Wednesday, June 23, 2004

You Say Potato, I Say Retardo

Hands off the potatoes, you meat-crazed carbzombies.
What's wrong, mashed cauliflower wasn't doing it for you? Tough. Youi're the one that decided that carbohydrates were Evil Incarnate. You've gotten all the restaurants to serve Meat Salads. You've clogged the aisles with your mysterious processed fake versions of baked goods. You've jacked up the meat prices for the rest of us. The line must be drawn HEAH.
And that line separated all you low-carb, Atkins, South Beach motherfuckers from my potatoes.
Dieting, you bacon-humping simpletons, is about giving things up. Giving up a little bit of everything, or giving up all of one thing. Crazy or sane, healthy or Atkins, the whole point of going on these regimens in the first place is to stop doing something. It is NOT about crossbreeding some fucking Frankenpotato* so that it's LOW-CARB.
Those are my potatoes. Those are my French Fries. My chips. You don't get them. You gave up carbs. If you miss potatoes so bad, then give up the goddamn Atkins, return to the world of normalcy, and have a Tater Tot. Leave the potatoes out of this. They are blameless, innocent creatures whose only crime is to be full of starch during a time of national insanity.
The way it seems to have worked out is this. The Dutch were fucking around with potatoes, trying to make better ones. Which is fine. I'm all for better potatoes, because that way, when I wave them under some Atkins penitent's nose to taunt them, it'll work THAT MUCH BETTER. But then they tested it and found out it had 1/3 the carbs of a russet. Nobody's saying what takes the place of that third, of course. Could be Dutch worm farts, for all I know.
So now it's all "Coming In January, The Low-Carb Potato!" and asinine marketing statements like "The combination of good Florida soils, warm temperatures and the experience of Florida producers sets the stage for delivery of a fresh potato flavor treat". That's Don Northcott, a Canadian whose job it is to pimp Dutch potatoes to Americans. That is a niche fucking job right there. I almost feel bad for him, but then I remember he turned the phrase "fresh potato flavor treat", and I want to shove metal spikes into his eyes to see if he can power a clock.
Potatoes should be one of the prizes reserved for those of us who are not dumb enough to be on Atkins. You know how dumb Atkins people are? I bet you THINK you know, but I bet you don't know. Unless you've seen the Atkins Crunchers.
Authentic Atkins-branded soy-protein crisps. Marketed as a replacement for potato chips. Some soy protein and tapioca starch, turned into tiny faux-chips, and then dusted with that same barbecue or "sour cream and onion" crap that's probably turning our DNA inside out, but who cares, because that flavor dust makes it all worthwhile. Anyway, soy protein, tapioca starch, a bit of flavor dust. One-ounce package. Price at the grocery store? $1.89.
That's THIRTY DOLLARS A POUND. If you want to snack carb-free and spend thirty dollars a pound, you should be buying lobster. And with the money you have left over, buy me a week's worth of potato chips. If you spend $30 a pound on soy protein and tapioca starch, you should be in a home. A judge should just commit you, because you should not be allowed to roam the streets. You spend $1.89 on a bag of Atkins Crunchers, and after a penny and a half for the bag and what they spend to make your ounce of chips, that's $1.87 going straight into the pockets of Atkins' estate.
It's roughly the equivalent of playing the "got your nose" game with a child, then billing the child $3,000 for "rhinoplastic services". And you Atkins chimps are lining up to pay.
* With apologies to the star of Run Lola Run and the upcoming Bourne Supremacy.