You and What Army

MMMM... AIRLINE FOOD!

    By now, it's a clichéd cliché to make fun of airline food, and yet I can’t resist.  I've gotten so used to airlines not serving meals that I packed my own dinner for the flight to São Paulo.  And that was an excellent move -- American Airlines does serve a meal on the flight, but only in the broadest sense of the word "meal."  The choices were beef lasagna or chicken with mashed potatoes, which really runs the gamut from A to B.
    These were accompanied by a small white plastic tub containing a few wilted sheets of lettuce still clinging to stalks as thick as redwoods, topped by two slices of tomato that, in texture, color and flavor, resembled cross-sections of a Nerf ball.  All this was topped by a snowy dusting of an unknown tasteless white powder.  If you were so inclined, you could enliven this travesty of nature with something called "Naturally Fresh Olive Oil and Vinegar Dressing," to which they added the helpful advice, "Pour It On ®."  Yes, that's right, they have registered a trademark for the phrase "pour it on."  (To their credit, the salad dressing miraculously did not contain preservatives, hence "naturally fresh."  However, it did contain more soybean oil than olive oil.)  The rubbery bread was augmented by a concoction called "Land O Lakes Buttery Taste Spread," which of course has no butter in it.  It was nasty.
    But all this was nothing compared to the "cheese ravioli" on the way back, a revolting, glutinous mass that would have given any self-respecting Italian a heavy dose of air rage.  I rue the inevitable day when they prohibit passengers from bringing their own food, or worse yet, charge them by the pound

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

    As I've previously noted, at the Japanese place where I get my take-out sushi, they routinely ask for your name and phone number.  I really cannot, for the life of me, understand what this achieves.  So of course I rebel against the invasive practice.  The most hilarious part is keeping a straight face as I say these names to the lady behind the cash register and then spell them out.  With phone numbers like (646) 464-6464 and (212) 121-2121, I think they might be onto me now, but they still haven't cottoned to the names.

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES

          Just spotted an ad on the side of a city bus that reads "Get your vitamins from an amber bottle, not from a bottle of cola." Now, I agree, it is ridiculous, pathetic and maybe a little obscene that people think they can obtain useful nutrition from toxic, gut-rotting junk like the vitamin-enhanced Diet Coke Plus. But has anyone ever considered the possibility of getting your vitamins from the food you eat?
          Sheesh.

MEAT HEADS

The uproar over eating the meat of cloned animals is such a supreme idiot-fest, it makes my head spin. Obviously, the meat of cloned animals is no different from any other kind of meat -- it's all just hunks of carcass.

Besides, nobody's being asked to eat cloned animals anyway -- cloned animals are too precious to slaughter. People would be eating the offspring of cloned animals, and if anyone can detect whether an animal is the offspring of a clone, I will vote Redumblican in 2008.

But the real question is this: If these superstitious simpletons are so finicky about eating the meat of cloned animals, why aren't they grousing about all the powerful antibiotics and hormones that are routinely shot into every single piece of meat they greedily stuff into their obese, slack-jawed pie-holes? Answer: because they are ignorant, reactionary MORONS.

HEY! SOMEONE PUT SODIUM CHLORIDE ON MY FRENCH FRIES!

That stupid orange commercial just aired again, the one where the dorky jackass walks through a laboratory and tries to pronounce the names of chemicals in other beverages. You've probably seen it. I looked up one of the chemical names the guy so pointedly stumbles over: "pyrodoxine hydrochloride." That's vitamin B-6, jackass. You need it to stay alive. Another chemical name he pronounces like he’s a stroke victim who just graduated from a community college is inositol. According to the National Cancer Institute, inositol "is important in nerve, brain, and muscle function. Inositol is found in many foods that come from plants, and is being studied in the prevention of cancer."
Then there's glucoronolactone, which the aforementioend jackass refers to as "glucorono-something." Glucoronolactone is an easily absorbed version of glucoronic acid, a compound naturally occurring in the body. Glucoronolactone has been extensively studied for its ability to help detoxify the liver and improve carbohydrate metabolism as well as overall metabolism. Another ingredient this dissembling doofus pretends to struggle to pronounce is maltodextrin. According to Dairy Foods magazine, maltodextrin "is a versatile, useful and economic water-soluble dietary fiber used to fortify dairy foods." That's, like, one step away from cyanide!
Mr. Jack Ass neglects to mention that if you really wanted to, you could isolate all sorts of unpronounceable chemicals in orange juice, too. For instance, orange juice contains high levels of ascorbic acid. Now, if you didn’t know it was actually vitamin C, ascorbic acid would sound like something a bitter beauty contest loser would throw in the winner’s face. Instead, it prevents scurvy.
Perhaps the ad avoids mentioning truly deleterious chemicals like certain food colorings and preservatives because the orange juice industry uses those chemicals in certain of their products? There’s just something fishy about that ad. Besides the fact that it's just stump-stupid, I mean.