I can think of few things available from a grocery store anywhere in the world that better represent sheer waste and poor nutrition. Have you ever seen Pringles made? First, perfectly good potatoes are milled into a fiber-less powder. That’s mistake # 1. Then that is mixed with foreign material (salt, corn syrup, chemicaly-created flavoring ‘enhancers’, coloring agents, and margarine, mistake # 2) and run through a blender. Next, raw batter is fed to a machine that stamps out ‘chip’ disks, and then they are baked in a device that cooks each ‘chip’ to exactly the same shape and double curvature. Why curved? Because that way the manufacturer can put fewer pieces of the product in each container (by as much as a 25% reduction in single-serving packages), driving up the profit. Mistake # 3, you are paying for air.
Mistake # 4, the whole unhealthy mess is sealed in an aluminum, pasteboard, and plastic canister. These canisters are very costly in energy and wasteful, unrecoverable package design. The aluminum bottoms and top rims can not be separated from the pasteboard tubes, and the tubes are coated with plastic which makes the pasteboard not recyclable. The outside of the tube is printed with high-concentration inks that are unrecoverable pollutants.
The food value of these chips is almost nil, far lower than the “fattening” honest potato chips they are supposed to replace. The price for them is nearly four times that of the real potato chips on a delivered product weight basis. The pollution damage done to our planet by such ‘convenience snacks’ is astronomic, and this is only one example of the huge waste we as a species create.
For example, think about ‘chewing gum’. Now days, except of a couple of ‘natural’ brands still made from chicle, all of the chewing gum on sale is made from butadiene-based synthetic rubber, a polymer plastic product made from oil, that absolutely is not recoverable. It creates 100,000 metric tonnes of waste each year.
@mattro53 said: “…most “First Worlders” selfishly overconsume with no regard to the real consequences.”
Unfortunately, it is the 3rd World and BRIC countries that are destroying the planet to cater to the “First Worlder’s” consumption orgy. The Amazon rain forest, for example, is being destroyed by the illegal slashing & burning done by greedy ranchers and farmers – sometimes, as in the case of Brazil, with the government in tacit agreement and turning a blind eye to the destruction. Added to the utter disregard of the environment by the petroleum companies now polluting the Amazon, the prognosis for the survival of our most precious resource is grim.
wldhrsy2luv over 4 years ago
Mmm. Delish!
SrTechWriter over 4 years ago
I can think of few things available from a grocery store anywhere in the world that better represent sheer waste and poor nutrition. Have you ever seen Pringles made? First, perfectly good potatoes are milled into a fiber-less powder. That’s mistake # 1. Then that is mixed with foreign material (salt, corn syrup, chemicaly-created flavoring ‘enhancers’, coloring agents, and margarine, mistake # 2) and run through a blender. Next, raw batter is fed to a machine that stamps out ‘chip’ disks, and then they are baked in a device that cooks each ‘chip’ to exactly the same shape and double curvature. Why curved? Because that way the manufacturer can put fewer pieces of the product in each container (by as much as a 25% reduction in single-serving packages), driving up the profit. Mistake # 3, you are paying for air.
Mistake # 4, the whole unhealthy mess is sealed in an aluminum, pasteboard, and plastic canister. These canisters are very costly in energy and wasteful, unrecoverable package design. The aluminum bottoms and top rims can not be separated from the pasteboard tubes, and the tubes are coated with plastic which makes the pasteboard not recyclable. The outside of the tube is printed with high-concentration inks that are unrecoverable pollutants.
The food value of these chips is almost nil, far lower than the “fattening” honest potato chips they are supposed to replace. The price for them is nearly four times that of the real potato chips on a delivered product weight basis. The pollution damage done to our planet by such ‘convenience snacks’ is astronomic, and this is only one example of the huge waste we as a species create.
For example, think about ‘chewing gum’. Now days, except of a couple of ‘natural’ brands still made from chicle, all of the chewing gum on sale is made from butadiene-based synthetic rubber, a polymer plastic product made from oil, that absolutely is not recoverable. It creates 100,000 metric tonnes of waste each year.
gnome over 4 years ago
once you pop, you can’t stop…….now give her the cheese burger flavored ones…..
Linguist over 4 years ago
@mattro53 said: “…most “First Worlders” selfishly overconsume with no regard to the real consequences.”
Unfortunately, it is the 3rd World and BRIC countries that are destroying the planet to cater to the “First Worlder’s” consumption orgy. The Amazon rain forest, for example, is being destroyed by the illegal slashing & burning done by greedy ranchers and farmers – sometimes, as in the case of Brazil, with the government in tacit agreement and turning a blind eye to the destruction. Added to the utter disregard of the environment by the petroleum companies now polluting the Amazon, the prognosis for the survival of our most precious resource is grim.
William Bednar Premium Member over 4 years ago
Nice comeback, Mike!
S.Curtis Premium Member over 4 years ago
I wish we had those at all the cookouts I went to
leester39 Premium Member over 4 years ago
Are pringles even made from a real potato?
DebUSNRet Premium Member over 4 years ago
Love it! ML, you do great with headline news and get these folks a going! Most of it is GREAT!