Maybe If We Make Salad Easier To Assemble More People Will Eat It
Americans hate salad. And with good reason: it sucks. The joyless array of leaves, suitable only for irritatingly self-satisfied fitness freaks and those whom catastrophic illness has left bereft of a discerning palate, inspires existential despair while doing nothing to curb hunger. (Plus, everyone knows salad is full of doody.) But this poses a problem for the produce industry: how to foist its depressing product on a nation of suspicious consumers. They have a plan!
At Fresh Express Inc., a unit of Chiquita Brands International Inc., executives think adding more vegetables to bagged greens will get consumers to eat more salad. They are aiming to release a bagged salad that has not just lettuces but also cucumbers, tomatoes and red peppers, among other vegetables, by sometime next year. All shoppers will have to do is open, pour and eat.
This is probably a good start, given that the majority of American cuisine comes out of a package, but it is still one step too many. Perhaps they can develop a process where the pouring stage transfers the sad dirt harvest directly into the eater's mouth. I mean, it probably wouldn't make me more likely to eat salad, but I would at least feel a little more guilty about not doing so.
ew, cucumbers.
@Maura Johnston SLIMY CUT CUCUMBERS IN A PLASTIC BAG.
@Maura Johnston Excuse me what now about cucumbers????
You're fired from my life. Oh man, so mad right now.
@Maura Johnston They are the worst, yes. Zucchini in their stead makes for proper salad.
@IBentMyWookie I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Zucchini?!
@boyofdestiny : Seriously, zucchini is as close to a wax joke vegetable as Nature can produce.
@boyofdestiny YES! So good. Trust me on this. I'm from the internet.
@Maura Johnston Cucumbers are edible when chopped up as part of a watermelon salad. They take on the flavor of watermelon and are less disgustingly cucumbery.
Also? Pickles.
@BadUncle also? Pimm's.
@Maura Johnston Peel & slice cucumbers. Shake on lots of black pepper. Drench with cider vinegar. Enjoy.
@all another vegetable: Orange bell peppers! Way better than red, and green bells? Get. the. fuck. out. of. my. food.
@Art Yucko You're drinking my language.
That was, after all, the value proposition of the Slap Chop.
How I Make A Salad:
1. Buy all the ingredients, preferably organic, from a farmer's market.
2. Bring home proudly. Line up on counter.
3. Suddenly feel flooded with exhaustion and ennui.
4. Hide vegetables in bottom bin of fridge
5. Order Thai
@C_Webb Alternately – Make salad once, use 1/3 of purchased vegetables, leave rest to rot in bottom bin of fridge.
GUTTY OLE PAL!!!!
Eat more salad, Headless Fatty.
Maybe things are that different up here in Canada, but hasn't ready-made salad been available for ages now?
@Murgatroid Without those chopped up vegetables though. Just considering how they're going to keep those things fresh (-looking) has me shuddering right now.
If I could toss my own salad, I would never leave the house.
@saythatscool Have you heard of the Salad Shooter™?
@BadUncle I'm currently scheduled to marry one in New York next weekend.
@saythatscool Don't forget to bring your "Miracle Whip."
@saythatscool you need a dry-off in the spinner.
gutty AND the doody tag. this is going to be a great day!
Lettuce is basically the worst, they should disclude it from salads going forward.
@allyzay I support your candidacy
@allyzay I would eat salad all the time if it weren't for the agony of trying to choose which lettuce I despise least.
I can't think of many things less appetizing than cutting up a cucumber in a factory, putting it in a plastic bag with a bunch of other vegetables, letting said vegetables acquire various stages of wilt and dehydration through a cross-country journey in a tractor-trailer, and then trying to eat the rubbery, dry object-that-was-a-cucumber.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, the way to solve the obesity crisis is to give each American a personal chef.
Well, we already tried making salad fun and/or violent with the salad shooter, and that clearly didn't work. Can't we just give up and bribe the FDA into defining mozzerella sticks as vegetables?
@jfruh: Why not just stick with jalapeno poppers? They were definitely originally a vegetable (technically a fruit) but it's been fried and jam-packed with a comparable amount of cheese.
Wake me up when they make salad in feedbags I can attach directly to my mouth.
this plan needs more cheez-whiz to actually be effective.
I really don't understand the salad deniers. But whatever, more cucumbers for me!
@jolie *bites tongue
@jolie I love salad! But in my old age I have come to accept that I will rarely make them at home, in the same way I have accepted that I will never go to a 6 am yoga class or remember to rotate my tires.
@jolie Seriously! Salad is delicious. Admittedly, I cover mine in cheese and dressing, but underneath that, lots of vegetables! delicious, delicious vegetables!
Even if the disgusting wilted bagged salad came with a handmaiden to fork it into their mouths for them, the vegetable haters wouldn't eat it. Maybe if the handmaiden emptied the bag into a deep fryer first?
@City_Dater or a strap that turns the bagged salad into a salad feedbag. You can wear it around all day eating wilted lettuce at will.
Balk, salad is my dinner 5 nights a week. Not just because I've grown to like the flavor, but because it only takes 5 minutes to cook a meal. It only demands a steak on the side.
or a pizza buffet at the end.
That guy's due date must be really soon.
Gutty needs some Gogurt.
"I view salad primarliy as a dressing delivery device."
@Flashman For a long time I thought I had personally invented the 'primarily view X as a Y delivery vehicle' construct. Which, in retrospect, was quite silly.
@Flashman It's possible to get too much dressing though. For some reason certain manufacturers (we're looking at you, Marie's) have gotten the idea that thicker is better. Which results in enormous blobs of dressing that are too thick to spread out on the greens. Blech.
The issue needs to be reframed. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables saves valuable caloric space for alcohol.
@Smitros ^TRUTH BOMB.
@whizzard Data available upon request once I estimate and/or make it up.
I hear the salad bar at Wonderland Ranch converted into a leather pony after 8 pm.
I don't think they've investigated the purée approach nearly as thoroughly as it deserves. Turn the "dressing delivery vehicle" into a dressing itself. I'd eat a lot more salad if I could just spread it on pastrami. Don't poo-poo a tube of salad goo!
…eh, the tagline needs some work…
@daemonsquire #doody
I consider The Awl an intellectual salad that I gladly consume heaps of.