
By Dan Wilcock
I haven’t been spending much time in the interior lanes of supermarkets since reading a bunch of books by Marion Nestle and Michael Pollan, two fearless writers who have taken on the food industry. Both point out that the interior lanes of the supermarket are ground zero for the long-lasting highly-processed gunk that makes corporations big bucks and make people sick.
That’s why when I ducked into aisle 8 last week to get some crackers to go with some brie I’d picked out, I was stopped in my tracks by a product that epitomized with hilarity the inner-aisle phenomenon: Mister Salty.
I mean, come on. The marketing crew must have had fun with that one. They probably had a whole bunch of names up on the white-board. Despite hours spent brainstorming names that might make an erstwhile health-conscious person buy pretzels and processed cheese in cellophane packs, Mr. Salty was just too good to resist.
Honesty. I love it.
Now if they’d just rename bologna “Mr. Fatty,” cigarettes “Mr. Ashy Emphysema,” and chili and beans, “Mr. Gassy,” we’d be living in a new world of truth and light.