Why Eating Pringles Is Harder Than Building A Wardrobe

Why oh why oh why oh why can’t things be more simple in life.

Its seems that everywhere I look, some jobs worth in his suit and tie (or her, in her flowery dress and sandals) woke up one morning and declared that it their sole purpose in life to make more difficult than they need to be.

Maybe there is some common sense down here..

It’s everywhere.

From the vein poppingly stupid pict-o-graphs of wardrobe assembly instructions to the never ending knots of wires required to plug a TV into the wall.

I can’t not seriously believe that one decade into the 21^st century (a time that has been forever known as THE FUTURE) still requires people to sit and scratch the scalp of their heads in order to complete what should be the most mundane of tasks.

There is no escaping it.

Even the basic task of eating has now become an exam in quantum mechanics.

To explain it better go and get some food.

GO ON!

It doesn’t matter what you use, as long as it comes in some form of packaging.

Once you have taken it a good long hard look at the table of ingredients bit. Some around there will be the bit about nutritional information.

What does any of this mean?

I’m using a tube of Pringles.

I also have a packet of chocolate chip Brioche rolls as well. (Ooh get me!)

Anyway.

Along the lines of information hidden in the tiniest of tiny writing is all the stuff about how much energy it has and saturated fat, salt, fibre, protein, broken glass etc... Which is fine.

That is until I look a little bit closer and realise it tells me how much energy 25 grams gives me, or for comparison, 100 grams.

The tube of Pringles is 190 grams.

I now have to perform some mathematical equations to figure out exactly how much salt I am going to shovel into my gullet.

Nowhere on there does it tell me how much salt or fibre there is in one whole tin.

I am not – under any circumstances – going to “just under one half” of a tube of Pringles.

Why would I?

HOW could I?

Once you POP you MUST NOT stop

Pringles by nature need to be consumed in one sitting. Otherwise the world will end.

Even when I promise myself I will just take out a hand full, say a dozen or so and even go as far as to put the lid back on and put the tube on the table out of arms reach I know damned well that at some point in the next 5 minutes I’m going to get my lazy ass off the chair and grab another load.

All because I’m greedy and Pringles are addictive. (Because of the high salt levels)

It’s no wonder so many people are massive when the basic dietary facts on foods are displayed in cryptic form.

Don’t get me wrong. I know and so does everyone else that eating too much bad stuff makes you fat and then kills you.

When that happens there is nobody to blame but yourself. But I have time on my hands and like to know what I’m putting in my gob before I chew the crap out of it.

If it has 200% of my daily allowance of polyunsaturates then so be it. I don’t even know what they are.

What I don’t need to know is that 30 grams of food contains 25% of my daily recommended allowance of “Fat of which saturates” because that means I’ve got to work out how much food I’m going to eat, divide that by something and multiply it by another thing add the number of the first house I lived at and subtract my age in dog years.

This doesn’t take into account that I have absolutely no idea if fat has saturated is good for me or not.

I’m going to eat it anyway. I would just like a little warning before my chest gets all tight and my breath become shallow and that tingling sensation starts up again in my left arm.

In Europe it has been decided by law that all nutritional information MUST be express as per 100 grams or 100 ml.

Whats the point?

I do remember some German woman (or French...maybe Dutch) on the radio saying that this made it easier for people to work out what they were eating. When the news reporter said to her “wouldn’t it be easier to understand the nutritional information if the packaging said exactly what was in each packet or portion?” the politician simply said “no.”

It wasn’t like that word for word, but the sentiment was there.

Plus they never tell you the full story on what is in your food.

There is a rule that states “there can be up to 60 insect fragments per 100g of chocolate.” Which answers the question what are those chewy bits in a Toblerone.

Yummy!!

There are no conclusions to be had here.

Thats the problem, i think. In a world where everything was made simple and allowed to be free from pointless confusion so that some middle management executive can justify their existance I would be able to set up the TV, build that wardrobe and eat my Pringles in peace.

But that world does not exist. 

PS - I have no intentions of building any wardrobes at all.