Gluten-Free Rice Krispies!

I  VISITED the cereal aisle of my local grocer yesterday hoping to see what the long-overdue new prize is in Kashi’s Good Friends cereal (still the Ira Glass Mini Goofy Glasses) but what ended up catching my eye was Rice Krispies! These weren’t just any Rice Krispies but Gluten-Free Rice Krispies. Like you, I had to laugh. As you know, this entire “gluten-free” nonsense is the next ridiculous trend in household products that Big Grocery is shoving down our throats.

Remember just a few years ago they were adding oxygen to every manner of cleaning product because somehow the filthy air we breathe was supposed to get our underpants whiter? (Yeah, like that did your bloomers any good!) Next, all these different food products were suddenly infused with acai berry and green tea and flaxseed oil and whole grains! (What had we been eating before, partial grains? Sheesh.) And let’s not forget pomegranate – and to a lesser extent, blueberry – mania from a few years ago. Jesus!

Good citizens all, we dutifully began to eat food with these new, exotic ingredients no one ever had heard of before. And no sooner had we all gotten used to buying mayonnaise with “olive oil” in it then we’re supposed to recalibrate our grocery buying again as they pull the same crap with this gluten-free campaign. But now we’re to avoid certain foods – the kind with “gluten” in them – at least until the manufacturers can come up with a gluten-free variety of whatever it was we were eating before. They’re working fast and hundreds of new variations of old products – gluten-free, of course – have already popped up. What’s also sprung up out of nowhere like so many gluten-free mushrooms in a pile of gluten-free horse manure are your gluten-free blogs written by these well-meaning but, okay, let’s face it, naive and half-witted gluten-free Moms who somehow have convinced themselves that their children can’t handle gluten. Whatever gluten is. (And, no, I don’t know, either.)

Now I ask you: do you remember, growing up, a single kid in school who had a gluten allergy?  Of course not – they didn’t exist! So what happened to this loser generation of children that this previously non-existent problem has become such a wide-spread epidemic? I’ll tell you what happened – nothing! Nothing happened! Also, helicopter parenting.

Gluten allergies are of course a myth, like Bigfoot landing on the moon and gluten-free spider eggs in Bubble Yum. And to prove it, I encourage you, if you know some kid with a supposed gluten allergy, to carry around a loaf of Wonder Bread.  And when you see that that poor little putz about to take a bite of his almond butter and goji berry sandwich on sunflower-seed-and-brown-rice gluten-free bread (all of which was purchased at Trader Joe’s, and don’t get me started on that place!), you knock it out of his hand and cram a slice of Wonder Bread there in its place. It helps build strong bodies 12 ways, and if he was eating it in the first place, he wouldn’t have had his sandwich knocked to the ground so easily.

To see how completely joyless the whole idiotic gluten-free craze is – to show you that this gluten-free crusade doesn’t just remove the delicious gluten from our favorite foods, it removes the fun – you need only point your  browser at the Kellogg’s website, and visit their Gluten-Free Rice Krispies recipes section.

I don’t need to tell you that the quintessential regular, good ol’-fashioned Rice Krispies recipe is of course, what else?, the beloved and revered Rice Krispies Treat. But not Gluten-Free Rice Krispies! Oh no, brother! What do you make with that cereal?

Parmesan Zucchini Sticks. (Try showing up with those at the next bake sale. You’ll be drummed out of the PTA!)

See what I said about forcibly removing the heart and soul from our favorite foods? The gluten-freeniks would have our kids after-school-snacking not on an 8″x8″x2″ Rice Krispies Treat or two, presumably washed down with a quart of delicious Strawberry Quik as you and I did each day Monday through Friday, but rather on something made with vegetables.

…Oh, look, if you scroll down on that same page, it turns out you can make Rice Krispies Treats with Gluten-Free Rice Krispies, too. Huh.

I bet those gluten-free Rice Krispies make the marshmallows taste terrible.

Posted by Ted on July 14, 2011, 9:00 AM.