I Ate An Onion Sandwich And It Was Horrible

Not my sandwich. I used white bread.

I don't like onions...really. For years, I refused to eat onions at all. I've only recently began to tolerate onions on my hamburgers, just because I got tired of asking for no onions and getting onions, anyway. In the last few years, I've begun to like grilled onions on my burgers. So last night, I decided to try an onion sandwich, and I still regret it.

I should clarify I'd never even heard of onion sandwiches until I read that the creators of The Onion came up with the title when they were making onion sandwiches. My first reaction was, "Onion sandwiches? People eat those?" I had to look it up, and was horrified to discover an onion sandwich is exactly what it sounds like: raw onion slices between two pieces of bread. With mayo. That sounded monstrous, what with my hatred of onions, like a sandwich with dog feces in it. But like I said, I thought maybe my tastes had changed and I was really hungry and for some reason, the onion I had in my fridge looked very tasty. I decided to try it.

I Googled again, just to make sure I wasn't missing something, and assembled my sandwich. I took a deep breath. I took a bite.

It wasn't too bad at first. Just tasted like mayo, which I like. I ate half the sandwich before the onion kicked in.

Grilled onions on my sandwich is one thing. Raw onion is another. The taste hit me like a sledgehammer to the tongue. Just as I started to curl my lip at it, a burning sensation started in my mouth. You know how when you chop onions, it makes your eyes burn? I got that in my mouth, spreading to my lips, and even down my throat. By then, I was gagging and desperate to get rid of the taste. I quickly made another sandwich of just mayo. That did nothing for the taste, and the burning got worse. I was drinking milk, soda, even ate some ice cream, and nothing helped. I brushed my teeth three times. I went out and bought a Snickers, which helped a little because it was now the taste of chocolate and onions. I brushed my teeth twice more, drank some water, and went to bed last night in misery. This morning, I've had three cups of coffee to kill the taste, and it's still there.

Onion sandwiches are evil. And if you eat them, you've made a pact with evil itself. Onion sandwiches must die. Please, let them die.

image source: http://allaroundtim.com/raw-onion-sandwich-a-trip-back-in-time/

Health Risks Don't Stop Americans

If there's a greater commentary on the way Americans regard food, I don't know of one better than this…the Burger King a few blocks away from where we live was cited by the Department of Health. There was a big sign on the front door and on the drive-thru window stating that the Burger King had failed a health inspection a few weeks earlier. Now I immediately went to the Internet to check, and it turns out the BK just placed some cleaning bottles near the refrigerator, but I didn't feel comfortable eating there. However, I couldn't help noticing that the BK was doing a brisk business. The fact that customers were not deterred in any way by a huge sign stating that the restaurant had failed a health inspection seemed to me the essence of how little America cares about food. I doubt that many of them took the time to check the results. It could have meant anything from cleaning bottles in the wrong place up to and including rats swimming in the soda, but they didn't care. If this was a Burger King in France or Germany, this might have shut down the restaurant for good. In America, it's just a speed bump that Americans happily jump over to stuff their faces. Sad.

Still love the Whopper, though.

Uncrustables: The Longest Distance Between You and PB&J

I thought the idea behind it is that some people (kids, mostly) don't like crusts on their PB&J sandwiches. They hate it so much that they can't even stand the thought of crust ever existing on their sandwich. For them, they created Uncrustables, which have no crust whatsoever. In fact, they don't really have edges. They're sort of pouches made from white bread with peanut butter and jelly sealed inside. The bread is sealed on the edges like apple pie. And what do you do when you want one? Well, you have to keep them in the freezer until you want one. Then you take it out and leave it on the table for thirty minutes to an hour to defrost. Then you can eat the tiny little pouch.

Right. Or you can just use regular bread, spread peanut butter on one side and jelly on the other, then cut off the crusts. Just saying.

Apparently, these things are hugely popular, mainly because mothers can just toss one or two into their kids' lunchboxes and they'll be defrosted by lunchtime. So apparently, Uncrustables are really for mothers who are too lazy...uh, I mean busy to spend five minutes making sandwiches themselves. The next logical step is Unpackables, sandwiches that can crawl out of the refrigerator in the morning and climb into the lunchboxes on their own, for mothers too lazy...uh, I mean busy to take them out of the freezer and pack their kids' lunches themselves.

Bait and Switch: Regular Food vs McDonald's Food

It's been a while since I bashed McDonald's, but there is more evidence that they are the evil empire. It seems that they did a study where they gave children food in regular bags and McDonald's bags, and children said the McDonald's food tasted better. That's despite the fact that the food was actually identical. The trick even worked with carrots. What does this mean? It means that McDonald's has so programmed children that they come to believe McDonald's is inherently better than any other food, despite all evidence. That makes it harder for parents to deny them McDonald's food, since children will believe regular food isn't as good, even if it's better.

On a side note, while it's easy to say this shows children are gullible, I wonder if the same study would work on adults. I'm not sure, but it does make me wonder if a Jack-in-the-Box Ultimate Cheeseburger would taste as good if I made it at home.

Related Posts:
* The Problem With McDonald's
* McDonalds Suffocates Children...For Safety
* Fruit Buzz?!

McDonald's Logo photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/hermansjocelyn/2073826793/

Hot Fudge Sundae Pop-Tarts

I bought some hot fudge sundae Pop-Tarts. They taste good, but they
don't taste anything like a hot fudge sundae. There's no ice cream flavor at
all. It's really chocolate Pop-Tarts with sprinkles and white frosting as
the filling. They should have called it chocolate cake flavor. It doesn't
taste like that either, but it tastes more like chocolate cake than hot fudge
sundae. I should work for Pop-Tarts.

Flashback Friday: Herb

Back in the 80's, there was a Burger King contest where you had to try to spot Herb in a BK restaurant and win $5,000. Herb was supposedly the one guy in America who had never tried a Whopper. I used to dream of walking into a BK and finding Herb. Of course, they didn't tell you what he looked like, so it was kind of difficult to achieve that dream. When they finally did, I got excited about finding him all over again. But of course, I never did. I always wondered whatever happened to Herb. Turns out Herb was one of the biggest blunders of advertising in U.S. history. Now I'm glad I didn't find Herb.

Trivia

• The campaign began with a series of mysterious ads and billboards that said "Who's Herb?"


• Herb was finally unveiled in a Super Bowl XX commercial in 1986.


• The reason why Herb, a man who doesn't eat Whoppers, would be in Burger King restaurants was never explained.


• The fact that Herb turned out to be a nerdy-looking guy in a loud suit was supposed to send the message that only losers don't eat Whoppers. Instead, the public took away the message that only losers eat at Burger King.


• In hip-hop or street lingo, a "Herb" is a nerd or loser. The term comes directly from these commercials.


• Instead of boosting sales, sales at Burger King actually dropped during this campaign.


• The Herb unveiling came at the same time McDonald's launched the McD.L.T.


• Advertising Age called the "Where's Herb" campaign the "most elaborate advertising flop of the decade."


• Herb was played by an actor named John Merrick. John Merrick was also the name of the Elephant Man, a hideously deformed circus freak.

Links
Surprisingly enough, Wikipedia is not the first place to go for info on Herb. I need to work on that. The best article is in E2. There's also an article in TV Acres about him. RetroCRUSH named the Herb campaign its biggest Fast Food Fiasco. Through the power of the Internet, you can even read an article from TIME Magazine circa 1986 about the unveiling. And for more retro flava, you can read a transcript of the infamous SNL sketch making fun of the Herb campaign.

Flashback Friday: Shanghai McNuggets

Once upon a time, in a McDonald's boardroom, a group of executives said "Hey, let's sell Chinese food." And someone else said, "Hey, good idea. Chinese food is popular. But it'll be expensive to develop a new product." And the other one said, "Nah, just sell Chinese-flavored sauces for the Chicken McNuggets." Thus, Shanghai McNuggets were born. Essentially, they were Chicken McNuggets sold with sweet and sour sauce, hot mustard, and teriyaki sauce. I remember liking these, but then I was a kid. It was actually okay, but then, you can't mess up Chicken McNuggets too much. Unless you ask where they came from.

Looking back, what strikes me most about this campaign was the incredible racism. I mean, it's barely Chinese food to begin with, but then they had the asian music and Ronald McDonald doing a karate chop. If they sold McNuggets with salsa, would they call it the Tijuana McNuggets? And having Ronald McDonald running across the border or riding in the back of a pickup truck? Actually, I can see that. I better not give McDonald's any ideas.

Links:
I couldn't find much information on these at all. I almost started to think I made it up until I found an entry at Wikipedia. And even that didn't have much. But there was much informal discussion on them on a thread at X-Entertainment. There was also a thread on rec.games.trivia about them.

Fun Facts:
* Shanghai McNuggets came in Chinese take-out boxes and came with a fortune cookie and chopsticks.
* The box included instructions on how to use chopsticks.
* McDonald's employees had to wear a bamboo Coolie hat to promote the Shanghai McNuggets.
* The Shanghai McNuggets were discontinued pretty quickly, but I don't know the exact year.
* In China, McDonald's sells Shrimp McNuggets.

New Coke 2007: The Healthier Lays Potato Chip

Frito-Lay's has shocked the snack industry by announcing that next year it's going to change the formula of its most successful product - the Lay's potato chip. It's going to start frying their chips in sunflower oil instead of cottonseed oil. Sounds like a small change, but it will reduce the fat content from 3 grams to 1 gram per serving. That will eliminate sixty million pounds of saturated fat from the diets of its consumers. Of course, this is great news for health advocates, but not so much for fans of the chips - like my wife. I applaud the move, but have to wonder about the taste. Is this a new age of health or the New Coke of the 21st century?
Categories: food

Fat Overload

Here's the real reason why Americans are fatter than everyone else...studies showed that U.S. fast-food is deliberately made fattier and more unhealthy than in other countries. The reason? They use hydrogenated oils in this country, which is cheaper. The fast-food companies claim it's because of local preferances. The real reason? Americans are more tolerant of fat and want to pay less for food. But countries like Denmark or Britain wouldn't tolerate that kind of thing. And then they wonder why Americans are gaining weight. This is why I saw Supersize Me again. It was a real wakeup call into the fast-food industry. And the new movie, Fast Food Nation, looks poised to do the same thing.

Categories: food

Supersize Myself

I saw Supersize Me again. Well worth watching for anyone concerned about their weight, their health, or just want to know more about the fast-food industry. Also a very funny movie. One point that stuck with me was how they don't publicize the nutritional info of their products. Just out of curiosity, I decided to check the calorie count of my favorite fast-food meal, a medium Ultimate Cheeseburger combo at Jack-in-the-Box. Good lord. I'm never eating an Ultimate Cheeseburger again. It's over a thousand calories alone. That's almost half the entire recommended caloric intake for a single day (2,500). If I ate two of those, from a caloric standpoint, I wouldn't need to eat again for the whole day. Not to mention the complete meal, which adds up to about 1940 calories. That's almost the total recommended calories for a single day in one meal. No wonder the fast food industry doesn't print this info on the packaging. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Cereal World: Real S'Mores cereal

When I heard about Cereality, the restaurant that only serves breakfast cereal, I thought it was a sign of how pathetic American food is and how gullible college students are. But then I started thinking about their recipes, and I got one. I call it Real S'Mores Cereal.

1 cup Golden Grahams cereal
1 cup Cocoa Puffs cereal
1/3 cup mini-marshmallows

The key is the mini-marshmallows. And I'm not talking about the colored chalk they call marshmallows in Lucky Charms. I'm talking the real mini-marshmallows they use in baking and ice cream. If you try it before I do, let me know how it is.

Mister Deep-Fried Twinkie, Please

The deep-fried Twinkie is a hallmark of the Arizona State Fair. It's in all the commercials. It's a legendary confection, a monument to the excess of this once-a-year festival. "Deep-fried Twinkie? It's outrageous! It's fattening! It's just too much! I gotta try that." And I did.

But it turns out a deep-fried Twinkie is just a Twinkie dipped in the same breading as a corndog and fried. It didn't hold up too well in the process. The cake kind of melted into the half-inch-thick layer of breading, and the cream melted into a white smear. The result looked like a corndog with a hollow center streaked in white, and it tasted like a tube of sweetened corndog batter. In other words, I could've gotten the same effect by buying a corndog, ripping out the hot dog, and sprinkling powdered sugar on the batter. Probably would've been sweeter, too. And all for the reasonable price (*add sarcasm*) of five dollars. That's why I don't like the state fair.

And after all that, I can't help thinking, "Oo, they had deep-tried Snickers bars. I wonder what those are like. I gotta try them next year." If I give in to temptation, I'll give you an update.

Bagel Mania: My Opinion of Flavored Bagels

What's up with bagels these days? My company offers free bagels on Fridays, and invariably I have to go on the hunt through the box for the elusive plain bagel. That's all I eat - plain bagels. I like bagels. Don't get me wrong. That's why I won't eat bagels with any other crap in them. And what psychotic chef is coming up with this stuff? Even if I do get one that I think is plain, I'm still nervous. Are those seeds or flecks of cheese? Are those raisins, chocolate chips, or jalapeno peppers? Is it going to taste like onions? I'm afraid to bite into a bagel these days. I've tried going through the bagels and sniffing them, one by one, but people tend to be shy about eating bagels that've been up against my nose. So I just have to pick one and take my chances. This morning I bit into a bagel with powdered sugar and cinnamon on it. That's just disgusting. If I wanted brown sugar and cinnamon, I'd eat a cinnamon bun. If I wanted jalapeno peppers, I'd eat a burrito. I just want a plain bagel with plain cream cheese. And don't get me started on cream cheese.
Originally written 9/2/05

The Problem With McDonald's

McDonald's has just announced they will print nutrition information on its wrappers. Too little, too late, I say. Then again, it does beg the question when Wendy's and Jack-in-the-Box will do the same thing. This brings the whole nutritional thing to a head.

I understand McDonald's problem - they are victims of their own success. They've become the symbol of fast-food, the gold standard. The problem is that when someone wants to attack fast-food in general, they attack McDonald's specifically. As a result, McDonald's is getting all the criticism that should really be distributed to the entire fast-food industry.

Health advocates are telling McDonald's "serve healthier food." But they know dang well that nobody goes to McDonald's for tofu and salads. When we go to McDonald's, we go for Big Macs and french fries. If they stopped selling unhealthy food, their business would collapse, and all the fatties would just go next-door to Burger King. But as long as they continue to sell fattening food, they remain a lightning rod for criticism. What health advocates are asking McDonald's to do is put itself out of business. It's like trying to get car manufacturers to promote bicycles.

The purpose of the new ad campaign is to shift attention away from McDonald's and towards food in general. Fair enough. They're trying to say "hey, look, we should all be eating healthier. Let's all exercise, eat right, and live longer. And stop bothering us."

It's a good strategy, but it doesn't work, because they still need to run ads for Big Macs and fries. It's like tobacco companies producing anti-smoking ads. If you really want us to stop smoking, why don't you stop making cigarettes?

You can't eat McDonald's and exercise. A 150-pound person would have to jog six miles to burn off the calories of a single Big Mac. This is all about hiding behind a smokescreen, not seriously changing the company's ethics.

If I were McDonald's, I would first of all stop marketing fast-food to children. I know it's lucrative, but it's just too easy to say "think of the children!" Take that off the table, and ninety-percent of their critics are gone. Next, turn the company into a high-end place and ditch the clowns. Subway makes money by targeting adults, and McDonald's should too. Next, create a new independent company called McHealth or something, truly dedicated to promoting healthy living. Sponsor children's ads for vegetables and fruits that make them just as appealing to kids as McNuggets. Sponsor marathons and exercise. Pay for physical education and exercise equipment in schools. Of course, this will never happen, and I'm glad. Every now and then, I need my Big Macs.

Coqroq

The guys at 103.9 had a long discussion about what drugs the Burger King ad agency are taking to come up with their ads. I have to admit, I've liked what they've been doing up to a point. First of all, you have to get the fact that they're experimenting with contagious media, the kind of thing that's so crazy that it's good. Like the Ringtone Dancer, who I love.

Anyway, the first ads with the Subservient Chicken were kind of funny, but not that great. They got me with the creepy "Wake Up with the King" ads, though, because they knew it was creepy. Let's face it, if you were in your kitchen, munching on a bowl of Frosted Flakes, and a giant tiger jumped out and started talking to you, you wouldn't be happy like the kids in the commercials. You'd be scared. Just like that guy did when he woke up with the Burger King in his bed. So the King worked.

As for the Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich commercial sung to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain," that was just horrible. I felt sorry for that guy from Hootie even having to sing it. It wasn't funny, it was just bad.

Now there's a new commercial for their new chicken fries with a fictional band called Coqroq (pronounced "cock-rock"). The name is so suggestive that the DJs weren't even sure they could say it on the air. Even the ads only spell it out. But it makes no sense. What does a rockband have to do with chicken fries? It sounds like they heard McDonald's was trying to get people to sing about Big Macs and said, "Well, we'll just make our own band." They should talk to Jack-in-the-Box about how well their Meaty Cheesy Boys went over. I give them points for creativity, but not for enjoyment.

On the other hand, the website is pretty cool. I like the photo gallery with the hand that moves things around. Can't say much for the music, though. I haven't seen the commercial with the band, but I'll keep an eye out. As for the chicken fries, I'm not impressed. They're just skinny chicken strips.

Fruit Buzz?!

You've probably seen the ads for McDonald's new Fruit and Walnut salad. Also known as a Waldorf salad. I find it condescending that they felt they had to simplify the name. Look at Jack-In-The-Box. They didn't call their new bread "puffy bread." They called it "ciabatta bread." We can handle "Waldorf Salad." It might actually teach people that other salads exist besides cherry tomatoes and iceberg lettuce.

What I don't get is why they felt the need to invent the idea of a "fruit buzz," some vaguely-described feeling you get when you eat fruit. I eat fruit all the time, and I don't get a "fruit buzz" or any other high from it, unless it's laced with cocaine. I suppose you could give them points for promoting fruit in general, but I think this is bound to lead to disappointment. People eat the salad and say, "Hey, there's no fruit buzz. I've been robbed. Never eat fruit again." Besides, there's not much fruit in the fruit and walnut salad to begin with. Wendy's has the real fruit buzz with their fruit bowl. Try again, Mickey D.

Plus, they cheated. They candy-coated the walnuts. Can't they have one thing on the menu that doesn't have sugar or fat on it?

We All Scream

I used to lick the cake batter off the spatula when I was a kid, and it was great. I don't bake cakes that much anymore, and I'm afraid of getting sick from the raw eggs. But when I heard they had cake batter-flavored ice cream, I was there. The only thing that stopped me is that I don't eat much ice cream, and I never got around to it. But my wife was terrified of cake-batter ice cream. I thought it was silly to worry about that because surely they wouldn't use real cake-batter ingredients. It would be artificial flavoring.

Imagine my surprise when I found out Cold Stone Creamery had to recall their cake-batter ice cream because of salmonella poisoning. I don't know how salmonella would get in their ice cream, but given that salmonella is found in raw pultry or eggs leads me to conclude that the idiots were mixing real egg into their ice cream. Why would they do something so stupid? Well, I found a comment in a blog by a Cold Stone worker who insisted you couldn't get salmonella from it, because the bacteria is in the yoke, and they use powdered egg whites, and the ice cream is too cold to allow the bacteria to thrive, etc. Sure.

That's got to be the best news for a food manufacturer - "our product is killing people." Imagine how that would feel to get a nice delicious cup of ice cream, and end up in the hospital. Symptoms include bloody diarrhea, nausea, a headache, and vomiting. Yummy. Double scoop for me, please.

Every Day?!

Okay, I've had enough of McDonald's. I saw "Supersize Me," and McDonald's defense of that movie was basically, "Well, everybody knows our food is unhealthy. You're not supposed to eat it at every meal."

But I just heard two radio commercials in a row for McDonald's new "I'm Lovin' It" campaign (by the way, somebody should tell McDonald's that if I didn't like their song in its original form, playing it in reggae, country, and hip-hop doesn't make it better). In both commercials, they portrayed people praising how they eat McD's sausage McMuffins every single day. In fact, the opening of the second commercial literally started "every single morning..." And both pointed out how the McMuffins are only a dollar, implying that everyone can afford to eat them every day. So they are trying to get us to eat their food every day, despite the fact that in their own internal documents, they say eating their food more than once a week would be considered excessive or "heavy use."

I'm going to have to start an anti-McDonald's blog if this keeps up.

Beer Wars

I don't know if you've seen or heard the latest Miller or Budweiser ads, but if you have you might have noticed something strange. They're less about beer and more about insulting each other. It's true, Miller and Budweiser have been launching attack ads against each other. Adrag has a good overview of the conflict. It's very unusual, since advertisers have had an unwritten pact against mentioning each other in their ads. I think it's rather petty myself. Remember when Jack-in-the-Box launched a campaign challenging Burger King over microwaving its meat? I didn't see Burger King responding with "their spokesman is a guy with a plastic bubble on his head!"

Behind the Restaurant Curtain

Here's the link to the search engine for Phoenix's restaurant health inspection reports. Read them...if you dare.