May I please direct your eyes towards a great article from this past Sunday's New York Times Magazine....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/business/22food.html?_r=1&em

There's been a whole lot of hubbub about food again ever since Michelle Obama expressed interest in creating an organic garden on the White House lawn.  As a political and social statement, that's a marvelous endorsement to Foodies across the GLOBE.  As a first step, it's kind of flashy but nice.  As a solution to what some of us see as a major food conundrum in America, it's unfortunately dismissable.

Consider that the Farm Bill comes up every 5 years, and it last came up this past Summer.  That means that is won't come up AT ALL during President Obama's term.  Consider also that land reform on the White House Lawn is a heck of a lot easier than land reform in Iowa.  Consider finally that the people that really have the power to change legislation, i.e. Congress, are beholden to large companies which aren't terribly interested in land reform.

Hold it.  Why do I keep talking about land reform when we're just discussing a cabbage patch out front of the West Wing?  Well, when discussing organic food, or the food revolution in general, you need to start somewhere, and in my humble yet powerfully well informed opinion, the real place to start is with the LAND.

In Sunday's article from the Times, the author gives considerable voice to a generation of Foodie thinkers (Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, sort of a triumvirate of Food-a-sauruses), all of whom champion more focus on ingredients, nutrient rich foods, and local food.  On the "Dark Side of the Force" side are companies like Monsanto, which basically wants America fattened up on corn.   Well, that's not entirely true.  What they want to do is turn a profit for their shareholders.... by fattening America up on corn.

There in lies the problem- the Triumvirate of Food-a-sauruses all imagine a world where food is REALLY EXPENSIVE.  I had one of my favorite meals of all time at Alice Waters' restaurant, but I paid a Benjamin per head to get out of there, and most people (myself included) can't afford that Benjamin too often.  Pollan encourage local food growth, but that doesn't play too well in Bangor, Maine in February.  And while Monsanto sells a vile product, they sell it at prices people can afford.

The Food Revolutionaries (with whom I allie myself, frankly) don't have too much of an argument without addressing affordability, so to me the place to start is how to make healthy food cheaper, and that would require wiping out all the subsidies to farmers that allocate millions upon millions of American farm acres to corn and other low nutrition crops, subsidies that were written into the FARM BILL.....

which won't come up again for 4 and a half years.

In the coming series of blogs, I'm going to lay out my crazy ideas about the order in which things might happen to accomplish they startlingly challenging goal of...

Providing Healthy, Affordable Food To America.

Call it PHAFTA for short.  Keep peeling,

 Peeled Skinny

Posted by iankusc at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been rattling its sabre lately, declaring that with people starving, governments all over the world will need to soon shovel out money (to the tune of $30 BILLION per year) if they want to stem the upheval inevitably brought on by commercials asking people to give money to starving Africa starring celebrities B-List or higher.

Sigh.  For a UN meeting held yesterday in Rome, the UN gathered around at least one person from every government that it could find (Paraguay sent "Lenny"- Lenny had nothing better to do, was just sitting around bored, swatting flies and reading Wikipedia articles about shampoo companies...) to fix the world's food problem.  Lots of talk and meetings and experts, and they figured out all by themselves that Money will fix the problem.

Sigh.  Covered in the meeting was the problem posed by bio-fuels, and how syphoning off food to oil production deprives people of crucial, cheap calories.  Because what people REALLY need to be eating is corn and sugar.

Sigh.  Also covered was the price dedicating all that agricultural land to bio-fuel, and how the US REALLY thinks Brazil should grow more, you know, Soy Beans and stuff that won't interfere with it not growing more bio-fuel-friendly sugar cane.

Sigh.  Also covered was how trade tarrifs and other impositions to free-trade really are what's to blame for people starving- because if food exporting countries can't export cheap corn to hungry countries because there's not enough profit in it, then those countries DESERVE to starve.

Sigh.  Also covered was how 3rd world countries shouldn't export cash crops, but instead use them to feed their people, because money (of all things) just can't solve the problem.

Huh?

I read reports like this and shake my head- consider that this crisis of food prices invites nations to bicker and back-stab, muscle one another, play global economic politics, and in general TOTALLY MISS THE POINT.  Consider the causes of this problem (my last blog offered that it all boils down to distribution, which is really a problem of oil), be it oil or climate or whatever.  Consider that it is NOT an economic problem.  Does it them warrant an economic solution?

Nope.  Land reform, political flexibility, and a GLOBAL alternative to oil = solution.  Throwing money at a problem just creates new ways of skimming off the top.  If the US had developed an energy policy during the 1973 oil crisis, we might not be in this mess.  But a solution to that enormous problem takes DECADES to concoct.  In the near term, sure, why not throw money at the conundrum?...

Next blog, I'll tell you why.... 

Posted by iankusc at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As of Monday, May 5th, Peeled Snacks will officially no longer be a New York based company.  Well, make that, we will no longer be a MANHATTAN based company.  Yes, we're leaving the chic, fashionable Tribeca district of Manhattan for the wild, dangerous, exciting streets of....

That's right, we're moving to the County of Kings!  Why, you ask?  Is it for the cheaper rent?  Is it for the hipper attitude?  Is it for the parking spaces?

Thank you for playing, you don't win our grand prize but you DO get a copy of our home-version board-game.  No, we're moving for the LIGHT.  Our Tribeca office has basically no natural light, where as our new Brooklyn home has a 900 square foot Sun Deck, and LOTS of that fun, sun-spun illumination.  We're giving up a fashionable zip code in order to process vitamin D.  And we couldn't be happier about it.

Here's our new address- look it up on Google Maps for a funky picture of the hood....

530 3rd Ave. suite 2R

Brooklyn, NY 11215

See you in the Hood,

Peeled Skinny, MOVING!!! 

Posted by iankusc at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

So I've been writing this here blog for a while, and usually I get to use it as a bully pulpet to let loose whatever zaniness is wandering through my mind.  Occasionally, however, what I write turns out to be a bit too controversial, a bit too confessionary, or too endangeringly political, and my editor (that is, my boss, our company president) takes a pair of virtual scissors to my blog entry.

An example- a blog entry with a poem eulogizing the loss of one our country's major political parties' philosophical leaders got removed just in case members of that political party would be offended and cease to by Peeled Snacks.  Another- a tirade against some bureaucratic agency or another got chopped because we still (and will forever more) have to wrestle with said bureau, however full of nincompoops the bureau might be.

These edits are fine, these edits are fair, and these edits are done while keeping in mind that Peeled Snacks is real business that needs to keep its eye on the bottom line.  What's begun to happen, though, amidst the climate created by these and other edits, is that I've begun to self-censor, and frankly are starting to become a little paranoid.  Or maybe a lot.

Take, for instance, all this hubbub in China right now.  A few years ago it came out that the Chinese government was writing the Sudanese goverment a blank check for its genocide in Darfur.  Then there's the tainted toys and poisoned food.  Next comes Mia Farrow telling me that I should boycot the Shanghai Olympics.  And now those knuckleheads in charge of the Chinese Government are accusing the Dalai Lama of encouraging armed revolt!  Do they even know what a Dalai Lama is? 

But here I find myself wary of mentioning anything bad about China because a: we might sell our products in China some day, b: it might all just be fascist propaganda courtesy of some fanatical anti-China cabal, and c: there's a whole heck of a lot of Chinese people over there, and if they all ganged up on me at once I would be COMPLETELY screwed.   With these thoughts in mind, I self-censor....

We decided a long time ago at Peeled Snacks that we stand for a few things- REAL food, PREMIUM ingredients, CONVENINENT snacking, ETHICAL yet PROFITABLE business, and, prehaps most importantly, YUMMINESS.  Along the way we've picked up "Buy American" and "Go Green", and occasionally we try on "HOORAY for NEW YORK CITY".  But every time we pick up a new mantle, mustn't we then make a new enemy as well?  Like, "Hooray for New York" means we're saying "STICK IT, Albuquerque!"

For us to really stand for something, inevitably we need to come out against something, but that's really inconducive to traditional, Western, "It's Just Business" practice.  I can't help but root for the REAL food revolution, but I don't want to alienate the BIG Consumer Packaged Goods Empires, er, I mean, companies, because we may need their distribution channels some day.  I scream and shout about high quality ingredients, but can't deny that the cheap, crappy stuff a: makes more money than we do (so far), and b: makes us look really good....

But there's absolutely no denying, and I think that you'll with me on this, that....

ALBUQUERQUE SUCKS!!!!

Go New York,

Ian K, Peeled Skinny 

Posted by iankusc at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Some 10 years ago or so, two friends from my home town just outside of Washington DC decided to become entrepreneurs and start an iced tea company, but their goals were bigger than just iced tea.  They wanted to make a difference in the quality of beverages that people consumed (Snapple being the sugar-saturated slop that it was... and is), and make a dent in their local environment.

But how best to do that?  Brew tea in their basement and sell to a few DC hippies?  THAT's not going to change the world.  They decided to start "Honest Tea", and they sold their first batches of tasty, perfectly brewed, not sickeningly sweetened refreshments into healthfood stores and co-ops, but always had their eyes on a bigger prize- offering healthy, tasty beverages to EVERYONE.

Barry and Seth, this pair of muchachos, started a great company, created a great product, and built a large grass-roots following from people that wanted better options.  They expanded their distribution from mom-&-pops and co-ops to smaller grocery stores to larger chains to big box stores, always offering better products than the competition, always trying to have a positive impact in their community.

On Monday, BOOM, Honest Tea announced that beverage giant Coca-Cola (heard of them?) had invested a 40% stake in Honest Tea, giving them plenty of working capitol to get the job done, but leaving Barry and Seth with control of the company.  This is HUGE for Honest Tea- it opens up distribution channels monopolized by Coca-Cola and Pepsi, gives them a flood of new resources, and acts as a huge encouragement for their pursuit of having a company that has a positive social impact.

But what about their "base"?  What about the people that had originially supported them by buying them in tiny, neighborhood groceries and co-ops run by tasteful, picky grocers in cities like San Francisco and Boulder, Colorado?  What about what THEY want?

Two days ago Seth posted the news of the investment on his blog, and the reaction was split- about half of the people who took the time to post a comment applauded Barry and Seth for their success; the other half, representing the Honest Tea "base", chastized them for "joining the criminal-industrial complex".  Several testimonials promised never to but "Honest Tea" again, and one swears that she'll "go back to remembering to bring a thermos with a peppermint tea bag in it."

Okay, I appreciate the passion with which people have supported Honest Tea, and I can certainly understand that partnering with Coca-Cola can seem like getting in bed with the devil.  But I ask these dissillusioned doubters, what's the point of starting a social conscious company if you only intend to raise the consciousnesses of people with whom you already agree?  Are you so stingy with your healthy, tasty beverages that you don't want our countrymen in Des Moines to be able to buy them?

The Coca-Cola investment allows a great company to extend its reach to regions of the country that could REALLY use an option like Honest Tea.  Shoppers at Rainbow Co-Op in San Francisco, an early adopter of Honest Tea, certainly have plenty of interesting options for beverage seekers, but the King Soopers in Cheyenne, Wyoming?  Not so many, probably.  With Coca-Cola's help, Seth and Barry can spread the word there.

And why should anyone discourage Coca-Cola from trying to make amends for years of making imperfect products?  For 3 generations, American Companies were given a free ride to create environmental or social disasters, providing that the disasters would turn their stock-holders a profit.  Now the generation has changed.  Should we write off all previous companies and their transgressions?  Or should we encourage them to adapt?

Honest Tea is a GREAT company, and makes a GREAT product.  They can really benefit from Coca-Cola's help, as can all the shoppers in Topeka.  The POINT of being a company like Honest Tea isn't to only reach the people that already think like you- it's to change the minds and behavior of those people that DON'T think like you.  Honest Tea is an inspiration to Peeled Snacks, and I hope that more companies with missions like theirs try to win over the bigger players like Coke.

That way, we can REALLY make a change.  Do you hear that, Frito-Lay? 

Posted by iankusc at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2008 is shaping up to be a great year here at Peeled Snacks- that Picks line is doing gang-buster business, distributors are knocking at our doors, airlines want to serve us in-flight, and even the big-box stores see Peeled Snacks as a great catch.  Yes, 2008 will be the year where our see-saw goes from "please SEE" territory to "oh YEAH, I SAW it and I LOVED it" territory.

But the question remains, just where is it that people need SNACKS?

This year we've been offered a whole host of new options in terms of outlets where we can sell Peeled Snacks- they've traditionally been offered in grab-and-go locations like airports, convenience stores, tourist destinations, hotel lobbies, and the like.  But now, with the success of the Picks, we've been offered the ability to sell into totally different kinds of stores, like groceries, pharmacies, and big box stores.  Flattering, no?

But does it make SENSE?  And by "sense" what I mean really is "cents", because that's the only kind of "sense" that anyone cares about in a free-market economy.  Our snacks are really designed to be an IMPULSE buy, and picked up when you haven't really thought ahead.  They are, frankly, designed to be the smartest, best impulse buy EVER, but an rash decision, for sure.

Thing is, grocery stores are where people generally plot their week's eating, not where they pick up a quick snack.  And while pharmacies might be a place where a lot of people do pick up snacks, it's not generally enough volume to really set the night on fire with all the money we can now afford to burn.  While being approached by airlines is flattering, those people have NO money, and don't give a rat's wardrobe about high-quality snacks.

Success isn't accidental or wanton.  It takes careful navigation.  It takes concientious decision-making.  We're a rock-star company, for sure, but even rock-star companies need to pick whether they're a hair-band or a boy-band or an a capella barber-shop quartet or a alternative Canadian music cooperative.  Right now we're trying to figure out where we DON'T want to be as much as where we do.

Posted by iankusc at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A good day and graces upon you, my fine American friend.  My name is John Chapman, though your kin and kind might better know me by what my friends call me, Johnny Appleseed.  That name was given to me because when I was a youth, I planted many an apple tree in this great land of ours, and helped encourage the prosperity and well-being of a good number of my god-fearing countrymen.  I did this because it was clearly god's will that the land be full and lush, and our people live well upon it.

Great woe came unto me recently when, in reading this most commendable of [ed.:Blogs], I learned that this most esteemed, American company known as Peeled Snacks had recently purchased IMPORTED apples.  How dissappointing that Peeled Snacks, this sterling example of American can-do, being so concerned, like me, with the health and wellbeing of country and countrymen, should stoop to buying un-patriotic apples.  In protest, I immediately arose from the grave and wrote the company to give them a piece of my long-dead but freshly angered mind.

Though the owners of Peeled Snacks did see fit to deal with me politely, respectfully, and concientiously, they allayed my anger not at all.  Rather, they deflected it, ricocheting it away from them and towards their government (not MY government, as the deceased are not eligible to vote).  Things I learned from them about policies and practices in this day and age that sent my old bones, built by Gods hands and made with the strength of apples, a-quivering with rage.

All my hard work so many years ago, planting orchard after orchard of apple trees, bringing health and wealth to the land, has nearly come to naught.  Apples, so truly American a thing, as American as the Stars and Stripes or the musket, seem now to be too expensive to PICK!  The cost of having a man or woman take that truely sweet gift of God from the the tree surpasses what the apple will earn in the local marketplace, making an apple's harvest unprofitable!

To this I ask, just what MAKES a profit?  Is it the amount pocketed at day's end?  Is it perhaps a year's cumulation counted come the Yuletide season's calm?  Or is its calculation less concrete, needing perhaps to take in a longer term, a broader consideration, a deeper consequence, and a less certain or quantifiable "profit"?

Though I'm not a betting man, I'll wager that every apple brought from across an ocean, that every FOOD brought from afar, earns no money at all.  The cost of shipping it, surely, has been calculated considering the price of the "gas" used in shipping.  But what of the price of the "gassing"?  What of the cost of cleaning up the effect of the shipmentupon the sea, upon the air?

What of the cost of rotting and spoilage and tarrifs?  What of the cost of finding new jobs for the apple pickers?  What of the political cost- of the wrangling and arguments with foreign dignitaries, the price of managing the ports, of the wars fought for the oil that steams the apples homeward?

But more than anything, more than any price attributable to a mere apple, what of the cost to the land?  Should an apple tree be felled, what will take its place?  I see across this great land (STILL great in spite of any contrary words), where orchards once shaded quiet lanes and walking places, grossly bloated houses now dwell: houses with many times more rooms than people, as if a man no longer needs the space in which he dwells, but needs also the space he can imagine filling with one hundred ghosts that serve him, though he be but a ghostless, servantless man.

This price I cannot calculate with an abacus, but I contend, nay I GUARANTEE, that this cost is far, far greater than any profit gleaned from foreign apples.  Let the growers abroad eat their own apples, and let us eat ours savoring each sweet bite for its pure American taste and nourishment allotted by the thought of the Allmighty.  Let us eat our own apples, grown in our own lands- the lands of my father and the children of my kin. 

Are these apples not sweet enough?

Posted by iankusc at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember when, back in 1981, the USDA decided that Ketchup was a vegetable?  They did it because Farm Bill guidlines demanded that all school lunches include 2 vegetables.  Apparently, real vegetables are just too expensive a thing to serve our youth.  That little scandle perhaps should have insured that Walter Mondale follow Reagan into the White House in 1985, but the American Politics being what it is, people generally don't care what is or isn't a vegetable.

For the record, a tomato, being the chief ingredient in Ketchup, is technically a fruit, but fruit, technically, are kinds of vegetables, but were I to take on the taxonomy of our what we eat, I'd quickly either bore you to tears or, more likely, suffer a cerebral hemorrhage and just fill this blog with "all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy".  And that wouldn't be right at all.

So the Ketchup debate rears its ugly head in congress right now as congress tries to pad the Farm Bill with healthy food options in school lunches.  New literature in the Bill seeks to ban softdrinks, candy, and transfats, all of which are good, right?  Can't we all agree that Mountain Dew should NOT be served to 8 year olds?

But the literature is full of STUPID exceptions, like "juice" (which has no technical definition, and may include no "juice" at all), flavored milk (because kids NEED Strawberry flavored milk, for sure), and diet sodas (aspartame, apparently, helps kids with math).

Legislation like that tells me that it's put into the bill to be one day taken out- put in a half baked, expendable bit of regulation that will act as a bargaining chip for something that some congressman thinks is REALLY important.  Kids, obviously, are not really important.

It just reminds me how low a priority the Farm Bill is to our government, yet how impacting it is to our governments constituencies (or, in the case of school kids, FUTURE constituencies).  As a former teacher, I can tell you EXACTLY what "juice" in schools does- it hops kids up for 30 minutes, and then sends them crashing into crabby, un-productive fits.  High sugar foods are the teacher's ENEMIES, and the have a hugely deliterious effect on the kids.

But just as hardly any of our congressmen have sons or daughters fighting in Iraq, even fewer have elementary school kids that eat in publich schools.  Did I say "fewer"?  I meant NONE.  I'd love to hold out hope for real progress in the bill.  But most likely, it'll all be just as Pete Townsend predicted in The Who's seminal song, "Won't Get Fooled Again"....

 
"Meet the new boss.  Same as the old boss."

Happy Eating,

Ian K, Peeled Skinny

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

all nomenclature and no play makes Ian a dull boy

Posted by iankusc at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So in last week's blog I wrote about attempts in Israel to adhere to religious laws about agriculture which sort of contradict the nation's need to feed itself.  I propsed that societies need to promote new food-based orthodoxies (like updated versions of "Kosher") in order to face over-population and evironmental challenges.  It was the feel-good blog of the century.

But no fewer than two people (and, come to think of it, no MORE than two people) wrote to me and propsed that, "Ian, isn't ORGANIC the new Kosher?"  Hmm.  Now that's pretty interesting- maybe my assumption that the world needs new orthodoxies is already moot- perhaps the orgnaic revolution is a reaction to just his kind of worry.

It's a really bad time for food policy- the past few years have seen a roll-back of government intervention when it comes to food.  For instance, 10 years ago the US had almost 3,000 federal food inspectors.  Now we have 198.  That means that anything coming off a boat in china is likely scantly scrutinized, and when a South Carolinan pork supply is tainted with Ghiardia, we only find out AFTER thousand of people have lost 25 pounds courtesy of dissentary.

Maybe Organic is a way of reacting to that caveat emptor approach, and maybe it's not such a bad way- perhaps mass-diarhea will finally make people pay attention to the ingredients on a "Hot-Pocket".  I mean, the flashy packaging should be MORE than enough to educate consumers as to the repulsive ingredients within, but somehow those things still sell like hot-cakes.

Posted by iankusc at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Look through your cupboard and your fridge.  Wander the aisles of your grocery store and Kwiki-Mart.  Check out the goodies displayed at your school or work cafeteria.  Now think about your body- how 90% of its particles have been created THIS YEAR by what you've put into your belly.  All of that- all that food, all those groceries, all those molecules in your body... are at stake right now on Capitol Hill.

The Farm Bill, as Michael Pollan wisely pointed out, isn't really a "Farm" bill anymore.  It's a "Food Bill", since about a quarter of it has anything to do with farms.  Much attention goes to subsidies for food industrialization, and large swathes cover land zoning.  This year (or 5th year- it comes up every 5 years), the "Farm Bill" becomes an "Energy Bill", as its pages decide the fate of American Ethanol production.

A great deal of our country's population gets its energy from corn, since corn syrup (long subsidized through the "Farm Bill" winds up in just about everything.  Lately, though, more than bellies rely upon corn for replenishment.  As ethanol production ramps up, towns across the plain states are turning from future-ghost towns to new-fangled boom towns, with ethanol processing plants popping up in the strangest locations (like in the picture above, found in Eastern South Dakota).

Corn as a food-stuff barely suffices within the definition of "food" (and surely asserts "Food" as a four-letter-word), and thus far as a fuel source it offers a pale substitute (literally and figuratively) to oil- currently it takes one-and-a-quarter gallons of gasoline to make one gallon of ethanol.  The ease with which massive agricultural firms grow it en-mass insures that, on top of its other failings, corn also acts as an environmental blight, spoiling soil and tainting water supplies.

And now, courtesy of the potential switch in the food bill from subsidizing corn-as-food to subsidizing it as oil, the price for that nasty grain has doubled in the past three months, up-ending big food manufacturers, increasing the cost of food, and causing even more farmers to get on the corn-growing bandwagon.  All for something that offers no nutrition, and actually burns more energy than it offers up.

I have to hope that the price increase in corn at least has a trickle-down effect in the American diet.  Hopefully, all those cheezy-poof manufacturers will soon have to shirk their long addiction to crappy corn additives, and get back to using, you know, "Food".  Corn isn't going away any time soon, thanks to the oil option, but at the very least I can hope that people stop eating that crap.

Yes, I call corn "crap".  Just like I'd call a spade a spade, or a rabbit a rabbit.  Or a "Farm Bill" a "Food Bill".

-Ian K, Peeled Skinny

Posted by iankusc at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ou new yummy line, the Peeled Snacks Fruit Picks & Nut Picks, will soon find its way to the Shelves of Whole Foods and, soon after, other retailers.  Gobs of research and testing have gone into this line as we've asked everybody we could find what they'd like in the new line.  Multi-pacls were at the top of the list, so we're going to take our snacks, pick the best ones, and bundle them together with....

....with tape?  With cardboard?  With plastic cartons?  With WHAT?!?!  Well, how about with CORN?!?!

Ain't that just ironic?  Here we are, a company of corn HATERS, a company that constantly rails and rages against the caustic impact that corn is having in our society, and suddenly we're considering wrapping our new snacks in a squished down, processed version of said wrecker of homes and waist lines.  I've probably blogged about corn horror, oh, 8 times this year, but now I'm here to extole the GLORIES of corn?

Well, you can't hate your corn and eat it too, can you?  In this new line, we were really looking to make the packaging in as responsible a way as possible, which to us meant "compostable".  As angry as I get at corn, plastic sucks equally if not even more suck-tastically.  So we tracked down NaturesPLAstics, which makes a corn based, compostable pack that's clear and sturdy like the kinds of clam-shell plastic cases that you get in salad bars.

Great, splendid, problem solved-our customers get their multipacks, which in turn get turned into plantfood, which in turn gets eaten by, you know, "plants", and the "Circle of Life" warms all our hearts and brings peace to the Middle East, and even makes Dick Cheney see the light and buy everyone Christmas Turkeys.  Good, glad that's finished, now we can just ship it all to Whole Foods and watch the money and peace and happiness roll in....

But WAIT!!!  Yesterday we got the word from one of our buyers at Whole Foods that they won't take these corn-tastic wonders of packaging design because Whole Foods isn't sure whether or not they're.....

...made with Genetically Modified Corn!

Gasp!  You mean, we can't use compostable corn products because the corn may have been tainted in some scientist's laboratory?  Because nature hate's unfair competition?  Because cross-pollination might lead to a race of super-intelligent Corn-Monsters that enslave humanity, coat us with butter, and nibble us in rows or pop us giant air-popper machines.....?

We're crossing culturally into a strange battleground, one with a hundred armies on the field, none of who know whom to fight.  Should we protect American labor, or promote 3rd world economies?  Should we provide food for the neediest, or only eat local?  Should everything be bio-degradeable, or should everything be made of untainted material?  And while none of these questions are "either/or," nobody gets to have it both ways.

But, in fact, Whole Foods gets to have it their way.  With that response, we quickly put the Kibosh on the corn-based packaging, for better or worse.  Instead we'll use something that either breeds war in the Middle East (petro-chemicals), or is making it harder to breath (cardboard).  Boy, it sure is tough to have a bleeding heart these days.  Nobody wants to clean up the blood stains....

On an entirely other note, a great British organization has contacted Peeled Snacks about getting the word out about safely managing weight.  They've a website, entitled (obviously enough) http://www.safeslimming.co.uk/,  and it's got some juicy advice.  I especially appreciate their insights about sugar, but I'm sort of an anti-sugar junkie....

Posted by iankusc at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a staff meeting a couple of weeks ago we all sat around toying with a problem that's been haunting us for quite some time- with great weather comes temperatures.... so how do you keep the darn chocolate from melting?  Imagine- the Cocoa bean only grows in the tropics, but "Chocolate" is completely unsuitable a creation for warm climates.  How on earth did that wonderful stuff ever get invented?!?!

A few years ago I journeyed to India where, as not too big a chocoholic, I didn't really notice the derth of Baby Ruths until I journeyed up from the plains to the hill stations.  While the low-lying lands swelter and boil, the mile-high hill stations have that sweet-spot weather: not too hot, not to cold.  And to celebrate, said hill stations sell a lot of chocolate.  A LOT!  Given that it was India the chocolate all tasted like curry and cardomon, but at least they had it.

I suppose that chocolate is a fruit that you sell where you can, and therefore it has no hold over the beach communities, no place on the boardwalk, no home in Cancun or Thailand or Cabo.  My taste buds love ice cream, but my brain buds have trouble figuring out why ice cream cones and the beach go hand in hand, yet chocolate walks alone.  Why should brain freeze be okay, yet sticky, chocolate coated fingers NOT be?

And yet, this simple conundrum poses a challenge not simply to my nearly chocolate-free brain (that stuff gives me zits), but also to the Peeled Snacks distribution engine.  Last Summer we suffered about 20 angry phone calls from Shock-olate fans complaining about melted nut bags before we finally got the genius idea of shipping in cooled containers.  But MAN was that expensive.  And sometimes it didn't even help.

And yet I'm quite sure that every 7-11, every Rite-Aid, every Quickie-Mart out there will this Summer certainly suffer several Snickers, will move many a musketeer (3 at a time), will roll out reams of Rolos, all thanks to the hundred or so devoted distributors (the guys with the trucks) who'll hastily cart cooled candy bars from town to town insuring no shortage in the chocolate supply.

Sigh, to have the cheap chocolate-infused musculature of Hershey, Inc., to have to firepower of M&M/Mars (who apparently have interplanetary power, what with their Martian factory and all).  If only we had a FRACTION of their trucks (and/or space trucks, I guess), we 'd fill every bodega from here to San Diego with Shock-olate, the discerning chocoholic's snack of choice.

Instead, we're taking the saddest road out of the summer-resort town: we're discountinuing Shock-late....

Now, hold on, stop THROWING things at my HEAD!!  And you, you there, put down the gun, PLEASE!  It'll only be discontinued so long as the heat lasts, probably till early September.  The moment we can move it without it melting all over the countryside, we will.  I know, I know, everybody suffers.  But really, we're NOT so big as Hershey's, we're no Nestle, we're not even a Butterfinger....

....yet. 

An ode to chocolate:

I bought a bar, a dark, milky bar,

for which I had to travel far.

From on the shores of Gujarat

where white sands blow and blow real hot,

through deserts wide and full of cobras,

(I sure was thirsty, but I found there no sodas).

Over canyons I leaped about bounded,

(once I was by hyenas surrounded!),

till the feet of tallest peaks I founded!

They I climbed and searched throughout,

through blasting monsoon and burning drought,

up cliffs, past boulders, through avalanche,

(and one night an eagle ate my pants!)

till long at last I found a town,

where chocolate finally could be found.

I paid my rupis, 80 per bar,

and then looked out towards home: so far!

Back I turned, cliffs down I climbed,

(the trip back was easier- I daresay well timed)

((though once by a ghost I somehow got slimed)),

and over the canyon and back through the Thar,

MAN, by the end had I travelled far!

At last I have come to share with you THE treat.

You'll find it delicious,  you'll find it SO sweet!

You'll love me, adore me, for bringing this to you,

For bringing you chocolate, for bringing you, DOH!!....

...sigh... 

For bringing you this melted puddle of goo...

Enjoy your chocolate while you got it,

EN (Peeled Skinny) 

Posted by iankusc at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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)

Okay, I have this friend, a DEAR friend, a man for whom I hold tremendous respect.  He's an entrepreneur, and a successful professional actor, a great guy, and a truly fantastic karaoke-er.  He had me and some other friends over to his swank Central Park West pad last weekend for some relaxation and PG-13 fun, during which he introduced me to....

"AGEL" 

From the website; 

"Athletes use gels to pound carbs right before competition or in the middle of a race. What if anyoneother could pound nutritional supplements in the same way—when it's most convenient for them? Could a highly accessible delivery system like the one athletes use be versatile enough to work with consumable products?

The answer launched a powerful new delivery mechanism called Suspension Gel Technology."

I know the writing ain't pretty, but they make up for it with TECHNOLOGY!  Suspension Gel Technology, huh? Well, let's take a look at what's "suspended" inside one of their little capsules, the one called "UMI"....

In a  21 gram serving (.75 oz), you get Fucoidan, a seeweed extract proven by the japanese to actually kill lymphoma cells.  You also get some Apple Cider Vinegar.  Under "Other Ingredients," you'll find Water, Fructose (read: sugar), Malic Acid (an artificial flavor), Citric Acid (which, contrary to popular belief, ISN'T vitamin C but IS a natural preservative), Xanthan Gum  and Guar Gum (thickening agents), "Natural Flavoring" (whatever that is), and Sodium Benzoate, a preservative that we use for our figs.

Now let's look at the amounts:  The "Good" stuff, being the Fucoidan and Apple Cider Vinegar, amounts to 235 MILLIgrams, making it just over 1% of the contents.  The rest of it is sugar, water, and stuff that makes you think that you're eating more than sugar and water. 

The packaging promises that "UMI" is a powerful punch of Fucoidan, and offers a "wealth of benefits," though specifics are tough to come by.  Of the line of 6 Suspension Gels, one boasts a littany of added vitamins, but all of them are basically made of sugar, water, thickening stuff, and.... something else- vitamins, seaweed, ginseng, whatever.  The promises are bold, the packaging schnazzy, the product....

Well, come to think of it, I haven't tried the product.  If I'm going to be able to properly address it, I'd better put my belly to the test, so here goes, I am now ripping open said "UMI" and getting .008 ounces of Fucoidan....

Wow.  I feel like somebody did something in my mouth that I really didn't want them to do.  It's gunk, allright, and the packaging is such that you really do splurt it into your eat hole.  Overall, that was a frighteningly unpleasant experience.  However, if I happen to have lymphoma (do you hear me Fred Thompson?), then I'm at least .008 ounces closer to being protected from it.

It tastes, for the record, as if someone's trying to cover up the flavor of pencil shavings with a gross, artificial Green Apple concoction.  Said shavings are somewhat masked, but there's just enough of a hint to make me nervous.  So it's got a frightening texture, an unnerving (though not awful) taste, and dubious nutritiounal value.  Why, exactly, is it here?

Well, for one, it's being marketed through a "Network Marketing" system.  That is to say, people that sell it aren't actually selling it- they're just trying to get OTHER people to sell it, from which they get residuals, much like Avon or Amway or Albania.  No offence to Amway or Avon- they're cool, I think.  And I feel bad for Albania- they got BURNED.  Networking Marketing works wonders for high margin products, and AGel's certainly that.

AGel's packaging is definitely dangerously slick, and I can see a jogger slipping one of the packs into a pocket for portage, taking it out when he/she needs to "go to 11", and then casually littering said attractive package (but, it's so small, who'll notice?).  But the real attraction is the notion that this food is as functional as it gets- it's food without that pesky, you know, "FOOD" in the way- just the nutrition, or energy, or the sexy ginseng, or the cancer-killing seaweed agent.

Can you see why I'm upset that a dear friend of mine is involved in peddling this purported "pocket rocket"?  AGel is, to put it bluntly, huckstering the "Anti-Peeled Snack"- something that eliminates "food," that gets beyond "ingredients," that's so OVER agriculture.  It's the way of the future, man, it's Soylent  Green! 

It's proof that man is greater than his/her creator, because we can, through "science," root the sin out of the apple, the slither out of the serpent.  We can do better than food, we can do better than "seaweed."  We can do better than GOD!

I just have to find a way to root the "AGel" out of my buddy.  I know that there are people out there that believe that "Funcitonal Food" is the way, and that's fine.  Good for them.  They'll make some chemists very happy and rich.  Our target market is people that like to, you know....

...."chew." 

Keep Chewing,

Ian, Peeled Skinny 

Posted by iankusc at 02:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night, the Peeled Team went to check out a showdown between Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan (he of The Omivore's Dilemma), and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who Pollan ferociously took to task in his New York Times Bestseller.  The event took place at The University of Caifornia, Berkeley's 2,000 seat Zellerbach Hall, which usually hosts theater and dance and opera and the like.  Last night, it hosted a power point presentation and some chit chat.

But rarely has chit-chat been SOOO entertaining.  We were treated to about 2 hours worth of back and forth from two of the most influencial foodies of our time.  Hmmm.  There's an interesting notion.  "Our Time" is one that has room enough for several foodies.  No more rabid focus on Julia Childs or Alice Waters.  Now the pot is thickened with a multitude of opinions about just how much food should be in food, how organic is organic, and what's the future of fish in the sea.

But the evening started out with a lecture on hunting and gathering.  Huh?  When Pollan gave up the stage to Mackey, Mr. CEO put before us a macro-history of eating.  I suppose in some respect he was trying to frame the "big picture", but more than anything he was trying to gain a little sympathy.  He had, after all, wandered into a room full of people who had read Pollan's partly-anti-Whole Foods book.  And he was, after all, in Berkeley California, where hissing is an art form.

Sympathy he earned, through plain speaking, broad perspective, clear points, and a cheerfully intellectual take on all that we eat.  Going in I certainly carried none of the anti-Mackey prejudices bared by most of the audience, but walking out I considered myself a Mackey-fan. 

After the slide show, which also gave Mackey a chance to curry some favor thanks to his anouncement of a couple of bold initiatives for foodies and bleeding hearts, the two sat down for a tet-a-tet.  Pollan asked some civil questions (and some politely uncivil ones), but it took a while for a real conversation to get going.  They agree on a lot, like the dreadful state of the meat industry, and the disasterous consequences of over fishing.  But agreements make for boring talk.

The battlezones were mostly about the consequences of big business organics, which Mackey believes can be done responsibly, but which Pollan assumes will quickly dilute the value of Organic.  In an interesting concession, Pollan imagined what the world would be like if Coca-Cola when Organic (it'd be better.  Only slightly.  Mostly on corn farms.  Corn farms still suck).

For us at Peeled Snacks, such an engagement is better than the Super Bowl or the Oscars or the Premier of Indiana Jones part IV.  Here are two big thinkers bashing their heads together, chomping at each other, yet finding common ground, all in the public arena.  Thanks so much to the new Peeled Snacks team member, Matt, for snagging us the tickets.  He had a dentist's appointment, so he couldn't go.  Boy did he get the lousy part of that deal.

Both speakers really took to task the American meat industry, and I walked out of there seriously considering a return to vegetarianism (which, for the record, almost killed my northern-european rooted self).  Yet Mackey eloquently spoke to my reaction by saying that his consumers don't want to know all the terrible things there are to know about food-  there are so few options for getting good, responsibly grown meat, yet dining without meat would really suck.

The biggest, most interesting battle, and the only one which actually elicited hisses from the audience, occured around the COST of organic and local food.  Asked what Whole Foods can do for poor people with poor eating habits, Mackey tepidly offered that Americans are getting richer, and soon they'll all be able to buy all the organic, locally grown, nutrient rich, fair trade food that they want.

Boy did he look at the floor a lot when he was rolling out that spiel, and the Berkeley audience gave him a severe hissing for it.  Let's face it- health food is a luxury right now.  The cheapest thing to eat is corn syrup (thanks to government subsidies), which will keep you alive but will rot your brain.  To assume that eventually the huge gap between wealthy and poor in America will just naturally close is akin to assuming that pigs will one day fly.  Sure, it's possible, but it'll take a HECK of a lot of catapults.

Afterward the show we joined up with fellow foodie and friend Dana, the Queen of Goat Milk Ice Cream.  She offered this interesting insight into John Mackey:

He's a Vegan.

The nation's most influential grocer, a man who impacts decisions that determine the fates of MILLIONS of animals per month, doesn't even eat cheese.  I find that a scary, scary thought.  Sure, he's right- the meat industry scares the be-jeezus out of me too...  But I don't want to give it up.  Sigh

Ian "Peeled Skinny" K 

Posted by iankusc at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

California's suffered an odd winter this year, as Los Angeles received, gasp, snowfall, yet San Francisco has its driest January EVER.  Somehow, the Bush regime BS tact of renaming Global Warming "Global Climate Change" seems oddly apt as all those Angelinos huddle by their car engines (the city's only source of heat, I think).  The Bay area just got  its first blast of rain, though that hardly corrects the "change".

If anyone reading this wonders what on Earth the weather has to do with snacks,  then said person hasn't been paying attention.  To anything.  Two Fridays ago, an announcement by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change basically amounted to an attempt to say "the discussion is over.  This is happening, and it's our fault.  Now, what do we do about it." 

The White House's reaction? "We agree with it, and the science behind it is something that our country has played a very important role in," or so says U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.  Of course, this is the same Samuel Bodeman who, after Katrina hit, stated...

"We are committed to doing everything in our power to meet the immediate needs of those directly affected by Hurricane Katrina." Of course, he was speaking about oil company executives, but if words were deeds, he'd really seem like just the sweetest guy.

Anyway, all this chatting about weather and the environment and vulgar lies reminds me of the great state of California's tradition of pushing the cultural envelope.  Before dumping into the sea, this nation of ours (sometimes yours) takes some daring strides towards re-invention.  For 150 years,  the vangaurds of social change have used California as a testbed, sometimes progressing (John Muir, anyone?), sometimes impressing (HOLLYWOOD!), sometimes depressing (Nixon comes from here).

But the legacy's a dubious one.  After all, this is where "Car Culture" truly found its footing, and thanks to the highway system, you can no find ample parking in the rush-hour traffic all over the state.  In spite of whatever claims to environmentalism Cali might have, the Military Industial Complex has hooks deep into the state.  And for all the parks put up here, soil erosion and habitat destruction receive no reprieve.

Furthermore, most impacting on California, at least as far as we're concerned, are the labor policies.  I suppose that's a way of saying "most impacting one Peeled Snacks", but whatever.  All the people here don't amount to enough people to pick all the pears off the trees come harvest season, so the crop spoils, and "Shock-olate" suffers, as the farmers proved last November when they dumped several tons of wasted crops on the Whitehouse lawn.
 
A former part of Mexico, California now protects itself as best it can from "illegals", yet the whole day worker culture runs on them.  And while California is often considered the great socialist experiment, the homeless problem here is out of control, and most of its citizenry suffer from the same Health Insurance mess as the rest of the country.  The ideals and intents just don't match the reality.  Though, in all fairness, at least here they're trying.  Texas can't brag as much.

California's put a couple of presidents up there, but they were both Republicans.  Yet somehow the state is perceived as a liberal home.  Hippy culture started here (though surely its roots run to New York soil), yet so did porn culture.  Is this place liberal, or libertarian, agrarian conservative, or inclusively socialist, or just the dystopian urban landscape run amok as predicted by "Blade Runner"....?

Well I'll tell you one thing- it's a great place to sell Peeled Snacks, and an even greater place to avoid the snow storms of the East Coast.... 

Posted by iankusc at 02:25 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)

This past weekend, we here at Peeled Snacks World Headquarters took a little field trip to go see Richard Linklater's newest gab-fest, Fast Food Nation.  We've all obviously read the book (vigorously nodding our heads in agreement at every page turn), and we'd all seen at least SOME (I've seen them all) of Richard Linklater's flicks.  So we all hid our Peeled Snacks in our jackets (BBC for me), found our seats in one the 3 New York theaters still playing the film (it's done poorly), and took in the show.

What would you expect from a fictionalization of a non-fiction expose', huh?  Would you expect characters barraging you with facts and figures, and the villification of dastardly Fast Food Executives?  I went in expecting some tirades and polemics, and angry characters shaking their fists at every golden arch past which they drove.  I expected to see secrets exposed, and society shaken up by some anti-french-fry revolution....

Nope.  Nothing in the film like that.  Nothing at all....

Where the book is a disclosure of what's going on in an industry run amok, the film is a different bird entirely.  It's not a documentary, and not "info-tainment".  Rather, it's a humanization, an attempt to analyze the impact that the fast food industry has on people.  Linklater's film casts a wide net which catches up Fast Food execs, Mexican immigrants, idealistic liberals, conservative ranchers, jaded teenagers, and regular American families, and he tries to paint the impact of an unscrupulous McDonalds clone on their lives.

The film centers around a Colorado meat packing plant and the discovery by a fast food exec (nicely underplayed by Greg Kinnear) that there's quite a lot of cow poop in his "Big One Burger" meat.  He investigates, rubbing shoulders with the illegal immigrants who work the plant, poor families who eat the crappy burgers, and college kids who just can't find a way to wake people up to how aweful this all is.

Linklater's made this sort of film before.  The film's scope mirrors Dazed & Confused, which meanders through the last day of high school in a Texas suburb in 1977.  That film was filled with archetypes from everyone's high school days, and it asked you to find YOURSELF in the film, and think about where you were on that day.  It was like a Japanese Tosa painting where you're supposed to figure out who you'd be in the panorama.

Unfortunately, that makes the "disaster films" of the 70s its closest film cousins.  But the effect worked for me- I associated with an uncle (played by Linklater regular Ethan Hawke) who rolls into town and tries to inspire his niece to set high standards for her life (and diet).  As a marketer for, you know, this healthy snack company thing, I'm certainly eager to inspire good dietary decisions (and, apprently, good film-watching decisions as well).

But there's a strange rub in there- the most common target in the film isn't the meat processing plant (though it does come under fire), but the marketers who have to sell the crap that the plant churns out.  Greg Kinnear's character wrestles with the ethics of selling burgers filled with sh!t, even though he combs through chemical BBQ scents and thinks up BS slogans for a BS-filled burger.

But "liberal" marketing gets attacked too.  Bruce Willis pops in as a fellow Fast Food exec who defends the meat packing plant, pointing out that if you cook fecal matter, it won't kill you.  He challenges the prissy, sterilized notions of liberal foodies, and informs our sullen hero that "sometimes, we all have to eat a little sh!t."  Willis nails his delivery, and skewers the films supposedly liberal premise.

Likewise, when the college kids dream up a scheme to wake everyone up to how wrong it all is, they just can't understand why no-one gets the point.  There's an unsubtle allegory involving a bunch of cows NOT wanting to be freed from their captivity "get it?  The HERD doesn't WANT to be free...", and the puzzlement on the co-eds faces reminded me of the morning after George Bush got ellected the second time around ("you mean people really ARE that stupid?!?!").

A lot of pot-shots are taken at America today, from the abuse of eminent domain to the patriot act, from the illegal immigrant question to metha-emphetamine abuse, and all of it underscores Linklater's clear goal of using the Fast Food industry as a symbol of over-arching societal ills.  He's taking on exploitation, but is perhaps more concerned with apathy in the face of exploitation (see Borat).  Frankly he's attacking every marketer everywhere, and every schmoe that buys our stupid little spiels.

To that end, it really shouldn't be "Fast Food Nation: the Movie", it should be "Upton Sinclair's The Jungle: the Movie"- Sinclair's novel coaxed the federal government into overhauling the meat packing industry, but that wasn't Sinclair's target.  He was aiming for the impact on the PEOPLE in the industry, not the cuts of meat.  Linklater doesn't care about the statistics- he just wants you to understand the human cost.

That take on the material actually rubbed Peeled Snacks' founder and president quite wrong.  She found the film rather pointless, and was let down by the lack of any call to action (beyond a request to go to www.participate.net that played over the closing credits).  Likely many viewers expecting a rallying cry will be similarly dissappointed.  But it's a film, not a protest, and it works best as drama, not revolution.

Posted by iankusc at 11:15 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)

It's a big day here at Peeled Snacks headquarters as we all try to get our work done amidst the promise of an election day (and more importantly, the promise of the day AFTER).  We have a somewhat unwritten policy here that on election day, you either vote, or you recently got run over by a semi and are hanging by a thread at death's door.  You could, if you wish, see it as our version of bigotry or racism, except that we're prejudiced against non-voters.

Technically speaking, you don't HAVE to vote.  According to the constitution, voting is a RIGHT, as opposed to a privelage or a responsiblity.  It's something that every couple of years or so, you can feel free to partake in, much like the Olympics or James Bond movies.  You don't HAVE to go do it, though it certainly has its fans, and, oddly enough, its haters.

I certainly know plenty of people here in New York that insist that voting doesn't matter. One friend of mine insists that since New York is so overwhelmingly democratic, there's no need to vote (to him I say, Pataki?  Guiliani?).  Another says that since New York doesn't matter in the presidential races, it's not worth the time (to her I say, all politics is local; that, and move to Florida).  Today, one buddy of mine offered an interesting arguement that I found difficult to challenge- he gets nothing of value out of voting, so his time is better spent working.  Hmmm....

I wonder most of America feels about the time it wasted voting for Republicans in 2002 and 2004.  Given the costs of those votes (cost of waging two wars, cost of indulging the rich, cost of a bloated government, cost of the reputatution of the U.S., cost of the LIVES of our troops), I wonder if Ohio thinks that was all "time well spent."  Apparently, George Bush has a special mission for democrats today, and I'm sure for him that'll be time VERY well spent...

Traditionally, when it comes to fixing elections, Democrats seem to be the party guilty of fraud, whilest the Repulicans are guilty of extortion.  4,000 dead Chicagoans notoriously voted for Kennedy, while 40,000 Ohioans just didn't get to vote against Bush in 2004.  Somehow we preach the virtues of democracy abroad, but fail to implement them at home.  Our nation is actually led by a guy who didn't win, and who got his job by bullying millions out of their right to vote.  And we're trying to export this democracy stuff?

Actually, though here at Peeled Snacks you'd BETTER vote, we don't really care who you vote for.  That's  the glory of our silly little system- providing nobody cheats, eventually the kinks will work out. The pendulum goes to far that way, people will vote it back.  If it comes too far this way, WATCH OUT- it swings back the other way.  So vote, Vote, VOTE.  The system only works if you do.

But I sure do hope that the current government goes down.  Anyone still assuming that this government is doing its job hasn't been paying attention.  This congress only worked 93 days this year, an all-time low, and they spent more than any government, anywhere, EVER.  They loaded the budgets with pork, stole money when they could, and blocked any dissenters out of the political process.  Worst of all, they rubber stamped this disaster of a war, that has put some of my best friends into completely insane, life-threatening situations.  This all needs to STOP!

But whether or not that'll happen with a new government, I can't say.  I assume, though, that it's be a good start.

Posted by iankusc at 05:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm sorry, but I just found THIS to be the funniest thing since the movie AIRPLANE!..

Rachael Ray Snaps Chicken's Neck Live On Air

 
Around here at the Peeled Snacks world headquarters, we LOVE Rachael Ray.  Her impact on the world of food is huge, and we feel that she's a force of SUPER positive change- she makes quality food fun, smart, quick, and easy.  That, and she's just fun to watch.  I could say a few negative things about her too, like her ties to the East German army cast a dark cloud over the food network, and her insistence upon pronouncing shallots "Shah-Yos" drives me bonkers.  But truth be told, I would wash her dishes anytime, anywhere.

That said, this week's send-up in The Onion Magazine should be shown to all those goofballs in the Middle East, just so that they realize that we Americans have some kind of sense of humor about our rampant imperialism...

Or maybe not- I don't want them to think ill of Rachael Ray.  And I certainly don't want them to learn about her involvement in the Ethiopean/Eritrean war...

 Just had to get that off my chest. 

Posted by iankusc at 10:23 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 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)

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)

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 Peeled Snacks team made a junket out to New York state's fabulous Hamptons last week to get the word out about the glories of dried fruit, the wonders of dry-roasted nuts, and the evils of high fructose corn syrup (BOO! HISS!).  We rented a house in the woods and spent the days hopping from gourmet grocery to snack shop to farmer's market, talking with the Hamptonians (Hamptoners? Hamptonites? Hamptonizens?) and giving them a chance to try our treats.

It's not such a bad thing to sell Peeled Snacks in the Hamptons, right? I mean, it sure it beautiful out there at the far end of the southern fork of Long Island.  Water abounds in lakes, streams, bays, and, oh yeah, oceans; the towns are all picture perfect; the architecture consists of victorian classics and modern marvels; and the weather's absolutely lovely. 

I found a curious loveliness in the landscape out there- the Hampton isthmus roles out of the ocean just a bit, creates a hill or two, and then roles back into the ocean.  This makes for an odd horizonless experience- unless you're at the beach, you can't see any land features or rises to get a gauge of where you are in the world.  Thus, while out there, I constantly felt like I was on a smaller planet, one with only a small piece of land, little ocean, but a world full of sky.  I suppose I'm accustomed to seeing the horizon or things on it- I live in New York City, where you're never out of sight of a skyscraper or two.  But there are places, like the Hamptons where the world has a different shape and feel to it.

That lovely collection of towns is of course dangerously famous right now.  At the house we stayed in, some other boarders, just in from California, obsessed late into one night about which celebrities they hoped to see.  I guess living in New York City makes me rather immune to such anticipation, but I couldn't help smile widely when a certain hunky, Greek named, former advisor to president Clinton tried our snacks.

The biggest hit on our junket, though, wasn't our snacks- it was our T-shirts.  As announced in a recent newsletter, we're holding a competition to see who can come up with the snappiest T-shirt slogan for Peeled Snacks, but the current one turns plenty of heads.  We've had about 30 slogan submissions so far, and miraculously there've been no repeats yet.  Whoever comes up with the snappiest gets a free T-shirt, and we'll draw names of all contestants and send out a case of Bing Bing Cherry.

Anyway, "Peel Me" was a HUGE hit, so much so that we are now looking for a way to produce thousands of said T-shirts.  If anybody knows a good T-shirt company, drop me a line a let me know.  Flirty T-shirts are the voice of a generation of snackers, or at least will be when we get done with this next project...

 Poem for the day:

I live

on a hermit crab shell,

that my spiny host

borrowed from the sea's barnacled bottom.

When my hermit crab moves,

He drags us both with him-

Me and my world,

his shell.

We sway and bop

as he picks through the ocean's bounty,

and all the skies above

bobble too and fro.

I would think the world a tempest

of blasting winds and tides

were my hermit crab not inclined

to stop and rest

every so rare often.

Go eat a Peeled Snack in peace, and hope for some sanity to prevail in the Middle East.  Happy Monday,

 EN

Posted by iankusc at 08:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So the Peeled Snacks team (and our delightful coterie) made a substantial splash at this week's New York Fancy Food Show.  I've gone a bit into what that gustatory mess was all about in other blog entries, but I've yet to unveil the "why" behind the Peeled Snacks splash.

Well sure, it could be that our splash was caused by just how darn good our snacks happen to be.  Oh, and it could be that everybody at the show turned their heads thanks to our snazzy packaging (in 2006, you too can use the word "snazzy").  And of course it could be Oprah's face, beaming out from posters festooned around our exhibit booth- after all, EVERYbody loves Oprah.

But none of those splashy things made as much of an impression as the silly, sexy T-shirts that we wore.  Our team wandered around the show wearing fitted  baseball T-shirts that said "Peel Me."  The back shows our hip little demonstration of the "Peel, Mix, & Enjoy" method of eating Peeled Snacks, and it sure looks good.

But "Peel Me"?  Heads turned everywhere we went.  It's a simple innuendo, really, and could easily be dismissed as propaganda from the powerful Idaho Potato lobby.  But when smeared across one of our intern's chests, or festooned upon our most excellently sexy president (I can say that because I married her), it becomes a dangerous guerilla marketing weapon of head turning, giggle-inducing shock and awe.

Some reactions: when walking through midtown Manhattan, one wearer passed a gentlemen who made a distinct "Peeling" gesture in her direction, accompanied by a sort of whipping sound...

While hanging out at our booth, another wearer was approached by a fellow conventioneer who inquired, "well where do you want me to start peeling?"

During a particularly busy rush, a woman approached me and asked, "Is what's underneath edible?"

Of course those are particularly gratuitous examples.  Most people just blushed, or asked what the heck the "Peel Me" was all about.  One way or another, those shirts made many a ripple, and our booth was hounded by inquirers lured out by six powerful, naughty letters.

Poem for the day:

I just need to say

I left my peeler at home.

May I use my teeth?

Do what the shirt says

And you'll wind up arrested.

Where's the fun in that?!?! 

-en 

Posted by iankusc at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Are you a New York Times reader?  If so, if not, check out Sunday's NYT Business section page on for a lovely little big of smoke screening about high fructose corn syrup.  In case you need a link, try...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/business/yourmoney/02syrup.html?_r=1&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fW%2fWarner%2c%20Melanie&oref=slogin

The article, courtesy of NYT Business section staff writer Melanie Warner, proposes that the recent demonization of high fructose corn syrup is based on bunk science, and that it's really no more harmful than good old refined sugar.  Ms. Warner takes care to cite many a scientist and food expert about the health effects of HFCS, constantly correlating them to the rise in obesity, but insisting that the chemical makeup of HFCS just can't be the cause for such a, ahem, ballooning.

Hats off, Ms. Warner, for utterly, completely, pathetically missing the point.  I'll get right out and admit to having enjoyed MANY of Ms. Warner's articles lately (her Wal-Mart organic article is a stitch).  When I saw that she was taking on HFCS, I thought that there might be much to learn from her, or entertainment value at the least.  What I read was a 2,933 word explanation about how corn syrup is our sweet, processed friend, and we shouldn't give it such a hard time for being so sweet.

Forget the sweet.  Real critics of HFCS don't waste their time with such nonsense.  Sweet is sweet, however you get it, and sometimes it's too sweet, sometimes not sweet enough, and sometimes, oh yeah, it's just the sweetest sweet ever.

 The beef with corn syrup isn't the sweet, it's the CHEAP.  The United States government in a bid to prop up our agricultural sector heavily subsidizes corn and its byproducts.  Between 1995 and 2004, corn subsidies in the U.S. totaled $41.9 billion.  That's hardly chump-change.  This year congress passed a $190 billion farm subsidy package, over a fifth of which is targeted at corn subsidies (and yet somehow the democrats are considered fiscally irresponsible?).  That money is all aimed at supporting what was until the civil war 70% of our economy, and now represents less than 1%- agriculture.

Our proud heritage of agrarianism, however, has its costs when super-processed products like HFCS are the most supported output- products with HFCS become CHEAP.  REAL cheap.  So cheap that there's really no reason to buy anything else.  The ever-swelling poor masses of our great country end up buying goodies loaded with HFCS because it's all that they can afford.  They eat it, they get NOTHING from it (no satisfaction, no nutrition) except calories, and they go out and buy more.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is not food poisoning- it's social and economic poisoning.  I won't even bother with the wastefulness behind processing the heck out of any given product- others' arguments are surely more sound.  Consider, though, that in the 1930s Americans spent as much as  22% of their money on food.  Today, we spend less than 6%. That money I assume has been reallocated into places like housing, automobile expenses, and body armor.  It's certainly not going into the very fabric of one's body, and it's certainly not doing much for the American farmer.

Ms. Warner wasted an opportunity to open up an argument by taking advantage of an opportunity to close an argument.  I expect better from the writers and editors of the New York Times.  They aren't supposed to put the lid on things; they're supposed to blow the lids off!

 Poem for the day

Black and white summer smear

inching down my chin like a snail,

half chocolate, have vanilla,

like 1859 Virginia, 

all good, guaranteed by the sweaty man

smiling in the ice cream truck,

oh smear, of what are you made?

From the churned white nectar

of satisfied bovines humming and cooing

amongst the tall grasses of summer?

Or are you made from the mashed, dashed,

split, ruined, pulped, spun, dunked, thrashed,

spoiled, soiled, flushed, smushed remnants

of ears of corn long gone? 

Posted by iankusc at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)