Food Porn: Little Debbie is a Tramp (from March 2008)

I’m sitting at home on Friday night, researching submission guidelines for a regional magazine, trying to write something funny because they want funny. Trying to be funny is frustrating; after a handful of bittersweet losses and three years into a possible decade of hormonal upset, I’m not feeling so very funny right now. I roll my wheeled yoga kneeler the short distance - two tiles back and three to the left - from the computer to the kitchen counter, and dejectedly pluck parts off a freshly roasted bird cooling at eye level. No need to get up.

I spent the entire afternoon in Harris Teeter, mostly reading labels in the bread section. Regular people don’t have time to do this. But I can do my job better when I know what the hell I’m talking about, and I’m supposed to be an expert at label-reading. Harris Teeter has a decent bread selection if you’re not European or hip to hard-core, whole-grain goodness. Next month, I’ll provide my Wellness class participants with fourteen healthy bread choices - none of which (most people in class will think but will keep to themselves) compare favorably to Bunny Bread when it comes to building a homegrown tomato sandwich slathered with Duke’s mayonnaise. By the way, Duke’s - the only naturally sugar-free mayo on the market - is a true southern delicacy, having been born and raised in Mauldin, South Carolina.

I have to disagree about the Bunny Bread. When it comes to white, I’m a Little Miss Sunbeam girl. An old lover said he slept with the original Little Miss Sunbeam in New York City back in the ‘eighties. He said the same thing about other famous women, and I always doubted his claims. But Little Miss Sunbeam, now, that’s feasible; something about that historic coupling rings true.

I’m a Community Health Educator. That means I teach people how to live longer and feel better, to cop a phrase from the late Dr. Linus Pauling, the world’s first and foremost Vitamin C expert. I personally believe in C, but only take it during the onslaught of a righteous cold. Then I methodically take up to 20 grams (that’s right, grams) throughout the day, and continue the Bowel Tolerance Challenge until an upset stomach tells me to stop. How cool is that? Can you picture the TV commercial? “The side effect of taking a mega-dose of Vitamin C as a cure for the common cold is diarrhea.” Hmmm...no erectile dysfunction or permanent hair loss? Gee. It probably doesn’t work, then.

Today I spent the afternoon in Harris Teeter researching basic food labels. I dream and pray that most people feed their kids sensible food: trans-fat free peanut butter on whole wheat toast with some organic apple slices, homemade chocolate chip cookies baked thin and crispy, a glass of vanilla Rice Dream over ice, magic whole wheat noodles with broccoli trees, olive oil and parmesan cheese for dinner. Really, how long does it take to make these things? And then I realize it’s not so much about timing as about knowledge. I better get my shit together and figure out how to make good nutrition standard practice in every household, and build that practice to the point of desire. Make ‘em want the healthy stuff. ‘Broccoli good, broccoli good,’ says the wee one. And mommy listens.

Eggs: 12 happy organic brown, $4.19; 18 sad white, $2.89; hard sell to a single mom feeding three kids on turnip blood. I make a mental note to mention the local farmer’s market and move on.

Applesauce; canned crushed tomatoes; old fashioned Cheerios… these things are affordable, even likeable… brown rice; balsamic vinegar; olive oil…a little weird for some Southerners, but affordable and user-friendly. I fumble with my glasses and grab my calculator. Are they gonna listen when I tell ‘em that Minute Maid Lemonade has more sugar per serving than Mountain Dew? Just how many more children will be sacrificed to chronic, life-threatening diseases? Water, people!

I’ve been in the store for two hours, and the aisles are getting crowded with the after-work crush. It’s time to wrap this project up - but first a quick visit to the cookie and cracker section. Triscuits make the cut. Wheat Thins, no. Goldfish and Ak Maks are OK. Sorry, no Cheez-Its – what a freakin’ crying shame. For a moment I stand quietly, holding what could be my own box and mourning the loss of Cheez-Its as a revered snack food in my life. In my opinion, Get Your Own Box is the greatest junk food slogan of all time. Cheez-Its go very well with Cheerwine, an authentic Southern soft drink that used to be made with cane sugar - no redundant High Fructose Corn Syrup in Cheerwine – until they copped out.

Can you hear it? An original jingle featuring three hard-driving junk foods takes shape in my snack-deprived brain: Cheez-Its, a Cheerwine and a chewy Slim Jim! I snap my fingers, shuffle my feet; I swoon, I know I do. Crazy? Oh, yeah. I’m brimming over with crazy after two hours of label-reading, and I haven’t reached the cookie section yet.

I’m dead serious about cookies, and so is the Lady in Waiting at the end of the aisle. She smiles innocently, this familiar face; she’s a middle-aged woman now, one who still dresses like a ‘50’s schoolgirl; she encourages grown men to engage in forbidden orgies; she beckons them from their beds in the middle of the night: she’s the obscene snack queen known as Little Debbie, and she’s a torrid food tramp devoid of nutritional value. Her Honeybuns feature not one partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, but two. She might as well be half-naked on a street corner in your neighborhood offering her irresistibly addictive charms to a slobbering, sleepwalking John.

I think about her Nutty Bars – my favorite childhood Little Debbie snack -and I feel the slickness of her waxy fake chocolate in my mouth. I pick up the box, read the label, and wonder if I can advise someone to never choose from Little Debbie’s menu of sheer delights. It feels treacherous, anti-American somehow. She’s so transparent, so truthful. Little Debbie is a hard core food slut, and she doesn’t hide it. She tells the truth in terms we can understand. But I don’t want her in my kitchen. You probably don’t want her near your husband or children.

I head home with organic chicken, a bottle of wine, and a bag of ginger snaps, most of which mysteriously disappear as I ponder, research, and write on this Friday night, as I try to be funny.

PLByrd