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.
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