Variety is the Spice of Life

by Mark R. Vogel

The other day I was in my usual supermarket, (which shall remain nameless since I teach cooking classes for them), searching for my beloved Pepsi, a 12-pack of cans to be exact.

As I perused the soda section I encountered vanilla Pepsi, cherry Pepsi, Lemon Pepsi, caffeine-free Pepsi, and diet Pepsi. EVERYTHING but regular good ole fashioned Pepsi. There was not one 12-pack, 6-pack, or case for that matter, of regular Pepsi. Hello?

Anybody home? Obviously we're overdoing it with the bells and whistles.

Recently chicken broth was on sale in the same store. Can you believe every can of the regular broth was sold out? But there was plenty of the low-sodium, reduced fat, and herb flavored broths.

Another time Mozzarella cheese was on sale. Even though the whole milk and the part skim milk mozzarella were both on sale, there was not one package of whole milk mozzarella to be found.

It was equally exasperating rummaging through every tub of cottage cheese on the shelf in quest of one container of the regular kind. Oh there was low-fat, no-fat, whipped, and pineapple, but your everyday, run of the mill cottage cheese was an elusive quarry. Apparently "regular" is not so regular any more.

Take milk for example. There's regular milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, and skim milk. Milk is 4% fat so the 2% milk has had half of it's fat removed. Thus, 2% milk is NOT 98% fat free.

It would be more accurate to say it's 50% fat free. Likewise, the 1% milk has had 75% of it's fat removed. Only the skim milk is virtually fat free.

So at one end of the continuum there's regular milk and at the other end there's skim milk. Then there's a mid-way point for folks who want to cut down on the fat yet retain some semblance of flavor, namely, the 2% milk.

So do we really need the 1% milk? Like that 1% is going to be the deciding factor in your bypass surgery. Now add in organic milk, soy milk, and various flavored milks and the simple act of retrieving a container of regular milk is like playing Where's Waldo.

And of course, God forbid we didn't have a "lite" version of every product under the sun. I'd need a calculator to count how many times I could only find the lite style of the item in question on the shelf.

Now manufacturers are developing "low-carb" versions of their products to appease the growing number of individuals being duped by this latest dietary mass hysteria.