"" bshawise: Lunch Revolution

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Lunch Revolution


Remember Lunchables? Are they still around? I'm pretty sure their rookie year was when I was in grade school. Lunchables and Ken Griffey Jr. were newly formed stars on the brink of a meaty career. Gone were the days where kids packed handmade sandwiches cut into perfect triangles by their loving parents. Good riddance to lil' baggies of carrots, marcelled potato chips, lumpy cookies and pudding packs. Hello tiny discs of processed "meats" and "cheeses" created to pair perfectly with crackers. Mature third graders everywhere declared, "Sandwiches are so 1986, Mom. Crackers are the future." Moms would try and explain the food pyramid and the difference between lunch and a snack. Kids saw a plastic container of independence where they could create their own lunch however they wanted as long as they wanted cheese and crackers. Processed freedom, baby.

I don't know how Lunchables did it but they sold oscar mayer crazy to the world. Maybe they caused the explosion of obesity. Kids grew up into older kids who hated how hungry they were in grade school. Maybe they're still angry that their lazy parents pawned off snacks as lunches. So in a fit of new rebellion they wolfed down double cheeseburgers. They point towards their mouths and stomachs and shout, "Here's the beef, mom....here's the beef."

Who could've known back in the 90s that Ken Griffey Jr. would fizzle into mediocrity and Lunchables would cause an outbreak of bitter type 2 diabetics? Not me, my friends. I too was caught up in the processed revolution.

2 comments:

John Arns said...

hindsight is 20/20. it was alluring.

Annie Michael Murphy said...

They do exist and they are sick. There are chicken nuggets, pizza, nachos, hotdogs, and you don't heat them up, you eat it cold. Grossness in a plastic tray. Everything awful about food is a kind of Lunchable.