Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

April 4, 2015 Victor El-Khouri 1 Comment

Dispatch from the class war:  Apparently, the effects of income inequality are worse than we thought.

In a new commercial for Wendy’s, our spokesmodel says,  “Married to the idea that fresh salads can’t come from fast food restaurants?What if I told you restaurants with fancy bowls aren’t the only ones who can do that? Wendy’s has fresh produce delivered and they wash and prep their salads with freshly grilled chicken every day. It’s not the bowl that counts, but what goes into the bowl that matters.”

Look, I realize I’m a privileged member of the East Coast intellectual elite, graduated from a posh girls’ boarding school and living in the Sodom and Gomorrah that is the West Village.  So maybe I’m not in touch with real Americans.  When did bowls get to be something “fancy?”  How else does one eat salads except from a bowl?  I mean, I guess one also eats salad from a plate, but that seems to me to be no less fancy. Dinnerware is dinnerware.

Are the 99% forced to eat their salads directly from the ground?  In defiance of the affectations of the rich, are regular guys eating salad out of their laps?

Given a choice, I would no sooner eat a salad from a fast-food restaurant than I would eat anything else from a fast-food restaurant.  Therefore, it’s possible that Wendy’s serves their salads in some amazing new invention.  If so, I wish they would show this innovative wonder in the commercials.  As it is, I am too obsessed with my questions about the economic implications of “fancy” bowls to pay any attention to what is in their salads.

Do they include almonds?  Apparently, my love for them puts me in a direct conflict with the state of California.  The Golden State is experiencing the worst drought on record, a natural disaster that effects not only citizens, but the agricultural business.  Farms use a tremendous amount of water, and almonds (and alfalfa) are among the worst offenders.  Almonds are a big source of income for the state’s farmers.  California farms provide as much as 80% of our nation’s produce.  Maybe if we all cut back on almonds, there would be more water available for people to, you know, drink.

I suppose I can eat Brazil nuts instead.

Which I should be doing, and so should you.  Even though, as a dieting teen, I was taught to avoid eating nuts because they are high in fat and calories, it turns out that they aren’t really fattening.  And, really, what is more threatening to a woman’s worth than the possibility that she might have a few extra pounds?  So even though nuts are one of those foods that, once I start eating I can’t stop until they are gone and I have no cash to buy more, it turns out that’s a good thing.

And pistachios!

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, suspects that hickory smoke flavor is not part of the health benefit.