Torn Again.

So, there is this snack food. It's good, healthy, raw, gluten-free, non-GMO... all kinds of good stuff. Just freeze-dried fruit. A really good snack food all around when you need/want it. Better than chips, or anything fried or overly-processed or filled with soy product. So why am I torn?

Crunchies, Nature's Ultimate Snack Food, are made in the USA and are by all accounts very good for you. Great on the go. Good for kids, good to mix into almost anything, up to 9 servings of your daily fruits and veggies. So what's my beef with them? (little pun there)

Well, let's move past the packaging, which of course rankles. That should be obvious to anyone who has been here before! No, instead, it is a little factoid my husband pointed out on the package: "Did you know: It takes 8-10 lbs of fresh fruit or vegetables to make 1 lb of Crunchies?" This is a selling point, apparently, because it is right on the package.

.......umm.....

Do you hear the crickets? It's what I hear.

Does that seem... confusing? Can't more people be fed with the 8-10 pounds? I'm confused. Someone please explain this to me. OK, yeah, the method of freeze-drying makes this snack available to more people than that 8-10 pounds of fruit or vegetables. The nutrition is still there. You can still eat these off-season, or they can get to a place that fresh fruit can't reach. OK. That must be valid. I still can't wrap my head around it. Maybe since you find these mostly in the stores I don't like as much, and that a package can cost, say, $5, that you can forgive my doubting that this is an entirely great thing. It's not like these are going to be shipped to poverty-stricken areas or starving kids. These are simply a "convenient" (says so right on the package, you know how I feel about THAT word), froofy, over-priced hip thing. Sure, you can get your kids to eat their fruit this way. Sure, you can be all cool with your bag of oh-so-cool edamame and rice. You're so cool. You have stuff from Whole Foods. You must have disposable income and be someone I want to hang with. That's what these packages say. Mmm hmmm.

So, yeah. I'm not sold. I had the sample pack, I tried them, they didn't suck, but I know I don't need them in my life. Save yer packaging an' yer over-priced hip snack food. I'll eat and actual pear. And if it is not in season, I won't eat it. And if I have my own pears, I'll can or dehydrate them myself and enjoy them another time.

One Pallet in One Store in One Town...

My grocery store of choice, Sprouts, is fairly cool. Sure they have their things I would love them to change... plastic bags at the bulk area, for instance. Why not have a scale to tare the containers we can bring in ourselves? And I can't wait for them to stop offering plastic bags altogether at checkout, or at least charge for them. But generally, they offer great prices on cool things, not at all like the prices at Whole Foods (and nicers employees and cooler clientele), and their butcher case with responsible, sustainable product is wonderful. (That's how I got my husband hooked on going there!) I'll miss it when I move away.

But then, standing in lined to check out, I just have to shake my head. Here sits a pallet of water. Pricey water in plastic bottles. Pointless water in plastic bottles.

This stuff is called Hint, because it has just a hint of fruit flavor. Great. Fine. It's not soda, it's not fake-tasting, it's all good stuff. Like WAA-TAH but for adults. Because, you know, we just have to have water to drink and that stuff from our own filters just isn't chic enough. Or something. This is so convenient. $18-22 for a 12-pack??? GIVE ME A BREAK. We PAY this much just for the great pleasure of polluting the planet?

Yeah yeah yeah, you throw the bottles in recycling bins. I've covered that. Yeah yeah this is much lighter to ship therefore saves fossil fuels. Uh huh. And how about the fossil fuels that go into making the plastic? Hmmmmmm????

I was unaware of this brand because I never go down that aisle of bottled stupidity. But here it was in front of me. Look at that picture. I took it with my phone. It is the actual stack in Sprouts. That is one pallet in one store in one town in one county in one state. THINK about it. Think about how this stuff sat in warehouses and shipping trucks etc, in the heat, leaching plastic chemicals. I fail to see any sense or logic in purchasing any of this, especially considering the price tag. What is it going to take to stop this madness? How much do we have to know before we stop?

If you have an answer to that, I sure would love to know.