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Friday, Oct. 30, 2009

CORSON: They’re doing dieters a big favor

Let’s hear it for the snack-food industry!

For too long their products have been cussed by physicians, run out of schools and blamed for everything from obesity through cancer to dementia. Next thing you know some researcher will claim that overdosing on potato chips correlates with serial killing.

Nutritionists damn them as “empty calories.” Empty? They’re loaded with good stuff — saturated fats, salt, high-fructose corn syrup, 15 chemicals to preserve taste and freshness … you name it.

But thanks to the snack-makers, it is much easier than before to stick to a diet. I went on one a week ago at the request of my spouse. Jean has tired of sewing back on the waistband buttons I have started popping.

I also have to thank the friendly folks who put snacks in their vending machines. They, too, are making a worthy contribution to public health, or at least mine.

These two linked industries, plus our recessionary economy, are resulting in much less temptation to cheat on my diet. My shrinkage toward a lean, mean body is accelerating. Two reasons:

Ÿ Price gouging: Six months ago, I could go to the snack machine down the hall from my office, furtively slip in 60 cents and receive (if it didn’t hang up in the mechanism) a luxuriously dense and sugar-soaked honey bun, or a pastry squishy with jam and “crème” (whatever that may be).

A bit later, the price went up to 65 cents, then 80 cents. And about a month ago, new machines came in; the same pastries are now $1; the candy bars too — even the bags of gourmet treats such as red-hot jalapeño cheese-worms or chocolate-covered pork skins.

I told myself I’d be dipped if I paid almost twice as much as last year for my honey bun. Then the next wave of crave hit. Pre-diet, I weakened. Now, I’m keeping my buck.

Ÿ Steadily shrinking products (indirect price gouging). Remember the candy bars of a few years ago? You got pretty hefty hunks of Milky Ruth or Baby Way for your 50 cents — about the size of the “king-size” bars which now cost more than $1.25 at the convenience store.

But the standard bar has steadily shrunk. Or haven’t you noticed? They are now delicate little things about the size of a highlighter.

Oh, I have heard the sad tales about gas prices, poor harvests of the chocolate root and global warming making it an expensive matter to keep peanut berries from spoiling.

But I also notice more money than ever seems to be spent on producing more and more different varieties of everything in packaging engineered to look bigger.

We get big, fat, distended bags of corn or potato chips which, when opened, prove to be filled almost to bursting with air (or some sort of packaging gas). You pour out a measly partial handful of snack for your buck.

I believe the explanation is that the chips have to be air-pillowed to prevent their crumbling into powder if, for instance, someone should sit on the package or run it over with a forklift before it reaches the consumer.

(The snack folks aren’t unique. Have you opened a cereal box lately that was more than one-half or even one-third full?)

As a result of the new culture of thrift, outrage at such practices — their perpetrators may assume folks are so hooked on their snacks they will pay anything to get them — is easier to express by refusing to buy.

At least, not until the price per calorie goes down — or my diet effort blows up.

In the meantime, thanks, candy/snack guys.

Contact Ed Corson at ecorson@yahoo.com.