NewVerseNews Tuesday: AN ABCEDARIAN ON FOODS I USED TO LOVE
by Jen Schneider
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Additives have been debated for years with bills proposed, then denied. Just this week California (Assembly Bill 418) has tried. Again. To drum up support all while the Dollar General can no longer afford to sell eggs—a source of dense nutrients. Aisles instead full of fruit chews, colorful candies, cookies, cakes. Oh my—Gigantic swaths of shelf space, all prime. Products under fire for “generally safe to consume” promises with limited review. Hot Tamales and Skittles. Cupcakes and ice cream, too. I’d like to know, I say as I chew my microwaved stew, Is it too much to assume the Foods Water Poetry we consume are safe to drink? Jokes on you, my colleague explains, craftiness on all corners Kraft mac and cheese, too? I ask. Love you, but yes, she says – phthalates, plastics involved in processing, plus fat content loopholes in laws persist more foods make the danger list Nerds? Double Bubble Twist gum? Not good news Open the cabinets but be warned – there’s propylparaben in caramel chocolate and high sugar in Nestle Quik. Red Dye No 3. lurks in protein shakes instant rice and potato products, and cake mixes. Rare is the boxed life form that doesn’t make the graph or score in the game of Skittles, Screams, Sell More Who. What. Where. When. Why. The economist and poet in me wants to know. With 3,000 Red Dye No. 3 data points and that’s just the beginning—is relief in store? Trolli Gummies and Trail mix, too. Titanium Dioxide can be found in cupcakes and ice cream. Underreported and overconsumed. My graphs are in toil. My plotting doomed. Values collide. Voracious marketing blooms ways of fudging ingredient lists with words I can’t spell or repeat titanium dioxide potassium bromate brominated vegetable oil phthalates and propylparaben Xtra-large Slurpees, too? Yogurts with bright red candy mix-ins. Zero room for error. We wait. We philosophize. We think. Is the safety of our food supply too big a drink?
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Author's Note: When ABCs Collide with Plot Points
As an econ major, I’ve long been interested in prisoner dilemmas, graphs that map (seek to match) supply and demand, and hikes of varying natures. On levels both macro and micro, I’ve wrestled with data and wondered, what is too much to ask. Of consumers. Of suppliers. Of truth tellers. Of faulty logic deniers. It’s a delicate dance. Public health and behavior as much commodities as any other letter that becomes targeted then charted as a supply meets demand number. Analytics morph in ways analogous to philosophy and experimental poetry. Personal choice a waltz subject to underutilized form and (sometimes) overindulged scorn. Ethics aside. No matter. Whether graphed in pencil and ink or AI-generated ChatGPT-think, I still believe that assuming one’s food supply is safe shouldn’t present an oxymoron (enjambments and plot points undenied). Instead, I accept realities, however baffling, I cannot change and bid farewell to a handful of foods (and ABCs) I used to love.
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Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. Recent works include A Collection of Recollections, Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups.