Wellness Ham

food advertising gone wrong, meat gone wrong

I don’t know about you, but when I think of “wellness,” “health food,” and “yoga facing a waterfall while my pert behind is being photographed,” the next thing on my mind is increasing my consumption of processed pork. But not just any pork — no, it has to be softly scalloped and thinly sliced pork, pork so ethereal it is crowned the ham of the month, or, as the text on the package has it, “the especially light ham indulgence.”

I’m so looking forward to “fasting salami” and “meditation meatballs.”

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Pumpkin Spice Hummus

pumpkin spice gone wrong, snack food gone wrong, supermarket food gone wrong

Ever wonder what happens when two formerly separate categories of food industry abomination converge? What that Venn-diagram-of-tastebud-horror overlap looks like? Well, wonder no more. You’ve seen chocolate hummus. You’ve seen pumpkin spice everything. It was only a matter of time.

Here is some “pumpkin spice hummus,” which — to channel Linda Richman of Coffee Talk fame — is neither pumpkin, nor spice, nor hummus. Discuss amongst yourselves! I’m gonna go look for some buddah.

 

Thanks to Alison for this!

Pumpkin Spice Beemster

cheese gone wrong, pumpkin spice gone wrong

Okay, guys, I think I’ve figured it out. Pumpkin spice is — well, it’s like a zombie virus from an apocalyptic movie. At first you find it in your coffee and you think, what in heck is going on, but surely I can avoid this by not buying ridiculous coffee. Then it starts to make its way into your cereal, your cookies, your popcorn, your pasta… until finally, every last cheese is infected with it too. Until the final scene, in which a variety of pumpkin-spice-loaded foods are lomping through the landscape, killing innocent humans by suffocating them with lethal quantities of nutmeg. I have seen the future, and it is terrifying. And aromatic. Terrifying, and aromatic.

Thank you to Susan for spotting this in the wild!

Strawberry Chardonnay Cheddar

cheese gone wrong, fancy food gone wrong

Friends, this has gotten out of control. Now, I like pink as much as everyone. A hot summer is made more bearable by a glass of rosé. Pink hair can be kind of punk. And cupcakes? Well, I’m glad that particular trend for tasteless sugar bombs seems to be dying out, but at least you were never surprised by them. You got cupcakes because you went into an overpriced cupcake store and bought them. Cupcakes did not surprise you by appearing inside paella pans or biryanis. You had to want them.

But now we have a cheddar cheese which can only have been made because someone thought cheddar itself was not good enough. Cheddar had to be like a cupcake and a glass of rosé at once. Otherwise it wouldn’t be “fancy”. Seriously, how hard is it to eat cheddar? Is it that unbearable for the adult palate? What kind of cheddar does your “artisanal” company make that you think it could be improved by putting pink fruit bits in it?

Okay, I’m going to go sit in the corner and breathe deeply now.

 

Thanks to Nicola for this impressive find. So fancy. Much fancy.

Pumpkin spice season has begun

desserts gone wrong, food advertising gone wrong, holiday food gone wrong, pumpkin spice gone wrong

There are the pumpkins. There are the fall-reddened maple leaves. And there’s the blob of diarrhea-like pudding that claims to be pumpkin spice Jell-o. Lots of artificial flavor, NO artificial sweeteners — so you know it’s healthy. Same great taste as — as what? As pumpkin spice that grows in the wild?

 

Thank you to Jenna for this photo, which in the epic catalogue of pumpkin spice-flavored food, is not even that bad.

Four-dollar Egg

food shopping gone wrong, food storage gone wrong, snack food gone wrong, supermarket food gone wrong

I don’t know what’s the worst thing about this.

Is it the fact that they’ve boiled and peeled an egg, added some fixin’s, and gave it a 2700% markup?

Is it the over-the-top protein concentration for people who probably don’t need any more protein?

Is it the fact that a naturally-packaged product has been unpackaged and then repackaged with environment-killing plastic?

Or is it that I would probably buy this three times a week if I had ready access?

 

Thanks to Emily Coit for the photo!