I think I must be late to the party on this particular Great Gross-Off subject, because it was at least April when I saw it in the grocery store, and there was only one box left. Also, the particular store in question is known for selling Winter Lucky Charms well into summer. I’m just glad it wasn’t July when I came across this cereal, because I would definitely have bought it, and my regret would have been even more profound.

I’m talking about Cap’n Crunch Polar Crunch, with “New Cool Berry Flavor.”

I think if you stop and give it a moment’s consideration, you’ll agree with me that it’s a little disconcerting that “CHANGES COLORS!” is a selling point for any kind of food in this country. I mean, yeah, I want my meat to change color when I grill it, but cereal? Cereal isn’t supposed to change colors. I’m very proud of all our food-industry voodoo magicians and the wonderful/scary things they’ve been able to do with flavors and shelf lives, et cetera, but once we get into the whole changing-colors thing, maybe it’s time to direct our efforts toward nobler goals, no?

Especially when the food in question starts off this color. In nature, hues this bright signify deadly poison:

As it turns out, there’s no voodoo involved in these color-changing berries, just a whole lot of plain old Crunch Berries dumped in blue powder. Just ask the milk:

It wasn’t like we needed further proof that the Cap’n is a deceitful, money-grubbing pirate bastard, but I think these latest crappleberries are beyond the pale. “New Cool Berry Flavor,” as it turns out, refers to the frighteningly durable coat of decidedly uncool-tasting slime that coats your tongue if you’re dumb enough to eat a bowl of this shit.

In fact, you know what this powder looks like? The chalk you rub onto the end of a pool cue. No, I’m serious. Check it out:

Just remember: I ate an entire bowl of those.

I am not a cranky 100-year-old man who constantly complains that things aren’t the way they were in the good old days. Really, I’m not.

But sometimes I feel like I am. For instance, I tend to get pretty riled up about trends that don’t bother anyone else I know. Like this whole “portable versions of existing food” movement.

It all started with “gogurt,” portable yogurt, which actually makes a fair amount of sense. I mean, I’ll admit that there are times when carrying a spoon with which to eat your yogurt is prohibitively inconvenient — say, when playing beach volleyball, or riding a motorcycle. Gogurt would come in pretty handy if hunger struck when a person was doing either of those things.

But, you know, for the most part, here’s how I feel about gogurt and every other goddamn “on-the-go lifestyle” food: If you don’t have enough time in your day to sit down and eat yogurt with a utensil like a human being, you need to slow your ass down. Buy a personal planner or something.

Shit.

And now this. Go-Tarts?

I’m sorry, I was under the impression that Pop-Tarts were already pretty well-suited to “go” eating. Ask any college student in America — all you need is seventy-five cents for a pair of foil-wrapped -Tarts from the nearest vending machine, and your walk from one class to the next becomes a meal. Sure, they taste better toasted, but eating a raw Pop-Tart never hurt anybody.

Or maybe it has. I’m not sure what those Kellogg pricks are trying to tell us here; the implication seems to be that regular Pop-Tarts should not be eaten raw. Either that, or that they think their customers are the dumbest people in the world. I’d put all my chips on the latter, if it wasn’t for the little message on the side of the Go-Tarts box that says they “SHOULD NOT BE WARMED OR HEATED IN A TOASTER.”

I’m not sure what would happen if a person warmed or heated one of these things. I’m not willing to find out.

They certainly look pretty much like regular old Pop-Tarts:

Battle-scarred veterans of the “portable versions of existing food” movement will recognize in the above photo the utilization of the “less is more” technique frequently employed by foodmakers; i.e. the Go-Tart or bag of Gripz you just bought contains less than a comparable bag of the parent brand, and it cost you more to buy it.

Perhaps they’re banking on all of us being too “busy” and “on the go” to notice this stuff. I notice, though, and if there’s a God in heaven, the chintzy fuckers responsible for this madness will have plenty to answer for in the great beyond.

Still, though. These Go-Tarts are sort of delicious.

So. Let’s say it’s time for breakfast, the most important meal of the day, and you’re seriously jonesing for some waffles.

Now, if you’re like me, you could want waffles bad — real, real bad, even — yet still not be able to muster the motivation to mix the ingredients, get the waffle iron down from the shelf, and griddle up a big ol’ mess that you’re just going to have to clean up anyway.

I mean, maybe you don’t even own a waffle iron. Plenty of people don’t. There’s no shame in that.

I guess the next logical step would be to toast up some frozen waffles, but really — frozen waffles? Ugh. No food develops freezer burn faster than a box of waffles. They’ve got a window of, like, six days before they get all puckered and gross. And even in that window, they aren’t very good. Even when I was a kid and shouldn’t have known any better, I knew that frozen waffles were for dogs and poor people.

So what’s a lazy, waffle-jonesing breakfast eater to do?

It’s NEW! Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored!!!

(It’s a crunchy waffle-shaped cereal, just in case you were wondering.)

Again. Homemade waffles: Delicious. Remember how Mom used to make ‘em? All fluffy and buttery, beckoning to you from the plate in a stack of delicious breakfast-y goodness?

Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored waffles? Not so much.

You know what’s worse than the way these shriveled little unwaffles look? The fact that there is, in fact, not a drop of fucking maple anywhere in the box:

How do I describe the taste? I choked down the last of my bowl about an hour ago — even chased it with some yogurt — and Eggo Cereal Maple Syrup Naturally & Artificially Flavored is still ringing in my tastebuds, yet I’m not sure how to put it into words. I mean…crappy? Very bad? Quite gross? Yes. But there’s something else. A certain je ne sais please God no more. The flavor is sort of vaguely waffle-like, yet also completely not. It’s kind of like looking at an old family Christmas portrait and noticing that your mom’s nipple is showing — just familiar enough to provoke warm, happy feelings, yet absolutely, awfully wrong.

I guess the bottom line is this: Yes, making waffles is a pain in the neck. But it beats eating this stuff.

It was the spring of 2001 — May, to be exact — but I remember it like it was yesterday: My good buddy Rahul and I were spending a week driving around the fine state of Vermont, soaking in the local color and scouting out locations for Posh Jefito Retirement Manor. We stopped for the afternoon in Morrisville, near Stowe, and decided to have lunch at an establishment by the name of Bonz Smokehouse Bar & Grill (motto: “We Smoke Our Own”).

It was here that I first experienced the power of the habanero.

I’d never been much of a spicy-food guy to that point, but for some reason, that day found me craving the absolute hottest food that Bonz had to offer. The next-to-spiciest stuff wasn’t good enough, friends; neither, matter of fact, was the spiciest. No, here’s what we did: We ordered two pounds of wings coated in jalapeño and habanero dipping sauce on the side.

Oh my God, people, you haven’t lived until you’ve been to Bonz Smokeouse Bar & Grill in Morristown, Vermont. I’ve been to Italy, I’ve been to Paris, I’ve been to Belgium…but the most transcendent dining experience of my entire life, without a doubt, took place that afternoon. We laughed as the habanero tears rolled down our faces (or was that just sweat escaping from our eye sockets? I don’t know); we desperately fanned our open mouths; we breathlessly begged for milk.

I will go back there someday.

In the meantime, believe me when I say that — no matter what the ingredients say — no actual habaneros were harmed in the making of these stupid new chips:

If I were a Spanish-speaking American, I would be royally pissed off with all this pandering. Really. You’ve gotta read the back of the bag, which promises that when you take these home, you will “experience that MASSIVE Doritos® brand crunch as it IGNITES a nuclear explosion of habanero, jalapeño, and chipotle peppers in your mouth!” — and then repeats the same crap in Spanish.

Como se dice “soooooooooo lame”?

Greetings, friends, and welcome back from what I hope was a deeply enjoyable, tryptophan-enhanced food coma. As I mentioned previously, the Jefitos celebrate Thanksgetting — it’s the day after Thanksgiving — because, well, we’re a pretty non-traditional lot. Along those lines, we decided to add a little wrinkle to this year’s holiday celebration, courtesy of the madmen at the Jones Soda Company. You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

Yep. Thanksgiving in a bottle!

It’s actually five bottles, and no, none of them contain that certain magic ingredient you’re thinking of. Actually, I’m not altogether certain what any of them contain, but this is what they’re supposed to taste like:

WILD HERB STUFFING!

TURKEY & GRAVY!

BRUSSELS SPROUTS!

CRANBERRY SAUCE!

PUMPKIN PIE!

Most of the foods sampled here run more toward the curious or unusual than the outright disgusting — I’d never be able to match Steve at The Sneeze in that area — but this was something I just couldn’t resist. Even my wife, who normally at least pretends to discourage me from writing new junk food entries, had to admit the folks at Jones had come up with something too good to resist. They’re even donating a portion of the proceeds to charity. How can you go wrong?

Lots of ways, actually, at least if you’re really drinking these things, but you don’t need me to tell you that. The box also comes with a wine list, a spork, and a moist towelette, but we tossed them all aside and got right down to business. We poured five glasses and passed them ’round the room.

The “meal” proceeded in a more-or-less traditionally linear fashion, beginning with Wild Herb Stuffing and Turkey & Gravy. Neither of them were awful; in fact, my father-in-law, beginning what would become a recurring pattern, deemed them both “pretty good.” Everyone else said the Stuffing soda tasted like tonic water with “something added,” though a clear consensus was never established as to what that “something” might actually be, and that the Turkey & Gravy tasted like neither turkey nor gravy.

The pièce de résistance, as you might imagine, is Brussels Sprout. It’s pretty gross from the get-go — you’ve never seen a glass of anything so ominously green, and I don’t even want to talk about the smell — but nothing prepares you for the taste. I can’t remember the last time I came so close to gagging on food (or foodish, as the case may be). Oh God.

As my brother Rich put it: “I licked my sleeve to get rid of the taste.”

In all fairness, though, your enjoyment of the soda may have a lot to do with whether or not you like real brussels sprouts. My in-laws, both of whom eat said sprouts regularly, actually liked the soda (though they declined our invitation to finish the bottle).

The rest of the meal was anti-climactic; although Pumpkin Pie caught a couple of us off guard (my brother Brian: “Tastes like pumpkin pie that was left in a cabinet”), it was a relief after Brussels Sprout, and Cranberry tastes just like cranberry. The biggest problem with all the flavors, actually, is that they’re sweetened with Splenda. If you like diet soda, this is no big deal, but if you’re like me and want to scrub out your mouth whenever you taste fake sugar, it adds a foul note to an already disconcerting drinking experience.

All in all, I heartily encourage each and every one of you to head out to your nearest Target and pick up a Holiday Pack or two for your next seasonal party. Share it with your friends and family. It’s fun, and since I can report no lasting gastrointestinal distress, it’s probably safe too.