Fuel for the Next Generation

I remember when I was in school, a long, long time ago, the food served was pretty edible. I actually looked forward to "pizza Friday", those long rectangle pieces of crust with those little brown mystery meat bits, and the rubbery cheese. I thought overall the food was decent. Evidently this is not the case for our next generation. My kids have complained about the school's food since day one. I just figured they were being picky and never gave it much thought. Whenever they would complain I'd stop it by telling them to bring me evidence. Well after years of going thru this, my son finally did.
He got in the car after school and proudly produced a wad of tin foil. He'd saved a specimen from his breakfast tray that morning. I opened it up, and there was a clump of scrambled egg. Or at least what may pass for it in the public school system. It had a green hue to it and smelled really "gamey". It looked gelatinous and weird. I honestly would never entertain the thought of putting that little wad of egg in my mouth. It was horrible. My son informed me that this was standard fair in the cafeteria.

Has something really went terribly wrong in the cafeterias of our schools? I don't ever remember having anything that looked remotely like that egg. I remember making jokes about what meat was in the hamburgers and how it's funny there were no stray dogs around the school. But the burgers were edible. I never thought I'd have to pack Immodium extra strength in their snacks to combat the effects of that days lunch. It's really kind of scary once you think about it all. We are feeding our leaders of tomorrow mystery eggs and who knows what other kind of culinary abominations! These people are going to be picking out our nursing home, I say it's just smart business to feed them a little better.

That's got WHAT in it?!?

I found out today what was in the Filet O' Fish at McDonald's. But first off, let me say that I never eat anything that has a name separated by a giant "o", it's just gross, filet "O" fish, bucket "O" crap, and so on. You get my point. I don't even know why they named a sandwich that in the first place, what's wrong with "fish sandwich", direct and to the point, informative too. I guess they want to throw in the "Filet" to make you think it's snazzier than it really is. The fish they chop up and form into those little golden deep fried squares is called a Hoki fish. It's the ugliest damn thing to come out of the ocean since David Hasselhoff. I mean it looks like some kind of aquatic parasite. When I saw that fish, the last thing that was going thru my mind was to slap a piece of cheese on that sucker and stick it on a hamburger bun. Mmm-Mmm!!

Another great item to read the ingredients on are those little beef sticks you find by the cash register at the gas station. I swear some contain "beef lips" and "mechanically separated chicken". WHAT? First off, when they say beef, why don't they just say cow? Is there other meat that is called beef that isn't from a cow? Or does cow lips sound too horrifying to eat? I always think of the last time I saw a cow in the field, I really didn't notice if he had lips or not. I guess everything does, and this poor animal's lips end up in meat sticks that rednecks hork down with their beer.

And how does one go about mechanically separating a chicken? Does that mean that the animal is torn from stem to stern by a machine? Again, to horrifying to put on a label of something you WANT people to eat. I'm just shocked that PETA isn't all over those people. They've got protesters all over from the circus to the KFC but the snack industry can "separate" chickens and rip the lips off cows and stick them in a meat stick and no one blinks and eye?

Like potted meat. That doesn't sound so bad, except if you read the ingredients, if they named things like McDonald's does, it would be "can O' eyeballs and assholes". Seriously, have you ever read the ingredients before you sit down with a big ole juicy potted meat sandwich, trust me, if you do, the sandwich will go to the dog or anything else the household that cannot read. That's just an example of the weird crap that's in our food. And we just gobble it up by the truck load never bothering to read the ingredients.

When it comes to certain foods I am willing to take the bad with the good. When it comes to peanut butter and chocolate, I'd eat it no matter what I was told it was made of. My son told me the other day that every jar of peanut butter contained a percentage of cockroach parts from the manufacturing plant. He also waited to inform me of this AFTER I'd eaten my second pound of peanut butter for the day. But then it really hasn't stopped me. I say bring on the bugs, nothing will keep me from the foods I like. I guess ignorance really is bliss, if that's the case, I should be the happiest freakin person on the planet.