Since it is voting day here in the US and people are taking
the time to battle long lines, annoying people with signs, and interacting with
old ladies at desks who match address and name on a piece of paper with
whatever you tell them (SERIOUSLY, here in midsize town New England I could
walk in and vote for any person that lives on my street), just so they can put
in their two cents on which idiots they want wasting their money on things like
new designs for quarters, I thought a rather serious topic should be addressed.
We need to discuss why food manufacturers think that it is acceptable to put
liquid foods in containers which render you unable to get the last freaking
sips out.
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| Looks like a smart container design, does it? I don't think so. |
I have been
in a rage about this for months in the matter of coconut water. It’s not just
one brand. It seems to be a multi-brand problem. For those of you who aren’t
fans of coconut water, let me share the crux of the issue. Coconut water, being
a somewhat crunchy, neo-hippy, yuppy sort of beverage, comes in cardboard
recyclable containers. That’s all well and good, except the containers are
rectangular boxes with a round hole un-centered in the flat top with a port
stuck in it for pouring. A milk container, or an orange juice container, or a
cream container, ALL in cardboard rectangular boxes, would open from the box into
a spout so you can pour ALL of the liquid out. A juice box is manufactured in
such a way that you can squeeze the life and last drops out of the box while
you suck the fluid up with a straw. But with coconut water, which is about as
cheap as a movie theatre fountain soda, they (the evil tropical fluid packaging
empire) make it physically impossible to get the last drops into a glass or
your mouth.
I have tried all kinds of strange
neck acrobatics, with my head tilted back, to the side, weeble-wobbling to and
fro, and practically upside down, to try and wrangle those last drops from the
sides of the cardboard towards that port on the top of the box to absolutely no
avail. It’s a wonder I haven’t given myself a slipped disc. It’s like trying to
play one of those ridiculous cardboard games where you tilt it back and forth
to put all the little tiny metal balls in recessed holes. Impossible and
unbelievably irritating. I am not a quitter. Throwing out that box that still
has coconut water in it makes me feel like I have failed and disappointed
myself, not to mention the feelings of waste, loss, and being cheated out of
something I paid for.
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| 960 MG OF SODIUM. That makes a hot dog look like a health food. |
Last week I
decided to bring some Campbell’s salt, I mean soup, in a cup to work for a
snack. Their microwaveable sippy-cup of soup is really a great idea in theory.
Heat it up and drink it out of the cup shaped container, which is even
ergonomically shaped to fit your hand. I chose Chicken with Stars. It’s a
favorite from my childhood. Star shaped pasta tastes better than long noodles,
obviously. You would think a company like Campbell’s would have their shit
together, but, apparently, that’s just not the case.
Just like with the coconut
water, I got to the end of the cup, and there was an obstruction where a whole
bunch of the stars got stuck! So then I was sitting at work, a place where I’d
rather people didn’t think I was mentally disabled, trying to get the rest of
the soup out of the cup. Again, I instinctively charged into the “You’re probably
going to regret this later” head tilting routine. This time it was accompanied by
some vigorous shaking to account for the solid nature of the star pasta. I managed
to get some of the stars out! But they didn’t end up in my mouth. The angle
wasn’t quite right and they launched themselves down my shirt. They might as
well have stayed in the cup. I wasn’t about to eat them off my chest.
Just think
about all the other foods in containers that are cheating us out of our last
drops. Whipped cream. Spray cheese. Beer – you know how those last drops adhere
to the glass bottle. Although I suppose I can’t blame the breweries for the
physical and chemical properties of water.
Eating is
not supposed to be this difficult, especially when the foods are packaged in
what is supposed to be “convenient” packaging. I don’t enjoy being forced to waste things simply because they won’t come out of
the box. I end up feeling that I was screwed out of a few cents. I hope that
whoever is elected today will address this issue. With so much talk of waste,
here is an actual example of waste that I feel directly affected by. I want to
be compensated for the food that I do not get to eat because it remains in the
package. I also think that compensation for the emotional distress that this
issue is causing me would be nice as well. At the very least, someone should
send me some coupons…
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