Fuck You, Broccoli

An in-depth exploration of vegetables and other so-called healthy foods.

Edamame - the snack for people who hate snacks

Okay, I know I’m probably going to catch a lot of flak for this one, but Edamame, I just don’t see the point. It’s like some marketing committee sat down and said, Hey, everybody loves peanuts, but they’re just too tasty and convenient. Why don’t we find a way to replicate the taste of peanuts, only let’s make them blander so the people who don’t like tasting things can also enjoy them! And let’s make them squashy, like little balls of rubber cement, so they’re no fun to chew. Also, instead of crackly fun peanut shells, let’s put them in bitter fibrous casings so that by the time you get to the insides, people will be so squicked out by the outer taste that they’ll be grateful the insides aren’t worse! Oh! Also let’s make them pea green!  Profit!!!

And it worked. People actually sit around nice dining tables or streamlined Heman Miller workstations, sucking out your earwaxy buds and leaving your spit-slicked hairy green pods in disgusting soy-smelling piles right in front of them. “I just can’t stop eating these!” they exclaim, with that trying-too-hard smile people reserve for when their kid butchers Chopsticks at the school recital or the boss requests their attendance at a “fun” all-weekend brainstorming retreat.  It’s not the truly happy smile of people clustered around a dish of nachos or even the blanked out bliss of licking those last Cheeto crumbs off your fingers at three in the morning. It’s the smug superior smile of rubbing other people’s faces in one’s willingness to sacrifice personal joy for the good of — what, exactly?  3 fewer calories? fermented breath?  Soy farts?

Let’s face it, you can get people to eat anything if it’s coated in salt or dipped in chocolate (see Goobers). But it takes more than that to topple the Great American SaltyFattyFried Industry. So you may have some people fooled, edamame. But not all of us.  3/10.

image via wikipedia, via Flickr user Zesmeralda in Chicago

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All proceeds will be spent directly on fine, upstanding products such as Tastykakes and beer, and will in no way contribute to the Vegetable Industrial Complex (with the possible exception of Big Corn).