Straight from the Scullery

a blog about life, love, and the pursuit of food and happiness...

Monday, January 21, 2013

Confusion Surrounding the Upcoming Season

I am relieved to let you know that the "healthy eating habit" you have been so virtuously adhering to since January 1, 2013 is rapidly drawing to a close. The seemingly long hiatus between unhealthy eating seasons is, mercifully, almost over.

We had our warm up junk food fix with Halloween, small break, then the pure gluttony of Thanksgiving. Once Thanksgiving hits, it's pretty much fat, carbs, and sugar throughout the month of December, ending on New Year's Day with a groan and a horrified gasp from atop the bathroom scale. Three weeks have passed now, and I have to admit I've had some pretty amazing salads along with a meal of fantastically prepared fried rice (okay, there was bacon in it).

What season is upon us? You're seriously asking? Tsk tsk. Why, it's Girl Scout Cookie Season, of course. And, provided all of the boxes arrive safely home (they will be traveling dangerously close to a registered Tag Along addict), there will be Trefoils stacked to the ceiling. I am creating a map of hiding spots in the house complete with a decoder as soon as I've finished sharing my confusion with you.


The confusion begins here. My connection to the aforementioned cookies is not a direct one, you see, and my reliable (and very handsome) supplier posed this oh-so-fabulous question the other night while chatting by the fireplace. "Would you like me to order any others?" (Who needs "Fifty Shades of Grey" with this phrase being tossed around so eloquently?)

And so I pulled up a list of current cookies being sold...the names have changed a few times and a couple of particular favorites have either been dropped or added since I earned my Top Seller badges 'back in the day.' At any rate, I have been left with two direct questions for the Girl Scouts of the USA.

What the heck is NutriFusion ™ and why on earth are you inserting it into one of the most deliciously terrible-for-you eating seasons?

There is a new cookie on the list, you see. And it sounds downright (I'll put this as gently as possible) nauseating. "Mango Cremes with NutriFusion ™." Based on the description, it appears that someone tried to take some nutrients out of nuts and make my beloved Girl Scout Cookies try to appear healthy. Good for you. Well, they aren't, nor should they be. They are cookies, for Pete's sake, just let them be cookies.

There is little to no fiber involved. No protein. No vitamins. They're cookies. They are four bucks a box and for that kind of money (21 cookies in a box of Mango Cremes) they better taste as bad for you as they actually are. Because that's what I'm paying for. If I wanted something healthy I'd flip the grocer 75 cents and eat an apple. Cookies really ought to be allowed to just be unhealthy, just by nature. It's who they are. It's what they're good at.

The long soap box version of this post includes a rant about American society's need to make everything healthy so that our obese nation no longer has the choice to eat anything bad for you evereverever again. Then our obesity rates are SURE to go down, right? Unfortunately, the real issue lies within the fact that many Americans have chosen to lead sedentary lives rather than treating themselves with the respect they deserve and taking care of their health rather than taking it for granted.

But I'll leave it at that and just close the soap box up by telling you that I not only enjoy the ability to choose Trefoils for an entire dinner one or two nights a year, I also enjoy trail runs and pilates. It's all a balance, you see.

And so please, Girl Scouts, take the Nutrifusion™ and spread it on a rice cracker. I'm sure it would be a nice snack at your next troop meeting. In the meantime, keep rolling out things like Thin Mints, Tag Alongs, Trefoils and Samoas. Those are the bestsellers, I know. I remember. Ditch the Mango Cremes.

It is your duty, after all, to maintain the joy and happiness in this (and all) upcoming Cookie Eating Seasons.


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