Citizen critics

McSweeney’s ponders junk food

By Liz Crain

April 10, 2008

Although San Francisco literary quarterly and publishing house McSweeney's doesn’t make a habit of tackling important food issues, its online Reviews of New Food offers short, sharp takes on American food, mostly of the packaged variety.

Foodstuffs scrutinized recently on the site include Naked All Natural Antioxidant Juice Smoothies, Kasugai Muscat Gummy Candy, Kellogg’s Pops Chocolate Peanut Butter Cereal, and Gatorade A.M.

Here’s part of the Gatorade piece, by Chris Olwell:

The bottle says Gatorade A.M. helps put back the fluids and energy you lose during a full night’s sleep, to which I reply: “It’s about time.” Finally, someone has engineered an athletic drink for people like me, Athletes of Sleep — people for whom it is less physically taxing to be awake than asleep.

I had to try it. So recently, after a thoroughly exhausting night of sleeping, I woke up with orange-strawberry. I quickly regained all the energy I lost by sleeping so hard.

And here’s a bit from a piece on Luna bars:

For my 21st birthday, the Clif Bar company sent me the recently introduced Luna bar, “the whole nutrition bar for women.” That’s what it said right above my printed name. I understand mistakes. Maybe if my name were Alex or Pat or Sam I could have shrugged it off. But my name isn’t Alex, Pat, or Sam. It’s Nicholas, and I have never known a female Nicholas. Did I really need to be singled out like that? Couldn’t they address the bar to “Current Resident”? My birthday was teetering on disaster.

How did I get on this list, anyway? Did I accidentally buy women’s deodorant while using my Safeway Club Card? Is it because I used to shave my legs before swim meets? Was it the drag performance I did at 4-H camp? Regardless, I am considering sending a long and irate letter to the CEO of the Clif Bar company.

Take that, marketing department!