Coming Clean, by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise | @MDWorld

August 5, 2016 Victor El-Khouri 0 Comments

No presidential politics this week.  I’m going away for a few days, and therefore writing this early.  Who knows how many new outrages I might miss?

But mostly, this commercial has been driving me bananas all summer.  In it, the Panera Bread chain of restaurants talks about serving “clean food” and how all of their food will be “clean” by the end of the year.

I’m sorry, but that’s just disgusting.

Yeah, sure, “clean food” is a buzzword for a way of eating that tries to eliminate pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic ingredients and other unnatural elements, all without going the entire distance to “organic.”  It’s something that I generally support and try to do myself, although I don’t use those words.

I don’t use those words because the implication is that food that is not clean is dirty.  Panera is saying, as I understand it, that up until the end of this year, the food you buy from them might be dirty.

Okay, I don’t think that’s what they mean.  However, “clean food” is a phrase that means something very specific only in certain contexts, and a television commercial for a restaurant chain is not that context.

Should we, as a nation, be having a broader conversation about food?  Absolutely.  Is this something that should involve chain restaurants?  That would be swell.  Do I think it’s a good thing that Panera Bread wants to support “clean food” principles?  Uh-huh.

I just want them to do it in a way that doesn’t gross me out.

Panera Bread, show me the sincere farmers from whom you get your produce.  Interview nutritionists who will talk about the benefits of your dishes while, maybe, fighting over who gets to eat the last bite of something yummy.  You can even show me the people who prepare the food, especially if I can see them rinsing it in the sink.

You know, to get the dirt off.

It wouldn’t take much.  All of these things could be done using footage from their current commercials.  They just need to change the voice-over.

And, for a contrast, they could show us this. Everything about it is gross.  I would rather eat acorn squash (which I loathe) mixed with beets (ick!) than encounter any aspect of it.

Media Goddess Martha Thomases hasn’t had any KFC in more than two decades.  Possibly three.