My dear friend (alluded to in my recent GUNK! blog) and I started grappling the other day with my perspectives on poverty.  You see, I'm a bit of a conspiracy nut, in that I truly believe that America's economic engine benefits from cheap labor, and so we have numerous systems designed to keep the poor, poor.  His argument lies in the spirit of self-determinism versus "misery loves company", and while he expressed it well, I'll leave it to him to tell you all about HIS conspiracy theories.  [Ed. Note: My friend has no real conspiracy theories]

But let's get back to mine- America LOVES its poor, and makes sure that they're never in short supply.  There are all sorts of ways that we guarantee the supply (shoddy inner-city education, anyone?  How about limited access to capitol for minorities?  Would you prefer institutionalized racism?), but one of the perhaps accidental yet undeniable guarantees comes from FOOD.

Michael Pollan published another indictment of the food industry in this past week's New York Times, which he started with this strange puzzle: if you're a fat American, you're probably a poor American.  Hold it, WHAT?  The term "Fat Cat" assumes the opposite: the richer you are, the fatter (and, apparently, more feline) you become.  Well, that phrase no longer works, it seems.

And neither does our country's "Farm Bill."  Pollan, in his article, takes to task the current $25 billion "Farm Bill" (which has impact far beyond farms) for encouraging the growth and consumption of corn, wheat, and soy, and basically nothing else.  This pathetically structured, forgotten bit of legislation encourages industrial agriculture, and nothing's easier on the machinery than corn.  Hence, the cheapest thing out there is cookies full of useless high-fructose corn syrup calories.

I highly recommend that you read the Pollan article- there are MANY points in there worth toying with and mulling over.  But my take-away from it is that our government has sanctioned (nay, INSTITUTIONALIZED) the fattening of the poor by insuring that the worst food for you is the only food that most Americans can afford.  In short, we're paying taxes (about $100 per person per year) to keep poor America fat.

Right now it takes about 2 farmers to work every 1000 acres of American farmland, courtesy of industrialized farming.  The impact, on our poor, on foreign markets, on the environment, is tremendous and frightening.  But if we re-organized our agricultural systems so that more people would work less land, well we sure would have a lot more jobs for people, no?  For POOR people....

No, as Pollan points out, there's no easy solution to this problem, but the current situation helps NOBODY....

Except (back to my conspiracy theory) the corporation owning Americans who benefit from a cheap labor market.  This should make us all sick.  Frankly, all that High Fructose Corn Syrup DOES make me sick....

I wrote a poem about this earlier, and here is its encore presentation. That's right, returning to our pages from Mars are your favorite green skinned, people eating Martians, Zergplek and Metzelfark.  Thanks for making the trip back to our pages, guys.  Now please stop chewing on the intern's arm....

It's about time, Zergplek.

Yes, Metzelfark, it's almost harvest season.

Olympus Mons' Southern Face is turning

from amber rust to crimson fire,

and the Valles Marinaris runs full with squabe.

Zergplek, get your plucking gloves on-

It's time to reap the fattened terran crop.

Yes, all the fat little morsels

on yon planet so blue

will taste so deliciously like Cheetohs...

...and sweet, corn-syrup filled Pepsi...

..oh yes, and pepsi, 

at this October's harvest barn dance.

My moorsaphate has knitted me a snazzy bib,

lest I spill saturated transfats

all over my brand new vyxerpus vest.

Fire up the interplanetary drive,

and let's go harvest some fatsos!

Posted by iankusc at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

a conversation overheard between two dogs, one a west-coaster (Greeley), the other an east-coaster (Shenandoah), when they met at a Florida barbeque last week....

Shenandoah:   Hey Greeley!  Hey Greeley!  I remember you!  How you doing?

Greeley:  Hey Doah!  Good, good, how's your butt smell?... 

S: Not as good as yours, kid.  Hey, you smell that?

G:  Are boy-dogs all sons of bitches?  That smells like some grade A organic grass-fed hamburger!

S:  Smells like WHAT?  Whatchoo talking about Greeley?  What's Organic?

G:  You know, like, REAL.  Like, whoever grew that cow didn't stick it with, you know, chemicals and hormones and stuff.

S:  Chemicals?  They put chemicals in cows?  COOL!

G:  No way is that cool.  It's totally gross!

S:  Come on, Greeley- Chemicals are the way of the future!  In a few years, you and I could be super-dogs, thanks to chemicals!

G:  We ARE super-dogs, Shenandoah...

S:  SHHHHHH!  Anyway, I hope one day I get some chemicals stuck in me.

G:  Well what about hormones?  How would you like to be stuffed full of gunk that makes your muscles all swell and bloat?

S:  Would it make me more attractive to other dogs?

G:  NO!  It'd make you a sick disaster of science run amok!

S:  Greeley, I'm a dog.  I LIKE to run amok.  I LIVE to run amok...

G:  Hormones would turn you into a FREAK!

S:  They seem to have turned that cow into delicious meat!

G:  I said that the meat smells ORGANIC, not pumped full of hormones.

S:  How can you tell?

G:  Well back in California, everybody's cooking with that organic, grass-fed meat.

S:  SO?

G:  You can really tell the difference.

S:  SO?

G:  So it's better for you and tastier.

S:  So you'd turn down a steak that smelled like it had hormones?  Are you telling me that you, a DOG, would spurn a big hunk of hamburger just because it came from a hormone injected cow?

G:  Well, I'm a dog, so I probably couldn't help myself....

S:  Darn tootin!

G:  But I'd prefer a grass fed cow.  It's better?

S:  How?

G:  I don't know.  It just tastes better.

S:  I eat what I can get.  That's how we New York dogs so it- we eat what we can get, and we LOVE it!

G:  Well you New York dogs gotta wake up and smell the hormones.

S:  And you California dogs gotta wake up and smell any meat that you can smell, cause it's ALL good!

G:  True.  But....

S:  But?

G:  No, butt- that dog's butt.  Let's go sniff it.

S:  NOW you're talking! 

Posted by iankusc at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Welcome home to New York- snow, sleet, chills, ice.... yet, it's still better than San Francisco's chill.  Here, at least, they shut the frickin' doors!

Can I say "frickin'" on the internet?  It'll have to read up on that.

Of all the many things that I miss from San Francisco, NUMERO UNO on the list is the Berkeley Bowl, with it's long aisles full of vegetables (organic or otherwise), or its butcher offering grassfed, meat from grass-fed cows who spent their afternoons dancing in the fields and only passed away when they were good and ready, nay, EAGER to feed the wealthy hippie carnivores of Berkeley. 

I come back to New York and trundle through my old grocery store (and I use the term VERY loosely), and I see the shoddly veggies haphazardly arrayed without any descriptors, demonstrating all the variety of a "Police Academy" sequel and the pricing of Tiffany's.  The "meat" aisle comes courtesy of Mr. Purdue (even the beef!), and I bristle at the cereal prices, none below $5.00 per box!

But I need to eat, right?  So I grab some mediocre veggies, some lousy boxed pasta, and some canned tomatoes, head home, and start cooking up.  Ask anyone that's eaten my spaghetti sauce and the worst you'll hear is "yeah, it's good."  The best will make you beg me to cook for you.  BEG!  So the veggies are chopped, the garlic diced, the oil hot, the tomatoes....

...packed with High Fructose Corn Syrup?!?!??!

Okay, that's comPLETELY insane.  When I buy canned tomatoes, I expect the ingredients to be:

tomatoes

I'm willing to put up with additions like "salt", or "water", or, if it's a particularly frisky company "love".  But CORN SYRUP?  That's a sure sign that whichever company made said canned tomatoes was significantly more concerned with profit than product.  And while I'm loathe to mention the name of the company, I will say that it's name rhymes with "Hell Jaunty".  Figure it out.

And never, EVER, buy their CRAP!  I'm so enraged that I fell for such a scam.  Tomato sauce companies like Ragu and Prego add Corn Syrup (in their organic lines, ORGANIC corn syrup.... welcome to the end of Western Civilization as we know it) in order to cut quarterly costs- if last Summer not enough soccer moms cashed in their Prego coupons, make them pay for it in useless calories courtesy of the cheapest crap around, government subsidized CORN SYRUP!

Sure, it's nice to see my friends again (though Ellen, I miss you three times over, my dear), and it's nice to be able to enjoy the fruits of the city once more (figurative, not literal).  But the food here?

Fuggeddabowdit!

TOMATO POETRY!!!! 

Dear tomato,

you're just not good enough at being a tomato 

though red you be, and sweet you taste,

riddled through and through with flavor,

destined for salad, sauce, or paste.

You're just not that Great-O

Tomat-O

The thing is, my plump, red friend,

that you cost three cents more per pound,

than our stock can bare this fiscal quarter's end.

Our accountants have come up with pricing that's sound.

You're just not that Hot-O

Tomat-O

Your friend from the field next door,

the one with pointy green stalks and yellow ears,

Will be taking your place in store.

No one'll know- we've been conditioning them for years.

One day they'll all Hate-O

Tomat-O 

Posted by iankusc at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recent source of inspiration: Michael Pollan's (he of The Omnivore's Dilemma) article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine about Nutrition trends.  He comes up with the perfect diet for everybody:

Eat food.  Not too much.  Mostly plants.

Yes, that's it.  It reminds me terrifically of a wonderful article in The Onion from way back when...

His plan reads: Avoid saturated fats and simple carbohydrates, eat mostly fresh vegetables and and exercise.  As the son of a physicist, I've always been attracted to the "Theory of Everything", which is to say, a real theory is as simple as possible.  Pollan's new plan is pretty friggin simple, no?

So this Summer's Fancy Food show was a gas- all that cheese, all that wine, all those hot sauces.  This Winter's show was a lot of the same, with some big-boys showing up to strut their stuff (Ghirardelli OWNED that place).  Surprisingly, though, it didn't really distinguish itself from the Summer's entry- lots of sauces, lots of crispy snacks, lots of refined foods trying to follow trends into the sunset.

I guess I expected that since we were in sunny California (whch hasn't seen the sun all week) there'd be lots of, you know, "Healthy" stuff.  But WOAH was I wrong.  Aside from some regional farms, orchards,  and fruit growers (YAY Bella Viva!!!), it was all just the same old processed crap, mixed in with lots of innovators from the plain states and the East.  Go figure.

This of course links to Pollan's article, Unhappy Meals, because he basically asserts that processed food is getting us further and further away from what we should be calling food.  An early assertion in the article is that supermarkets have less and less "food," yet more and more "food-like substance".  He takes on the notion of "nutritionism" (eating by nutrients rather than by food) as a grave trend in American diets.  But isn't all that "nutritional" stuff supposed to be GOOD for you?

My Father-in-law once entertainingly lambasted me for just this sort of thinking.  He caught me taking a Vitamin C pill with something like 25,000 mg of C (or something silly like that).  I believe he put it something like, "boy, your pee sure will be loaded with citric acid!" (excess, unused vitamin C gets flushed through the kidneys).  I defended my action as being, you know, "nutritional."  But rarely, if ever, had I bothered to really define "nutritional".

Pollan makes a great case for ditching such notions, and focusing on FOOD.  You know, CARROTS.  APPLES.  RICE.  All that good stuff.  Sure, we can presume to get all the "nutrition" in a carrot from some kind of a pill.  But what's in a CARROT that they can't get in a pill?  Something, surely, that will be missed.

Pollan supports a "5 ingredient rule":  Eat things with that many ingredients, because then it's still food.  While I must respectfully disagree (Peeled Snacks have 6 ingredients), I think I'll take his comments as an unintended, accidental thumbs up for our tasty treats.  I'll also take them as a "tisk-tisk" for most of the over-processed muck I saw at the Winter Fancy Food Show.

This being California, I can, surely, get plenty of REAL "food."  All I have to do is go to my local supermarket, the Berkeley Bowl, which is (simply put)...

THE GREATEST SUPERMARKET IN THE WORLD!!!!!....

But that's for the NEXT Peeled Skinny.

But that's for the Peeled Skinny that comes NEXT.

Happy Groundhog Day,

EN "Peeled Skinny" K 

An Omivore's Dietary Haikus

Eat Food.   Eat REAL food.

Don't eat too much food, fatso!

Mostly plants, tubbsy! 

I ate food today.

Not too much, though.  Just enough.

Mostly plants?  As IF!!!

Ask me what "Food" is.

All that fits within my mouth.

You included, chump.... 

Posted by iankusc at 04:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

First and foremost, Happy New Year.  I'm please to announce that the Peeled Skinny is now publishing in its 2nd year, and unlike many other bloggers, I don't need to make the New Years Resolution to Blog more- I've got 42 entries over 6 months.  That's over 1 per week, about which I feel, well, pretty gosh-darn good.

What I feel not-so-good about is my liver, which after a month of wassailing is definitely due some tee-to-tattling.  Starting from the week after Thanksgiving, we averaged 5 holiday parties per week, with several doubled-up days.  Back in November I couldn't finish a beer without getting woozy.  Now, thanks to a month of Rocky-worthy "spirited" training, I'm ready for my OWN bottle of tequila, thanks.

What I'm on the fence about (feeling strangely curious, yet absolutely anxious about) is the enormous bag of home-made cookies that my wonderful co-worker Cassie brought into the office this morning.  Cassie, you should know, adds fairy dust to her cookies, making them magically delicious, so I know that every one of those gooey morsels (and there's QUITE a variety) holds heaven inside.

In a normal week-in-the-life, I'd probably average one cookie per day of Cassie's creations, slowly carving the supply down bit by bit, with occasional escapes courtesy of hungry visiters.  But this past month, with all its buffet tables and hors d'oerves, has greatly expanded my appetite (not to mention my waist-line).  I live in fear, now, of insatiation- can I, you know, reign myself back in?

In general, the Peeled Snacks diet plan is a simple one- eat real food that counts, and don't worry about when you eat crap, so long as you eat very little of it.  Sure enough 11 out of 12 months, it works like a charm, and I'm proud to boast little in the way of a belly.  But here it is, barely past noon, and all that I can think of is a bag of admittedly heavenly tasting cookies waiting 20 feet away.

An article in last month's O, the Oprah Magazine went into the notion of compulsive behavior and its bio-chemical roots- habits you have that you enjoy (but that are, you know, "naughty") give you a little endorphine boost, thus becoming actually actually chemically addictive in a way.  Defeating such habits takes LOTS of work, especially for adults.  That little up-lifting article swims through my
head head heavily as I try, Try, TRY not to think about Cassie's cookies.

Sigh.  The habits of December lead to the resolutions of January.  And just as I'm not going to resolve to blog more, I'm also not going to resolve to not eat cookies.  I'm just going back to my pre-December cookie consumption index rating.

And that sucks, because MAN can Cassie bake!

Happy New Year,

EN, the Peeled Skinny, not quite as skinny as he once was

apeel@peeledsnacks.com

A Cookie in the Life

I read the news today, Oh boy

About some cookies that your Cassie baked

And though the cookies looked bad-ass,

Well I just had to pass

Because of my tremendous mass.

She baked them from a recipe

She didn't use a Betty Crocker box

All my co-workers turned and stared.

We'd had her sweets before

Nobody was really sure if she would ever bake some more.....

 

I wrote a blog today oh boy.

The Oprah magazine discussed Pavlov.

A crowd of people hate's his hounds

But I just had to try

His dogs make me cry.....

 

Woke up, got washed and dressed. 

2007, now I'm depressed.

Found my breakfast quick and drank a cup,

and looking up, I had another cup. <gulp gulp gulp gulp>

Brushed my teeth and read my mail.

Put my car on line for sale.

Found my way to work, said "G'morning" to the team.

Cassie brought in sweets, and I went into a dream ...

Ah...Ah...Ah..Ah........

 

I read the news today, Oh boy.

Four thousand resolutions broke by noon.

The resolutions sure were small.

And yet they broke them all.

Now you know how many people take 12 hours to have a fall....

I love to eat..... cooooo...kieeeeeeesssss.....

(I Burried Cassie) 

Posted by iankusc at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm beginning to wonder just what it means to be "natural".  When a baby is born into the world, is the baby "natural"?  If so, when does the baby become "UN-natural"?  When he/she eats his/her first Pringle?  After finishing its first tin of Pringles?  What if the mother ate Pringles every day while carrying the baby?  Was the baby then ever natural to begin with?  Where does the line between natural and unnatural lie?

This weekend that question struck me like a punch in the gut as I got suckered in to buying something "natural"... and suffered because of it.  Allow me to give a absolutely emphatic thumbs DOWN to Blue Sky Natural Soda's "Jamaican Ginger Ale".  I believe that this is my first online condemnation, and I suspect that once word gets out, the thugs from Blue Sky will be knocking at my door and inviting me to "swim with the fishes".  But this news I just can't keep in...

I have of late developed an appreciation for exotic soft drinks.  I like how the bubbles sooth my tummy (yes, I call it my "tummy"), and I like strong flavors.  I appreciate the less sweet varieties (though never diet), and have developed a keen interest in ginger beers, malt beers, and ginsing sodas.  I've sampled many a variety, and stumbled as often as I've soared.  This weekend, though, I found the ass-end of sodas.

In a local bodega I found a stack of "natural sodas" courtesy of Blue Sky, and decided to give it a try.  At $3.00 a six pack, it seemed reasonably priced (there's certainly worse), and I'm always up for something new.  I took it home, chilled it, cracked open a can, and...

Suffered.

So bad in so many ways, I can't even begin to describe the let down.  The taste, while not at all akin to any ginger beverage I've ever tasted, IS akin to certain motor oils that I've smelled, and the smell of certain dead pidgeons I've stepped over on the sidewalk.  It was so un-drinkable that it made me wonder if its creators a: bothered to taste is before selling it, and b: if they have taste buds at all.

But I bought it, and I bought it because of its MARKETING; words like "natural" and "Jamaican" lured me in, as did its "Save Pets" icon and attractive, mountainy design.  Frankly, I'm the target market for this supposed thirst quencher (20-45, scenester, disposable income, influencer), so they hit their target.  But MAN, what lousy ordinance!

There's a slew of fancy sodas of late- the big boys roll out their tweeks (cherry vanilla coca-pepsi, kumquat-power-slice, etc), and little guys try to muscle in (Jones, Jolt, Tab's making a comeback...).  There are occasional attempts to redefine the category (dry soda anyone?), and occasionally products that could totally change the world for the better (like Fizzy Lizzy, and their superlative Grapefruit soda!)and some of us fall for this or that (but never, NEVER, for Blak- I like my coffee coffeeish).

But not every one of those can make it, though not all that fail are lousy (Good-O's West Indian Ginger Beer?  AWESOME!!!), and not all those that succeed taste of ambrosia (why, oh why, is there such a thing as Grape Soda?).  If, however, you're trying to pass a beverage off as natural, such an adjective just ISN'T ENOUGH!  Natural isn't satisfying on it's own... or IS it?

There's the question for Peeled Snacks- should we make a "natural product" (i.e. use ingredients without sulfites) simply because there's a market, even though it might taste bad or look bad or, you know, just BE bad?  Is "natural" and end, or a justifiable means?  Usually around here, we find dub it a GOAL, but that's not the same as saying it's a product.  The destination requires the journey, and so far, Peeled Snacks' journey has, technically, been an unnatural one.

But believe me, we taste a HECK of a lot better than Blue Sky Jamaican Ginger Ale...

An ode to the Blue Sky thugs knocking on my door:

No you can't come in,

you can't, I won't let you, you'll pound on my chin.

No, I won't open the door,

I won't, I can't, because you'll pound me to the floor.

Sorry, the door stays locked.

I've bolted and latched it, and with the couch in front it's blocked

No chance, you can't have the key.

I know that you'll use it, come in here, and then beat me.

Don't try the fire escape.

I've pterydactyls guarding it, and coated it with soda (GRAPE!)

There's no asking my Landlord.

I already paid my bill this month, so my cache with him has soared.

And don't bother with the windows.

I've set laser beams and booby traps...

...I really wouldn't mess with those. 

But should you try to come in here,

worst of all, for you I've got in hand,

a case of Blue Sky Jamaican Ginger Ale,

the nastiest of nasties in all the land... 

So there! 

Hello? 

Blue Sky Gangster men?

Where did you GO?!?!

Another great Peeled Snacks HIT...

Happy drinking... 

Posted by iankusc at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I was preparing one of our snazzy gift boxes for a friend visiting from out of town.  I won't bother plugging the gift boxes beyond saying that they're REALLY sexy.  Anyway, they're made out of firm paper (almost but not quite cardboard) that requires a simple bit of folding to turn it into a box.  You poke here, fold there, snap this, link that, and voila, a box, and a nice looking box at that.

It's the simplest thing, really- just carefully cut paper of a certain density.  It's the sort of thing that could have been made thousands of years ago.  The ancient Egyptians, for instance, could have made these boxes out of papyrus, or the romans could have made it out of flax paper.  You could call it a "technology", but it's really just a very simple way of folding paper.

And yet, cutting and folding boxes like this didn't occur till the 19th century.  17th century Japanese folded paper to make origami, but that's not quite the same thing as cutting this rigid paper to make a box.  It's so basic and simple, and achievable by the means of the most ancient of civilizations.  Yet we only got cardboard boxes recently.

There must be thousands of other examples of such "technologies" that could have been made by the ancient Romans or the Toltecs, but didn't surface till recently.  Somehow, innovation comes in starts and fits, and not just when it CAN come, but instead when it DOES come. 

I think about this strange notion right now as I ponder what Peeled Snacks is, and what it adds to the snacking world.  Peeled Snacks have a very simple "technology" behind them that makes them what they are- our 2 bag system keeps the fruit juicy and those nuts crunchy, and allows us to do it all without adding sugar.  Technically speaking, that could have been done 400 years ago in glass or masonry jars, but as far as I know, we're the first to do it.

There's no real innovation there, just smart application.  The result is a snack that's MUCH healthier than most of the crap out there (we just got a big thumbs-up from the American Diabetes Association), and its impact COULD be to greatly improve snacking habits, or coax other players in the snack industry to create healthier products.

But just like folded paper COULD have been made by the Pharoahs but wasn't, Peeled Snacks might not succeed in fighting off the obesity epidemic (or, as we call it around here, the "Pringle Problem").  We're trying to apply simple systems to create better options.  Perhaps if George Crum (the inventor of the potato chip) had spent a little more time back in 1853 considering health concerns, we wouldn't be in this dietary mess.  But we are.  And not enough companies are doing anything about it.  Sigh...

An unfortunate admission- due to a frantic Thanksgiving, I've still yet to see Fast Food Nation.  This weekend, I PROMISE... IF it holds out.  It's done poorly.  Double sigh... 

An Ode to George Crum...

I've flecks 'bout my bib,

greased heavy with mar'grin or lard.

I've salt upon my lips,

scalding me, my gums are  charred.

I've  eaten each chip

that you've layed out before me

and utzered a sigh 

because I'm so stuffed I can't see.

My fingers are peppered

with your kitechen's oil-drenched salt,

and I'm now quite certain

that my innerds have ground to a halt.

Fooled me you did,

to eat your savory crisps,

And from me they'll not soon be parted,

as they've all grafted onto my hips!!!

EN, the Peeled Skinny

Posted by iankusc at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

How do you like your snacks?  Do you like them salty, or sweet?  Do you like them healthy, or sinful?  Do you snack for flavor, or to fill the belly?  What's your favorite snack, and what's your least favorite? Everyone'll have a different answer, as everybody (and every BODY) has his/her/its own tastes and needs.  But lately, this crazy health-food trend has taken on conventional ideas about snacks and snacking, and those of us trying to help the hungry masses survive from 4pm till the end of work are scrambling to keep up.

Thus I submit to you a noble attempt by our friends at Frito Lay to make a buck off this crazy health stuff.  Please be warned that the following article contains vulgar language...

Frito-Lay Angrily Introduces Line Of Healthy Snacks

Snacking trends are tough to keep up with, so hats off to Frito-Lay for getting on the bland/healthy bandwagon.  For the record, though, this article raises a doozy of a conundrum faced by all of us snack manufacturers- how do you deal with social or cultural trends that contradict basic biology? We are (all of us that might read this blog, anyway) basically overgrown monkeys (or divine creations, if you prefer), and we all somehow are programmed at a very deep level to savor salt, crave fat, and slurp up sugar whenever possible.  And NONE of those cravings are met by particle-board-like parsnip crisps.

In a strange way, I feel for the beleaguered and bitter Frito-Lay CEO Carey as he rails against health nuts and their unwanted impact upon his products.  We struggle right now against the Whole Foods mandate that none of the food they sell (except their red wine) contain sulfites.  Please don't get me started on sulfites.  I'll simply say that 90% of what I hear about sulfites is just wrong, and unless you have asthma, you have nothing to fear from the SMIDGE of sulfites in our products.

And yet, here we are, preparing to roll out a sulfite-free product come January or February, solely to cater to unfounded food trends.  Sigh.

Here at Peeled Snacks World Headquarters we regularly scrutinize our competition (as ought every good corporation).  We comb through snack racks and bins at the check-out counters, looking for trends, new products, and updates to classic snacks (like last January's  "Doritos Bag" update.  Frankly, we're all still in shock).  Everyone here had their own sort of "snack specialty"- there's the trail mix chick, the everything-with-seeds lady, the candy girl; I count as the chips and crisps dude.  Lucky me.

Any irony you might find in a bunch of healthy-snack peddlers eating blatantly awful snacks, please keep to yourself.  It's important to know what the kids are noshing on these days, and insights gained from seeing the bright colors behind the glass at a vending machine simply DO NOT COMPARE to actually tasting the lurid staleness within.  Most of the snacks we buy to try go uneaten, either because we have other snacks to try, or because they're just gross.

One final note- congrats to the Democratic Party, who (thanks to the endless campaigning and leadership of George W. Bush) have just taken over 1/3 of our government.  I recommend that, whatever happens in the next two years, you all DON'T SCREW IT UP!!!!

An Ode to Frito-Lay

I'm pretty sure that they put that salty powder on there

on purpose.

They coat their chips and curls with grains of flavor

and salt,

and after every cheetoh moves from oranged fingers

to mouth,

I must wash my cheetoh grabbing digits clean with my lips

and tongue.

Should perhaps I worry about my saliva-coated fingers

and thumb,

when sharing my Doritos, Cheetohs, or lime-drenched Tostitos,

so addictive?

Or does that orange and yellow dust somehow cauderize

all hands?

I think I'd rather not know, and just finish

my bag. 

Posted by iankusc at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I LOVE Halloween.  If it's not my favorite holiday, that's only because I'm Irish, and Joyce's Bloomsday is June 16th.  I like the idea that for one gerat day of the year, everyone in America and elsewhere (minus overly-religious wet blanket types) get to try to SCARE one another, or at least out-glam one another.  Tonight, kids will crawl all over their cities and towns searching for sweets and frights, though most will hope to find the former and avoid the latter.

Weeners.  Frights are what make Halloween special, what make it distinct from the other "candy" holidays (Valentines Day and Easter which, I'm told, is not ONLY about candy).  Halloween, coming as it does right after Daylights Savings Time wraps up for the season, marks a sort of cultural "Return to Nighttime," a time when peoples interest turn away from fun, frolicky daytime activities towards nocturnal nonsense and, yes, naughtiness.

Halloween has naturally been attacked as a celebration of sin, a savoring of carnality, an orgy of lechery, and so on.  To all those who make such accusations, I retort, succinctly, YOU ARE CORRECT!  Halloween is a night of the year when you can take a moment and be nasty, be naughty, get dirty, get dangerous, and get away with it.  It's not a time to really truly act bad and break the laws and stuff.  No, that's the day after and only in Detroit.  Halloweens just a time to revel in the fact that naughtiness abounds, it's a human trait, and mostly we act with dignity and sense.

Halloween has likewise been attacked as the "Devil's Holiday," or a time to worship Satan, whoever that is.  Who that is, according to the Book of Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Book of Isaiah, is a creation of the almighty, and party of the whole program.  The word Satan comes from the simple butchering of the Hebrew word for adversary.  And yet many a zealot will blame Satan for this or that or whatever.  Certainly they'll blame Satan or the Devil for Halloween.  POPPYCOCK!  Don't blame anybody for Halloween that isn't associated with candy industry.

I'll not waste a key-stroke lambasting candy.  Say what you will about your dentist bills or the diabetes epidemic, but there's absolutely no arguing with a snickers bar.   It's been a long time since I watched Saturday Morning Cartoons, but I sure hope that Reeses Peanut Butter Cups still has those commercials where a somehow a Republican eating from a jar of Peanut Butter and a Democrat eating a chocolate bar get into a fist fight and somehow invent those sublime little discs.

Halloween manifests the recognition of sin principally through candy, giving kids a chance to gobble up something that most of the year most of them are denied.  Obviously, as a representative of a healthy snack company, I'm supposed to talk about how candy's terrible for kids, and how everybody should be giving away Peeled Snacks instead.  I certainly agree with both of those statements, the first because there's no denying it, the second because I'm a self-serving goof.

But you want to know the truth?  Take candy out of Halloween and you MISS THE POINT!  Take sin and gore away from October 31st, and all you've got is the responsibility to dress up.  A friend of mine who shall remain nameless and awesome says that Halloween is an excuse for girls to dress super-sexy.  They can dress up like any professional, be it a nurse or a teacher or a firefighter or a superhero or whatever, so long as its supersexy.  Its an excuse to, for one night, let it ALL hang out, and then go back to being good little girls and boys.

 Lets all get back to being good little girls and boys TOMORROW.  Tonight, LET IT ALL HANG OUT!!

A Halloween ode to Shel Silverstein... 

There's poison in the apples, dear

and spider in the gin.

Your costume's lined with razor blades

to help you get more thin.

I wrapped a cobra round your hat

and hypnotized your granny.

So when the cobra bites your head,

your granny will kick your fanny!

There's booby traps all round the lieu

and trap-doors in your closet.

I hooked a blood bag up to the sink

so don't turn on the faucet!

Werewolves came to my house last night,

I gave them your address.

They asked if you were tasty meat,

I told them all, "oh YES!"

A ghost I met had lost his house,

when witches burned it down.

I told them all just where you live,

the address and the town.

Vampire coffins in your garage

will soon be opened up.

They quietly sneak in your room

and on your blood they'll sup!

You might ask why I tell you this.

I just thought that you should know.

Oh, for one other reason-

You're STANDING ON MY TOE!!! 

Posted by iankusc at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Have you by chance heard the strange news that the New York Health Department is considering imposing a ban on trans fats?  Read about it HERE, then continue reading...  Don't worry, I'll wait for you.  You done yet?  No, no, take your time, I'm not going anywhere.  Through yet?  Okay then...

There's a lot of press about this right now, so if CNN's not your thing, google NYC trans fats and see what comes up.   If you don't google, then I can't help you.

So the article barely covers trans fats, what they are, and what they do.  Thanks to my girl Nina Planck, I got the skinny on all that, and it ain't pretty.  It's a lurid tale of politics, commerce, and bad press, and it cuts to the core of crazy American industrialized agriculture.  Consider for a moment the roughly 10,000 years of mostly-recorded human history... then consider that trans fats have been part of the human diet for about 1% of that time.

No Mesopotamian ever ate a trans fat, nor did any Ancient Roman.  Trans fats arrived on the global dinner table somewhere in the 19th century, when chemists (not, mind you, chefs) found that animal fat could be solidified by simply bombarding it with hydrogen atoms (hydrogenating).  Thanks to the sponsorship of Napolean III, someone in the 1870s figured out that the same process works on vegetable fats (which until then had only been liquid), and thus, courtesy of the FRENCH, margarine was born.

The history and politics behind this fat is fascinating without even bothering to ponder NYC's recent efforts to sully its reputation.  As early as 1873, the US government heavily regulated margarine's sale, basically just to protect the US dairy farmers from some upstart French margarine onslought.  By the 1880s, an expensive tax was put on every tub of margarine.  And all this was instituted long before there was any evidence that trans fats cause heart disease.

When in the early 20th century the US department of agriculture started promoting margarine, it certainly wasn't for health reasons- it was to promote farms in the face of the slowly growing industrialized agriculture sector.  This of course kicked into high gear around WWII, but the dairy industry in the US and abroad had some interesting ways to fight the fake fat front- they made sure that margarine stayed ugly!

Sounds weird, I know, but when vegetable oils are hydrogenated, they turn a pale white color typically associated with the skintones of certain zombies.  It's unflattering, and clearly chemical.  To assuage the flinching eyes of doubting consumers, margarine manufacturers started adding yellow dyes to make their goop look more like butter.  But the dairy cabals all over the world fought to make such dyes illegal.  They only became legal in Australia in 1980.  In Quebec, they're STILL illegal, and accordingly, the Quebecoise eat a lot of butter.

Round about the 1980s, as industrialized agriculture in the US insured that, as an employer, agriculture accounted for less than 1% of the workforce (down from 50% in 1861) , the margarine boosters out there tried to ridea health kick and position of margarine as a HEALTHIER alternative to butter.  I recall floods of commercials from back in those days as "I can't believe it's not butter" tried to demonize what it wasn't, and cholesteral was zoomed in as the future end of civilization lest something were done about it.

Flash forward to today, when the tables have been turned, and now margarine is being given treatment as cruel as cigarettes garnered in the late 90s.  Health and food trends flow a buck, and us poor consumers find it ever more difficult to know what to eat, much less who to trust.  But this legislation of diets seems rather extreme, whatever the health implications of eating margarine.  More on this next week, because there's so much to cover...

Margarine, butter...

My biscuit needs moistening.

Better go with jam.

Hydrogenate me.

Bombard me with your atoms.

Soon, I'll nuke your heart.

Time was, health made sense.

Once men ate meat, and loved it.

Now, each bite is fear.

EN "Peel'en" K 

Posted by iankusc at 08:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So yesterday Peeled Snacks' new chic, sexy t-shirt made its debut at New York's sensational, somewhat slightly ridiculous Fashion Week, where all the glitterati and fashionistas were on display to applaud our simple yet essential new statement, marvel at the beauty of our runway model (thank you Laura), and then go back to looking for Lindsey Lohan.  We had a small crew on hand to record some of the goings on, and hopefully we'll post some footage from the event in the next couple of days.

Unfortunately, the crew wasn't recording the actual runway debut of the shirt.  If anyone, perhaps, recorded in hi-def digital in the main auditorium yesterday from 1:30 to 1:50, I'd pay good money for your footage.  Or, well, I'd send you a lot of free t-shirts.  Would you prefer to be paid in snacks, perhaps?

There's been a great deal of buildup to the release of these tees.  Starting back in June, we had a designer put together some baseball tees to show off at a food expo (see the Peel Me blog entry from July).  At that point we elected to use the catchy, sexy slogan Peel Me.  That of course made quite am impression, sometimes though a bit too much of one.  Peel Me certainly garnered attention, though too often it led to off comments by VERY excited conventioneers.

One very unexpected yet pleasant reaction to those shirts heard from many was "where can I get one?"  I loved hearing that- it meant that I could finally start transitioning from my dream job as a snack magnate to my other dream job as a fashion maven.  But as we'd only printed 10 Peel Me shirts, we didn't have any way to spread the love.

Over the next month or so, our most worthy intern Rachel (or, as we like to call her, Rachelcalafrajalistic) put together a plan to get more T-shirts out there, and with the help of our great base of customers, we came up, via a submission competition, a new t-shirt slogan to replace the not-ready-for-primetime Peel Me.  Courtesy of Stephen Lahey, a customer from upstate New York, we chose a-peeling.  And the ball started to roll...

So when these goodies arrived last week, we weren't sure just how to debut them.  We considered donating a bunch of them to the New York Yankees, but it turned out that they already had baseball shirts of their own, go figure.  We thought about stapling them to the hull of Space Shuttle Atlantis, but cooler minds prevailed.  For a while we were in negotiations with the George Dubya Bush posse, and there was a moment there when it looked like he'd wear one for his fear mongering, er, 9/11 memorial speech last night, but as he insisted upon wearing the shirt and nothing else, we had to back out.

When someone in the room proposed debuting the shirt at New York's ultra-cool Fashion Week, the seven other people in the room simultaneously all slapped ourselves in the forehead, and immediately afterwards all simultaneously groaned "DOH!"  Considering that designers spend months planning the show, and spends thousands of dollars (if not millions) getting everything worked out, with 2 days to go and a budget consisting of pocket change, we put our plan in motion...

In a few days you'll see the amazing results.  I have about a zillion people to thank, but as I bribed most of them, I'll just give my sincerest thanks out to the LOVELY and talented Laura Valpey and my SUPER-cool, ultra-cunning cousin Andrew Maloney.  Without their help, we'd never have been able to drug the security guards and take those incriminating photos of the judges...

Poem for the day:

No, seriously Mr. security guard sir,

Ms. Lopez-Anthony NEEDS her snacks.

She called me personally,

not even using ONE of her 18 surly assistants,

because she had grown peckish,

and knew that if she went through her usual channels,

she'd have to ruin someone's life.

PLEASE, Mr. security guard, sir,

this is a matter of national security,

as one of our national treasures,

and her heavily insured posterior,

require nourishment that only I can provide.

I'd say it's a matter of life or death,

but considering that several members of Ms. Lopez's staff

have lost their heads over a similar, previous incident,

I have to assume that by now

it's a matter of life AND death.

I'm just here to prevent

any more horror from happening.

No?

Would you let me in if I gave you a dried apricot?

Here, try one.  Tasty, huh?  Have it with chocolate... 

Oh.  Thanks so much, Mr. Security Guard, sir.

(SCORE!)

Peace and happiness, and don't believe a word that Dubya says...

EN "Peel-en" K 

Posted by iankusc at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

People have since the very conception of Peeled Snacks asked, "so why aren't they Organic"?  Notice how I wrote the "O" word with a capitol "O"?  These days, "Organic" food is treated with the utmost respect, so it feels only natural to appoint it, you know, a wider letter.  Wiser people than I have written much larger volumes than I'll ever attempt about the virtues of "Organic" food, and I won't question their insights in my little entry.

I will, however, put forth a theory that people in the Organic world are nicer than, say, your average Joe (who is nice enough to begin with, if perhaps occasionally a little crusty around the edges).  I say this because I have just moments ago received in the mail a tin of my favorite, my Favorite, my FAVORITE organic tea from my favorite organic tea company, Ineeka (shameless plug, check out www.ineeka.com for BANG up tea, and then write me and thank me).

They sent me this tin of tea because of some minor favor that I did for them, and in fact they were the ones who told me that Organic food producers are nicer.  They therefore not only pepper my thoughts with new ideas, but also back up those ideas with action, creating in me a conviction, thus forcing me to actions of my own, like telling you all about them.

But in this little shameless plug I must confess I find a terrible fault, at least in terms of Peeled Snacks' own Organic aspirations.  Some of you may know this already, and most the rest hopefully already assume, but we have our eyes on creating an Organic (there goes the O again) line of Peeled Snacks, and have been pursing this goal in many ways, several of them involving sampling a lot, a Lot, a LOT of Organic fruit (see the blog entry A Delicate Sound of Puget for more details).

Ah, and here we have the challenge before us- we aspire to make a nicer product with the help of nicer people, and we have found many great orchards and farms that are eager to get on board... yet this darn Organic food costs twice, Twice, TWICE as much!  That HURTS!

It doesn't just hurt- it nearly negates the whole idea.  Peeled Snacks is obviously a new, up and coming company, and we're just getting our bearings in several aspects of our business.  Our margins are thinner than we'd like, though understandably so given that we're building our brand and our client base and our, uh, blog.  The idea of doubling (DOUBLING) the cost of our ingredients seems like pure insanity, however good the cause.

Quite a pickle this all is- the clear, worthy goal of going organic (or, rather, Organic) is quickly met by the cold, hard slap of the hand of reality- Organic food costs more to produce.  That's one of the curses of industrialization- it cheapens THINGS, which inevitably cheapens PEOPLE.  One of the MANY, Many, many curses.

Funny little secret: many of Peeled Snacks ingredients are actually Organic.  Often we find some O fruit or nut that we can afford, and we use it.  We don't make a stink about it, but I daresay that the pickiest of taste buds out there would pick them out, probably favorably.  Oh, if only Organic were always affordable, we'd only use it and never look back.  More on this before the month's out....

Three Haikus about Ineeka, though it would help if you looked at a picture of their tea bag on their website...

tear bag,  pull wings, steep.

drink tea after 5 minutes.

whipe leaves off your nose...

Afternoon tea's fun.

We push bags with our noses

Looks ridiculous.

This must be your first.

I can tell by your nose tip.

You've a bag stuck there.

I love that stuff, and I love you, whoever you are.

EN "Peel-en" K

Posted by iankusc at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Weather's supposed to be a dull, but safe topic, but for the past few years it's been an ever more interesting one.  If you haven't caught Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth, he really shows just how wildly entertaining weather can be when in the hands of the right screenplay writers (Shane Black?  Steven E. DeSouza?  Joe Estherhaz??).  Of course, thanks to Katrina (and the Bush camp's review of that film, "I fell asleep during this movie") weather's not just blockbuster material, but Oscar worthy.

And in the category of best supporting actor, we have George W. Bush for Hurricane Katrina?  I think not...

Weather obviously affects more than just box-office results. Agriculture in the Midwest took a huge hit this summer, what with all those degrees going around, and the housing market in the New Mexico hills has been, shall we say, blackened a bit.  As I wrote in an earlier entry, we snack magnates compete with the seasons too, and this Summer has been punishing.  The big problem?  Chocolate!

Of course, I have no right to call chocolate a problem.  After all, were it not for chocolate, there'd be no Camp David Accord, and the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge ate chocolate EXCLUSIVELY.  But chocolate has its downsides, or rather, its downSIDE- it melts.  That's about as much bad-mouthing as I can lend chocolate, but this summer, that miserable trait alone has caused us terrible agony.

Imagine one of those classic, classy UPS vans- you know, the brown ones than seem as if they were imagined, designed, and engineered by a 1920s Quaker farmer from Iowa.  Now imagine them at high noon on a mid-July day, barreling through Dallas on their way to a Forth Worth suburb.  Imagine the temperature in the belly of that brown beast.  Now imagine what it does to chocolate.

Oh, how I wish I could steal a look at the Hershey playbook, or the Mars Bar Bible, and see just how they handle chocolate distribution in the summertime.  I remember that on a trip to India a couple of years ago, I was simply flabbergasted that chocolate could not be found anywhere but in the high hill stations.  Somehow I'd just never imagined a world without chocolate, but those worlds do exist.  Right there's reason enough to, with all our heart and political will, fight global warming.

We've compensated this summer by trying to ship our Shock-olate overnight, and/or with ice packs, but we've still lost a dreadful amount of chocolate to Helion/Ra/Imti/whatever you wanna call the sun.  But, at last, summer seems to be finally relenting a little, and allowing some cooling air, be it Canadian or Hurricanian air, to come down and spare our chocolate a little.  I love my summertime living- swim holes, camping, long days and big waves... but I like chocolate even more.

 An Ode to Chocolate

Pitty Buddha, for he never tasted a Mars Bar.

Jesus and Muhammed too- no Snickers for them either.

Maybe if they'd tasted Godiva, we'd never have invaded Iraq,

Or maybe Torquemada would've been a sweetheart.

Perhaps Caesar could have conquered Gaul,

If only he'd have had Hot Cocoa to tempt them out of the woods.

They say that Microwaves were invented by Chocolate

Melting in the shirt pocket of some engineer

standing too close to a microwave antenna.

Lucky shirt. 

Would that my fingers each had their own tongues,

for when I daudle, and my chocolate runneth over;

that my shirt could taste you the stains

of that last dropped dollop of chocolate ice cream.

Would that chocolate grew on trees,

not as gooey cocoa nuts, but, you know,

as Hershey's Kisses, or Almond Joy.

Yeah.  Yeah.

That'd be sweet. 

Posted by iankusc at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Do me a favor- got to www.google.com and search for "Snack".  Then look and see which link comes up in the upper left hand corner of the page.  For those that don't fret about Google tags, the link in the upper left corner of most Google pages represents the COMPANY that has PAID the most MONEY to be associated with whatever words for which you just searched.  Paying most for "Snacks"?...

... McDonalds ...

They seem to be marketing some new "snack wrap".  If you really want to find out what's in it, I encourage you to go to McDonalds, buy one, eat it, find a place to sit, and then re-think all the decisions that you've ever made in your life.  I feel compelled to ask the reasonable question of, what separates a "snack" wrap from any other kind of wrap?  Is it smaller?  Is it more, or perhaps less nutritious?  Do they not serve it during the lunchtime rush?  What makes a snack?

Well, for good-old McDonalds, what makes a snack is the marketing department.  If they believe that a new product will sell best between meals, then they give it a name like "snack" and add it to their dollar menu.  I suppose then the better question is, what do YOU, or I, or, you know, the REST of society consider a snack to be?

McDonalds has enough cultural and culinary clout to certainly redefine what makes for a snack.  I must confess to being susceptible to their marketing machine- I have, in fact, recently eaten one of their "cheeseburgers" (quotations required) for a midnight "snack", and I can say that I enjoyed it insofar as a person can enjoy a quick bite followed some hours later by a stomach ache and projectile flatulence.  But, sigh, I did pay for it, and I ate it.

Google may not be a major location for finding snacks, but it may well be THE place right new for driving new commerce in general.  One way or another, the OLD ways are threatened- think of the tumult in the recording industry since Napster, or the film industry since DVDs, or the auto industry since Honda, or the grocery/retail industry since Super-WalMarts.  The old playing fields are being demolished to make way for new fields, and new conversations are taking place about the games.

Do we want McDonalds to be a referee?  That's what their little add at the top of the Google page means- they are a major voice in a strange conversation, thanks not to the quality or value of their product, but thanks instead to the might of their bank accounts.  This IS America, and nothing that they're doing is illegal, or even necessarily immoral... it just sucks.

So what does make a snack?  Fruit and nuts?  Well, not for everyone.  But I doubt what McDonalds considers a snack would suffice as a definition for anyone still maintaining a few tough shreds of dignity.  Let's not let them dominate the conversation.

Poem For the Day:

I McMowed my Wal-Lawn this StarbucksMorn,

The Petsmart-Swallows darted amongst the Home Depot Oaks,

And my Brought-to-you-by-CSI terrier brought me in my CNN

As the Haliburton-Officers McTicketed McTeens for MTV-loitering.

It seems these Yahoo.com-days that EVERYTHING (tm) is owned

By something- not someone, but someTHING,

And a THING, at that, which I will never meet.

I wonder who bought the trademark to ME-

Surely someone has found a way to comodify me,

Just as my Estee' Lauder wife was recently bought out

from her former capitolizers, NASCAR.

I hope I'm owned by Toys'R'Us, or at least Southwest Airlines.

WHAT!?!  I seem to have lost two fingers

And sprouted a  pointy tail.

I guess from now on you can call me Disney-E...

EN 

Posted by iankusc at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I need a copy-editor.  I realize that's a practically taboo thing to say in the bloggosphere- bloggers by definition are writers who share their fresh, raw, misspelled thoughts with the world, and no grammar-observing fuddy-duddy will ever rain on that parade.  I find that whenever I do send my entries to my editor/president, she has all these, you know, "suggestions".  Who wants that?!

Well, I sure could have used a little extra copy-editing yesterday.  I've been working for a while on getting some Peeled Snacks T-shirts out to the world.  We made up these T-shirts that said, "Peel Me" for a conference a few months back, and they were a HUGE hit, with lots of people asking for a T-shirt of their own.  Fine, okay, I got to work and we're about ready to let the world have them...

Yesterday I emailed a teaser email about the T-shirts to friends and customers on our mailing list, and the subject line was supposed to read "Peeled Snacks T-shirt Contest Winner!"...  Only I left out an "r", and I didn't leave out the "r" in "winner".  I'll let you take a moment and figure out what that does to the subject line...

Yes, I emailed an obscenity to thousands of our closest friends, business associates, and customers.  Let me get right out there and say that this was NOT intentional, and I am terribly sorry about the typo.  Anyone who's been offended by this has every right to be, and there's no excuse beyond my incompetence.

But most people have taken this with a good spirit, and most of those that haven't didn't even notice the typo.  Isn't it amazing how the human brain can fill in a linguistic gap like that?  I did get some CHOICE responses from readers.  Some were so funny that I just HAVE to share them.  Please keep in mind that these come from the wonderful, twisted minds of our customers... (warning- implied vulgarity ahead...)

"You must be shirting me."

"Looks like the shirt's hit the fan."

"These sh!ts stink."

"You think your shirts don't stink?"

"It's okay- shirt happens."

"Holy furcking Shirt!"

"You've really stepped in shirt this time."

"Can I get that in dog-shirt?"

"Did you mean to-sort instead of T-sh!t?"

"Your writing's for shirt."

...and my favorite, "I like the T-sh!t contest better." 

 I'd just like to say that it's an honor to sell snacks to, and occasionally offend, such a wonderfully, sinisterly creative group of people.

I think those slogans are poetry enough for today, don't you...? 

EN 

Posted by iankusc at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I eat a very healthy breakfast- high fiber cereals, organic skim milk, and coffee that's single-handedly saving the Alaskan rainforests.  I find, though, that all that "health" just can't go down my gullet lest I'm reading, reading something, reading ANYTHING.  Usually I take in the New York Times along with my obscene dose of non-soluble fiber, but today, for a lark, I picked up AM New York.

AM New York, for those not in the know, is one of those advertisement based weekday rags that basically puts together some AP articles, some pictures of Lindsey Lohan, and some Sudoku, and tries to pass itself off as "news".  The genius behind them is that they GIVE themselves away, thus giving morning subway commuters no excuse NOT to pick one up.  Li-Lo and Sudoku win the day.

This morning's AM NY had an interesting little 3 paragraph AP teaser entitled "Obesity worse than hunger".  The snippet points out that there are more obese people in the world than starving people (thanks TEXAS!), and it blames the problem on "a global dietary shift away from cereals and grains to animal products and vegetable oils."

I've naturally been tracking this problem for a while, what with my interest in bad eating habits and all.  Peeled Snacks has naturally positioned itself as an anti-obesity campaigner, and articles like this, however modestly positioned they may be, just float my boat.  Have you ever checked out:

www.blogher.org ?

Granted, I'm probably not supposed to be snooping around there, what with my XY thing going on, but there are a great number of passionate writers in the Food and Drink topic section (I LOVE Denise) who are taking on such issues with wit and candor.  A recent post basically labeled obesity as a form of malnourishment, given that all that excess weight that's inflating our kids has no real value, or at least not until the Martians come down and harvest those plump little spuds for their version of Thanksgiving.

In my family there's an old saying- "It's not what you do, it's what you over-do".  Obesity in this country, to my mind, stems from an over-doing of worthless carbohydrates and saturated fats.  Plenty of outlets would like to blame individual eating habits, but I see it as a form of economic warfare- cheap, lousy food for America's poor insures that they stay poor.  Cheap labor is good for business.  Our country has always relied upon its poorest and most disenfranchised to make money for the already-moneyed, and corn syrup is a cheap way to do that.

Don't confuse this for a conspiracy, though- it's just dollars and cents.  BAD cents, but bad cents that makes cents. 

Poem for the Day:

It's about time, Zergplek.

Yes, Metzelfark, it's almost harvest season.

Olympus Mons' Southern Face is turning

from amber rust to crimson fire,

and the Valles Marinaris runs full with squabe.

Zergplek, get your plucking gloves on-

It's time to reap the fattened terran crop.

Yes, all the fat little morsels

on yon planet so blue

will taste so deliciously like Cheetohs...

...and sweet, sorn-syrup filled Pepsi...

..oh yes, and pepsi, 

at this October's harvest barn dance.

My moorsaphate has knitted me a snazzy bib,

lest I spill saturated transfats

all over my brand new vyxerpus vest.

Fire up the interplanetary drive,

and let's go harvest some fatsos! 

Posted by iankusc at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday whilst browsing trough New York's famous Strand Bookstore, Peeled Snacks founder and president (and my gorgeous wife) Noha Waibsnaider stumbled upon Real Food- What to Eat and Why by Nina Planck, a food thinker and enjoyer who actually is speaking tonight at the Strand.  Noha picked up Ms. Planck's book, plowed through it, and then passed it to me to peruse.

I'd be slightly understating it if I were to say that we agree with Ms. Planck.  If I may be so bold as to summarize her thesis, the way in which we grow, raise, and plan for the foodstuffs we eat greatly determines how healthy or unhealthy those foods turn out (much more so even than the actual preparation of a meal).  Today's food industry undercuts nutrition for the sake of a quick buck, but the long-term health and environmental costs of how most food is raised makes for a long-term disaster.

Check out her website: www.ninaplanck.com

She pays a great bit of attention to the science of farming, which we in our nice little Consumer-Packaged-Goods Society don't bother to mess with much.  In one juicy bit, she dissects the interplay between grass, flies, cows, and the chickens that peck at the cow patties.  It's a fascinating look through a microscope that we rarely tarry with, and I recommend her highly.

These days it feels like a lot of the sort of "Peeled Snacks Mission" is about consumer education- we're trying to impress upon potential customers why spending 3 dollars for 2.6 oz. of dried fruit and nuts is better than spending half that for twice as much weight in pringles.  So many people are trained to think that cheaper is better.  Since when did "Cheap" stand for American values?  Why is it so difficult for people to get past price to get to quality?

But I'll banter about that another time.  Poem for the Day:

The sun shines down onto dirt,

on the little clover seeds,

which grow into, you know, clover.

The gravely cow tongues pull up the grass,

and all those churning stomachs,

mull over every little grain,

grabbing all the good stuff, so much good stuff to grab.

The poop comes out- yeah, I said POOP!

and flies buzz around,

doing fly business (don't laugh- everybody's got business),

making little baby flies in the POOP.

Along comes the chickens, pecking pecking pecking,

eating up the baby flies, making their own

happy happy baby chicks.

All of this, and the sun, and the raindrops, and the poop,

falls back to the dirt.

We eat all the glory grown from this stuff,

then we fall, too, to the clover. 

Posted by iankusc at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So last week someone "mentioned" that my Peeled Skinnies were getting a little, shall we say, off topic. Apparently I'm supposed to be writing about all things snack oriented- the snack industry, marketing snacks, snack nutrition, the dangerous world of snacks espionage... All of that's great to write about, and occasionally important, but these days it sure seems like there's some white elephants in the room that need SERIOUS consideration. Far more consideration, in fact, than high-fructose corn syrup (devil that it is) need suffer. But fine, this is peeledSNACKS.com, so let's get to it...

Okay, so, snacks... I caught a great concert last week at New York's famous Summer Stage in Central Park.  Headlined by Canadian power-pop indie super-band the New Pornographers, the concert took place under a burning Summer sunset, and the bands literally played to the changing weather (a heat wave was just breaking as the bands were playing).  My new favorite band of all time ever, the Frames (they're from Ireland, sort of emo by way of U2 arena rockdom), started out the evening playing to rain showers.  Southwestern indie-mariachi stalwarts Calexico followed up drably, aside from some serious spice added by some flamenco maestro they'd picked up on a recent tour through Spain.  New Pornographers suffered from no sound check (they sounded aweful, truly), and an under-used Neco Case (as if she could ever be over-used), bet generally rocked the evening nicely.

 Now Summer Stage this summer is promoted by Snapple and Stella Artois, along with some other non-food companies.  Without going into the merits or defecits of those two companies, I'll offer up that I HOPE that neither of them had any say in the food that was available.  Summer Stage does have two small eateries with which they seek to feed the kids... only, all that they serve is hamburgers, fries, and pretzels.

Sigh.  Young people, dudded up for a fantastic night out in the park, dancing to hipster tunes and flirting with each other glore, and all that they have to eat is a bunch of nutrition-free food that's more or less designed to make them fat and sick.  And people wonder what's wrong with youth today.

Here's what's wrong with youth today- cheap food is TOO CHEAP.  The Summer Stage is clearly selling crappy food because it yields the best profit margins- hamburgers and french fries are somewhat cheap to make, and all the kids love that stuff.  But the overall cost to kids (and their livers, and their gym instructors) doesn't quite get factored in.  The culinary norm for our culture seems famously wretched- high fat, high carb, low nutrition bunk.   And we wonder why kids aren't doing well in school?

So, to whit, the secret to advancing our culture and reclaiming our place as the greatest nation on Earth is by selling only healthy snacks at rock concerts.

Today's poem:

Fries need more Catsup.

What? I don't understand you?

Oh.  Needs more Ketchup!

Hipsters scoff at rain.

Lightning wipes out the whole band?

They scoff at that too.

I feel my liver.

Late night, it whispers to me...

"Please leave me alone..." 

Posted by iankusc at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last weekend while I was staring at Pacific Northwest tide pools, Newt Gingrich (shudder- flashback from 1994) was sending vicious ripples through time and space courtesy of his (self-declared) Churchill-like prognostications of us being already embroiled in WW3.  No sooner had he banged the WW3 drum than pundits further to the right started acting as if everyone's known about this WW3 business for, like, EVER, and former New Republic correspondent Michael Ledeen retorted, "no way, Newtie- this is World War FOUR!"  I guess I slept through one somewhere in there.

So a couple of sloppily dropped statements from a former professional liar (Contract with America?  Broken long ago), and suddenly everyone's looking for a definition of a World War.  Does it take superpowers fighting over smaller countries?  Does it have to involve Germany somehow?  Doesn't France have to surrender first?

I'm unconcerned with such definitions, as if we assume that there's some World War going on, then people will be quick to say, "the U.S. needs to jump in there and finish this mess."  After all, we tipped the scales in the Great War, and more or less brought Japan to its knees single-handedly in that war's sequel.  Those events, though, differ tremendously from the current slew of disgusting events in many ways, most of which I'll ignore, except one: this time, we're the bad guys.

Now hold on a sec- US?  The aggressors? Didn't those fundamentalist Islamists start this thing back in 2001?  Yeah, that's what the aggressor always says.  The aggressor always likes to blame the aggressed.  See, the aggressor moves in to territory that isn't his, and then cries foul when whomever lives in said invaded territory fights back.  In that way, the Germans and Japanese didn't start World War 2- the Polish and Chinese did when they started objecting to being raped and killed by Huns and Japs, respectively.

When the US jumped to Kuwait's aid in 1991, we started a global conflict whose bills we're still paying.  We hunkered down in a country that had no love for us, and whose regime maintains power only through draconianism.  We offended a whole generation's worth of the fastest growing religion on Earth, and did so blatantly in the name of keeping down gas prices.  When we lingered after the first Gulf War, we overstayed our welcome and became the aggressor.  We're the bad guys.

But it doesn't have to be that way.  The solution to the problem is straightforward and simple- pull out of the Middle East.  Take ALL of our troops out of that region.  Maybe keep the NATO forces in Afghanistan, but everywhere else, bolt.  We do it in such a way as to boldly and clearly let the people of the Middle East know that they can solve their own problems now, and that we're sorry for overstaying our welcome.  Then we can sit back and watch as the Sunni-Shiite war that's been brewing for 1300 years reaches a new, completely insane peak.

The right-wing pundits that I've tapped in to usually claim that this WW3 nonsense is being fought over ideals.  Hogwash, I say.  Wars are not fought over ideals, neither religious nor political.  Ideals are what END wars, and they can certainly be used to rally the troops.  Wars are fought over resources- iron ore, water, agricultural land, manpower.  This war is being fought over oil.  And that's a lousy reason to fight a war.

Poem for the Day:

When is a bad idea a bad idea?

When first it's thought up, smoke rising

From the glowing coals of some twisted imagining?

Or maybe when it's played out

to disasterous headlines, sad 3 minute spots

accompanied by melancholy Sanyo chords? 

Or is a bad idea only a bad idea

when someone finally actually contracts his or her vocal chords

in such a way as to say 

"uh, this is a bad idea."

Or is a bad idea actually a GOOD idea,

until the goofball who cooked it up in the first place

finally admits that, "okay, I was drunk that night,

and we never should have gotten into this mess

in the first place. Sorry..."? 

Have a nice day... 

Posted by iankusc at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm pretty sure that the first Peeled Snack mix ever was Figsated.  I could confirm that by asking our president and founder, Noha, who's actually sitting five feet away from me right now, but it's more fun to speculate.  I contend that it's our first because it was probably the first one that she imagined while looking through an airport in search of something to chew on (and coming up empty, excepting pringles and candy bars).  She imagined it first, so my imagination tells me, because Figsated is basically her childhood afternoon snack.  See, she grew up in the Middle East.

Sigh.  What a mess we're sitting in.  Yesterday the venerable old man of diplomacy, the UN, lost a few of its observers in Lebanon to a perhaps something that can be written off as an accident, but which won't be by many.  The Israeli sloppiness here hints at an incompetence not generally associated with Israeli military tactics.  Usually when we talk about Israeli incompetence, we're speaking about their diplomacy.  But militarily?  They're supposed to be surgeons!

What's this got to do with snacks?  Good question.  When I was a wee little 12 year old, in my social studies class we studied potential causes for World War III, and a conflict between Israel and Lebanon was first on the list.  Seeing as that was the Reagan era, World War III seemed very real and frightening to me, and that nasty little lesson left a deep impression upon my terrorized little mind.  Fast-forward to the Dubya era and strife in the Middle East doesn't necessarily mean nuclear war (or, in Dubya parlance, New Que Larr).  And yet I can't help but imagine the difficulties of selling fruit and nut snacks to whatever mutated peoploids survive a newquelarr conflict.

I'm not given to conspiracies, and while I can be  accused of owning an over-active imagination, I don't usually waste time with "doom and gloom" prognostications.  However, in this new war between Lebanon and Israel, I just can't right now imagine a way out.  The Israeli policy of attrition (that is, punish the Lebanese so viciously that they never act up this way again) seems to me a monkey's policy, very simian, very Jean Claude Van Damme.  They assume that they inflict enough violence to end all violence ever.  Raise your hand if you find that just the stupidest thing.

Hezbollah and their Lebanese hosts don't get off easy either.  Woops, did we take your soldiers?  Sorry about that- they looked like our cousins Fiezel and Ahmed, now you can have them back.  Indignation like Hezbollah's makes for a great shovel with which to dig many, many graves.  Israel could never accede to such a prisoner swap, because it would just mean more hostage-taking.  And yet Hezbollah's "leadership" keeps hoping for a trade.

If Israel is a bunch of murderous baboons running amok in your house, Hezbollah is the whiny little four year old brat that's locked himself in the bathroom and is refusing to open the door.  Neither side is bothering to be either reasonable or logical.  But I suppose it's too much to ask for such things when it comes to that terrorized, trampled, tragic crossroads of culture.

This'll all get worse before it gets better, and not even Condie's thigh-high boots can change that.  Just google "US Clout" and see where we stand in the international press.  It makes me wonder if the current administration thinks that a weak United States is good for business, if they are scrambling to recover all that they've squandered, or if they's just like Hezbollah, locked in the bathroom and ignoring everyone and everything that tells them they're wrong.

Haikus:

Back yard just blew up.

Used to be a nice garden.

Now it's soot for sale.

Nukes don't scare me much.

I live in New York City.

Sucks to live through nukes.

I kidnapped your dog.

Give me back my goldfish, PUNK!

Where'd my grandma go? 

Posted by iankusc at 08:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The search at the Fancy Food Show for something truly, scaldingly, blisteringly spicy continued yesterday, much to no avail.  I dedicated some ample time to trying Buffalo and Jerk sauces, in hopes that somewhere amongst their ranks would be the sauce that could vaporize my pancreas.  Not to be- only sweet sauces, or tangy sauces, or sauces labelled "XXX" yet less spicy than 70s porn.

There were two standout exceptions, though.  And let me just porpose that I'm no food critic, I'm no paid journalist, and I'm certainly no gourmand.  I'm just a guy looking to batter around every cell in his body courtesy of a little capsaicin.

#1, Rene's Nuckin' Futs hot sauce, the dabble of which I tasted having dripped through my torso like the oozing hydro-chloric acid blood of the aliens from the Alien movies.  Simply put, Nuckin' Futs was distilled evil with a red tint.  Pure spice, vicious and unforgiving, really without any flavor to speak of.  I tip my hat to any man (or woman) that willingly and intentionally creates a liquid that could have ended World War II 10 months earlier.

#2, Bart's Delicatessen's Peruvian Hot Chilli Paste, a tangy, flavorful neutron bomb to the mouth, not quite as completely poisonous (and I mean that in a good way) as Nuckin' Futs, but something that must have killed all the free-radicals, residual mercury, trans-fats and long-ago swallowed pieces of bubble gum hiding in my body.  Bart's sauce, to my tongue, was actually delicious, but blended with a full-bodied ass-kicker of spice.  Really something special, that.  Oddly enough, Bart's is a British company.  Naturally, I'm not inclined to associate spicy food with the Brits (rather I'll lend them the adjective "bland").  But proof's in the pudding, that That sauce was simply THE sh!t.

An ode:

Upon my burning palate place what you will,

The cauldrons of Acheron may boil and singe

All the sooty, smeared Underworld,

Yet I'll not break any more a sweat

Than currently pours forth from my tortured brow.

For I have just sampled the spice of Hell's window box.

Vesuvious and Aetna may tag team against my tongue

And burb forth lava like the world's end,

But my tongue won't lash or dash a bit- it's already done.

Open my maw and feed me North Korean warheads,

But don't expect me to shed one tear more,

For this awful, evil heat, courtesy of <insert your hotsauce here>

Has purged my passioned tear wells of all irrigation.

Count me as dry, sated, and completely insane. 

Posted by iankusc at 08:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Allow me to go officially on record as adoring those wonderful people at Time Out NY.  As if they weren't already tapped deeply enough into Gotham to lead any lost Nebraskan to just the right underground-alternative-bossanova dance party, they just went ahead and gave New York's very own Peeled Snacks a review for the ages.  James Oliver Cury's Critics' Pick entitled "Nutty Logic" proved to me that Peeled Snacks' concept, its reason for being, is entirely "gettable"- Mr. Cury got us so perfectly, I wish I could shake his hand and kiss his grandma on the cheek.  Instead, I just think I'll send him some free snacks.  Write a good review of us in your super-distributed magazine and I'll send you some treats too!

That's just the latest dose of good news that we've endured here at Peeled Snacks' World Headquarters.  I imagine that there's more to come (gosh, I hope so), but with every dollop of press that we get, I always find myself wondering just why nobody thought of this sort of treat before, and if they did, why they aren't doing it.  Don't confuse this for second guessing Peeled Snacks- every time I eat them (which is frightfully rarely thanks to the maddening frugality of our wonderful president Ms. Waibsnaider) I'm SHOCKED by how tasty they are.  This is more of an epistemological quandary.  Like, did the Cheetoh exist before somebody invented it, or did it take shape only on the first assembly line to crank those dusty little nuggets out?

In this maddeningly marketing-driven world then, does an invention even matter?  Who cares if a product is invented if it isn't marketed?  And who cares about the marketing unless it actually causes the product to move like hotcakes?  When is a thing a thing- when the Big Bang (or G@d, if you go for that sort of thing) mixes up the first atomic ingredients, when some mad scientist (i.e. Ms. Waibsnaider) concocts the idea, or when Mr. James Oliver Cury touts the thing enough to make it profitable?

Poem for the day:

What's the nutritional content of sand

mixed with an apricot sadly fallen

from my slippery, salty, wave battered hand

onto the glistening eastern beach?

Do the gritty shavings of long lost seashells

add to the non-soluble fiber quantity

thus making my fallen apricot even more

of a hall monitor in the high school of my abdomen,

or does it go straight to the hips,

like the poly-unsaturated fat

caked into the pecan-chocolate fudge I ate

at the candy store late last night? 

Hope your Mondays are somehow better than your Sundays...

-Peeled Skinny 

Posted by iankusc at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We DESERVE this, allright?  This has been sought after, this has been worked for, and this is IMPORTANT.  THIS, of course, is a VACATION!!!!

That's right, Peeled Snacks is taking a little time to rest on its laurels and watch the waves come in- three whole days worth, in fact, which (given our crazy spring) should be enough to maintain our official status as "not completely out of our minds".  Don't worry though, as  Peeled Snacks will still be up an running during our bried absence.  We've been plotting and planning ways in which we can stay in touch and manage business from afar- we've signed contracts, built infrastructure, managed crisis, and gone through all sorts of hoopla to make this happen.  In fact you could say that we've spent more time planning the logistics of this little vacation than the vacation itself will last, but alas, such is the plight of the modern small business owner.

 In honor of our little jaunt, our petite voyage, our brief little excursion, I offer up this little ode to ponder while I'm away...

Thought I'd climbed the right ladder out,

thought that last shootin star I wrastled

would drag me out beyon yer fences,

would gallop me t'where that big ol' sun

meets its maker ev'ry dang twilight. 

Supposed I'd made a right turn t'wards Amarillo,

whin you'd  be makin a lef' t'wore Carson City,

an' yon.

Well, I's wrong 'bout all that,

'bout the  ladder an the stars an that sun

goin' down

(well, down it dropped, but I ain't seen it),

and sure 'nuf I saw you in Texas.

But it weren't nuthin to fuss 'bout,

er ta git a cowboy riled up.

I jus' did what it is I always done when I see ya',

An you thanked me and wint on yer way.

Posted by iankusc at 06:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Will "Spark" make as many waves as jolly Malcolm Gladwell's "Tipping Point"?  Tough to say, but it hardly matters.  Books of this nature, books with this heavy marketing theme, now litter Barnes & Noble's tables (not the shelves, the TABLES), and receive heavy mentions by TV talking heads, newspaper columnists, and probably (though we're as of yet unacquainted) Ma and Pa America.  Ideas like "Activation" and "Opportunity Costs" now get played around with in the kitchens of Burger Kings, and half of America’s eyes are scoping for niche markets.

I'm under the impression that Marketing used to be the work of the Wizard of Oz.  That is, it used to be concocted behind the proverbial green curtain, and the razzle-dazzle that issued forth from behind said curtain wasn't scrutinized for how much eye of newt it contained.  Today, though, at least on an intellectual basis, marketing ploys are open to being dissected by whoever wants to take a crack at it:  there goes 20% of America paying attention to that man behind the curtain.

Marketing seems to have gone civilian, much like border patrolling recently went courtesy of our patriotic, paranoid minutemen brethren.  Perhaps this has happened before, when thanks to cynicism, irony, or just intellectual mustering, the public pierced Madison Avenue's veil, forcing those yahoos (of whom I suppose I can count myself a member) to start over from scratch.  Thank heavens that Peeled Snacks isn't marketing driven.  I mean, it'd be nice if marketing would take the wheel for a while, but for the time being it’s just the quality of the fruit and the nuts in the driver's seat.  Of course, those that have read Spark will see right through that last sentence....

Poem for the day:

At long last I have finished thee,

Ended your life on my shelf, swallowed you

My whale, your Jonah.

Staring at me you have dared me

threatened me with nourishing eyes,

and finally I fell for you, hard.

Last me throughout my belly, no further.

Fulfill my coffers with fruit and nuts.

Afterwards, I care not what comes of you.

I have finished thee, snack. 

Posted by iankusc at 09:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Peeled Snacks often inspire me to write poetry.  How about you?  For a while I thought that our bags should have limericks on their backs, but someone with sensibilities more tasteful than mine overruled me.  Okay, so snack food and poetry don’t mix…
 

I seem to remember a very creative Cheetos packaging series featuring rather detailed ballads about the misadventures of Chester Cheetah.  The snacks themselves?  Addictively awful.  The poems?  My muse for years and year.

Here’s my chance to outdo the marketing minds at Frito Lay- 3 haikus about Peeled Snacks…

I’ll have the green one.
No wait - which one has chocolate?
Yeah – the green one then.

Roll on, dropped almond.
So sad that here we part ways.
But, squirrels need almonds.

What’s that? That’s no date!
I know dates when I see ‘em.
They look like “Newtons”.

Posted by iankusc at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)