultimate Double Fudge Moose Tracks something or other. It needs to be taken out and spanked. It’s insane. And the shelf full of junk calories—crackers, goldfish nibbles, tortilla chips and Pringles. The adults in this house are not guiltless.

But Special K gone the way of chocolate? Remember the dry, boring, bland-as-wood chips cereal you’d eat to feel all self-righteous about your eating habits? That one. Now available in the aforementioned “chocolatey” delight, blueberry, vanilla, oats, cinnamon pecan and coconut cherry chunk cheesecake. Yes, it’s morning again in America.

And then I caught the television commercial for Peanut Butter Cheerios. Sheer brilliance! This is the new frontier.

The earlier mash-up of dessert (chocolate) and breakfast (Special K), when you think about it, is not much of a stretch. Cocoa Puffs? Come on, old news. Dessert long ago invaded the land of breakfast. I give you Sara Lee, Aunt Jemima and Tony the Tiger (cereal so sweet you could feel the cavities forming with each bite).

But Peanut Butter Cheerios, wow. L-u-n-c-h with your breakfast. What a timesaver.

What marketing school breeds these geniuses?

I went to the Cheerios website to see if they had written up a profile of the discoverer of this taste sensation or enshrined him (or her) in the Cereal Hall of Fame. And guess what I found?  Even more options. It’s clear that those Cheerios folks are feeling more than a bit beige over all the attention with Special K’s flavor explosion.

THIS JUST IN: Cheerios now available in “Dulce de Leche,” a caramelized version of the original.

From the Cheerios web site: “Dulce de Leche (pronounced “DOOL say day LAY chay”) is a Spanish term for a thick caramel sauce popular in Latin America that inspired this new Cheerios flavor. And like all Cheerios cereals, Dulce de Leche delivers nutrition you can trust. It’s a deliciously smart choice for everyone at your breakfast table.”

The marketing wizards hired wordsmith masters, too.  Last time I checked, “thick” and “caramel” and “sauce” were not the inspiration-words-of-the-day on The Biggest Loser. Oh, it’s from Latin America! Alrighty then!  Olé! Nutrition you can trust. Tell the nutrition police not to darken our door!

So, the Peanut Butter Cheerios. (Officially, they are Multi Grain Cheerios Peanut Butter®). Surely that’s a start of the breakfast-lunch mash up.

So I am patenting Ham Wheaties®, Nutella Raisin Bran® and Chicken of the Sea® Tuna Shredded Wheat.

Not bad, eh?

Next up will be sausage colas, turkey ice tea and meat loaf lemonade.  What, you didn’t hear?

Jack-in-the Box is now selling bacon milkshakes.

Repeat slowly after me—bacon milkshakes.  And why didn’t you think of that?

This is the equivalent, in my book, of the brainpower of Dr. Stephen Hawking—describing things mere mortals have a hard time wrapping their sappy heads around.

Yes, bacon milkshakes. Expand your palette, sip and savor. Pure nutritious refreshment—773 calories and 75 grams of sugar (small) or 1,081 calories and 108 grams of sugar (large) of milky-bacon deliciousness.

And that Super Bowl commercial, the one where Clint Eastwood says it’s halftime in America—“This country can’t be knocked out with one punch.  We get right back up again and when we do, the world is going to hear the roar of our engines. Yeah, it’s halftime, America…”

And I know exactly what we’re eating. And drinking.