Opinion> Lenore Skenazy> No More New Wheat Thins And Other Resolutions For The Food Industry

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No More New Wheat Thins! (And Other Resolutions For the Food Industry)

Ever dunked a cookie into a cup of hot chocolate a split second too long? Of course you have. Maybe you're doing it right now. (Check!) Either way, you know what you end up with: A contaminated drink with a cookie stub hovering above its own disintegrated body.

This is an experience you'd want to repeat?

Well, apparently someone in corporate marketing thinks so, because now you can buy S'mores-flavored Nesquik, the world's first drink engineered to taste like an after-school snack accident. By comparison, Mini Marshmallow Nesquik sounds like Dom Perignon.

On the other hand, Nesquik isn't nearly as disturbing as the new Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Pop-Tarts. Raw dough inside a baked tart. I don't even get how that is possible.

So, as a new year approaches and we all get busy making resolutions, this seems a perfect time for some:

RESOLUTIONS FROM THE PEOPLE WHO COME UP WITH NEW FOODS

We, the country's strange and unseen food consultants, do solemnly pledge:

This coming year, we will not add sour cream 'n' onion flavoring to anything else. Not to a baked version of a previously fried snack, not to a trans-fat free version of a previously baked snack, not to nothin'. We are fully aware that just opening a container of sour cream 'n' onion anything makes the whole room smell like a frat house where not one of the so-called "brothers" was willing to wash out the dip bowl. There it sits. So adios to sour cream 'n' onion.

Note: We did not promise anything about sour cream 'n' chives!

OK.

OK. No sour cream 'n' chives, either.

This is the year we will also stop fiddling with Wheat Thins. There is simply nothing left for us to do with them. We've done parmesan/basil, "harvest garden vegetable" (and any other word we could throw in to conjure up the kind of farm-fresh food this isn't), and we've done ranch, of course, and honey (never hurts to make a food sweeter!). We've even done Big Wheat Thins, which look like something you're supposed to put in your shoe. So, frankly, we're done. If you don't like the Wheat Thins there on the shelf, you're not going to like any new ones we can dream up. Try a Ritz.

But don't expect any new weird Ritz shapes, either! Even WE are embarrassed by Ritz Sticks, which claim to help "dip, dunk, scoop." Like the round ones were so impossible to maneuver? Like they weren't the best-selling cracker in human history? No new shapes!

No new blue kiddie drinks, either. Promise. Kids lose all aesthetic appeal when their lips get blue. We see that.

Nor will we add pomegranate to any drinks, even though, frankly, we could sell pomegranate milk at this point. Pomegranates are the new sour cream 'n' onion. (NOTE TO BOSS: Sour cream 'n' onion milk in '08?)

Finally, we will refrain from giving diet and health foods the kind of scrumptious names that make people fly out of the organic aisle and drive straight to the Butterfat Hut. So no more chocolate pecan pie diet shakes. Ditto, caramel nut brownie fiber bars.

We will strive to make only responsible brand extensions in the coming year.

Unless the folks at Coke want to talk graham cracker crumbs. With lime.

To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com), and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.