"Good Health" Makes a Bad Decision

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The front of the old bag (Mickey, left) compared to the new bag (Monster, right). Click to enlarge.

If you, like me, are always looking for ways to sneak vegetable-like substances into your picky-eater’s diet, please note this massive bait and switch from “Good Health” with their “Veggie Chips.”

SOME VEGETABLES AND ALL VITAMINS HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND A CANCER WARNING HAS BEEN ADDED 

I repeat.  

SOME VEGETABLES AND ALL VITAMINS HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND A CANCER WARNING HAS BEEN ADDED 

And yes: I know. Dehydrated vegetables are no substitute for fresh ones. But the struggle to get my kid to the fresh variety is very real, y’all. So whenever we opted for a processed food for snack time, we turned to things like Good Health Veggie Chips because their nutritional profile blew away the competition. They were loaded with actual dehydrated vegetables and herbs; and since throwing a bunch of vegetable powder into a processed snack doesn’t pack the nutritional wallop of eating fresh veggies, they previously added a host of vitamins to help mimic the impact. In fact: their previous formula included nine types of dehydrated vegetables and herbs (I’m not counting “dehydrated potato” in that number for obvious nutritional deficits) and six different vitamins.  

So when I saw they were marketing a new monster-shaped chip just in time for Halloween but didn’t shout “new recipe!” on their packaging, I wrongly assumed the fun shape was the only thing that was different. We were running low and I was looking for “healthy” Halloween-themed treats for my lone trick-and-treater, so I eagerly threw them into my cart without a second thought.  

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The back of the old bag (left) compared to the new bag (right). Click to enlarge.

Until I got them home, that is, and I realized the word “veggie” was suspiciously missing from the small-type description in the lower left-hand corner of the bag. So I flipped the bag over and realized the “ingredient” list was significantly shorter on the new packaging. Normally I’m all for processed foods having as few ingredients as possible, but not when the ingredients are a variety of vegetables and vitamins. So I looked more closely and was pretty appalled.  

The new formula has three fewer dehydrated vegetables/herbs (I’m giving them a pass on the missing “dehydrated garlic,” as the new formula replaces it with “garlic powder”). It’s missing beets, carrots and broccoli and ALL SIX ADDED VITAMINS.  

They’ve also added a few things, including 62% more fat, rice flour, potassium chloride, potassium citrate and citric acid. And last and certainly not least: a cancer warning. Yes, that’s right: a cancer warning.  

There’s a lot to unpack here, and I will admit now: although I primarily write in the healthcare space and am no stranger to related research, I’m not a doctor, scientist or nutritionist. But when I see the presence of more fat AND a cancer warning tied to acrylamide – a chemical that can form in some foods due to high-temperature cooking – I can’t help but wonder if there’s a connection. The presence of more oil/fat leads me to believe the new formula is being fried at a higher temperature (and thereby introducing an unsafe chemical into the finished product). 

It’s worth noting that many potato chips and fries (and even some coffee) are required by the state of California to include an acrylamide warning due to high cooking temperatures. But it’s also worth noting that the previous formula didn’t require such a warning, and the need to include one now, to me, is an enormous contradiction to the brand name: Good Health.  

As for the potassium chloride and potassium citrate: these are sometimes used as salt substitutes and to regulate acidity, respectively, and aren’t necessarily alarming. But this formula also still includes “salt” and the exact same amount of sodium as the previous recipe, which leads me to believe they felt the flavor was lacking and wanted to add more “salt-like quality” without increasing sodium levels. This results in a negligible amount of potassium (2% of the RDA) appearing in each serving, which can be a good thing. But with the appearance of potassium in the new formula comes a reduction in the amount of iron from 2% to zilch. So in a way, it’s a wash.

In any event, it seems these additions are intended to make up for what the new formula was otherwise lacking. We haven’t tasted them yet – in fact, we plan on returning them – but after I realized these chips were markedly different from the originals, I took a peek at online reviews and noticed a remarkable decline in ratings between the old and new formula. Seven months ago, every Target reviewer gave Good Health Veggie Chips 5 out of 5 stars. But starting about three months ago – presumably about the time these were introduced – the ratings dropped. 50% of all ratings since then have been 1 out of 5 stars, with one reviewer calling them “oily and gross” in comparison to the prior version. Multiple reviewers comment on the texture, with one noting: “The [previous formula] felt more like baked chips, while these monster ones are more air-y and feel like they're fried.”

If this reviewer is correct about the change in cooking method, that would certainly explain the addition of a cancer warning. I plan on reaching out to the company to confirm and will update this story once I know more, but given the timing of the new chips’ release, I didn’t want to delay sending this alert out to regular buyers.

My hope here is that these monster chips – as difficult as their cuteness is to resist in the days leading up to Halloween – are a temporary thing. That once Halloween passes, they’ll go not just with a different design, but also return to their original formula. But whether this is a short-or-long-term recipe, the fact remains: to market them as the same chip is deceptive at best.

If this is a long-term switch, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a cost-saving measure. But I think Good Health might find their sales negatively impacted by this move, with the previous formula’s nutritional value having been the reason many of us chose them over other brands. For me, this deceptive switch has significantly damaged their brand, and I suspect it will have a lasting impact on their sales. In which case: saving up-front now might cost them in the long run.

The Gift of Light

My daughter’s high-pitched voice is typical for someone her age: it drips like honey so damn sweet, some days I could eat her words. But when she recently said, “I want to make a gift for Grandma and Papaw,” it was the resolve in her voice—a drive well beyond her years—that really caught my attention. “I want to make something they can see from heaven,” she said.

The words hit like a gut punch that re-filled my body with the same sadness I’ve been pushing down for what feels like eons. Think of a video game character low on life force receiving a sudden surge of energy; now, imagine that energy is fueled entirely by grief that never truly diminishes.

And no: this sadness isn’t rooted in my mother’s recent passing, nor my father’s passing just a few months prior. Rather: if really pressed to trace its origins, I’d say this melancholy Big Bang sparked when my father first started losing his balance and dexterity, and then multiplied exponentially with every new symptom, every fruitless medical exam, every horrifying prognosis (and so on). These things pulled me toward the event horizon, and their deaths pushed me the rest of the way in.

There is no turning back, and most days I feel like I’m floating weightless in space, witnessing life at a distance and just waiting for cosmic forces to do what they will. But occasionally my daughter pulls me back down and wakes me up, a 33-pound anchor with just enough force to tether me momentarily to this planet.

“OK,” I said, looking down as she strained her neck to make eye contact. “What would you like to make for them?”

I expected a lot of hemming and hawing, but her quick reply indicated she’d been giving this a lot of thought long before she vocalized her request.

“A rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw,” she said without missing a beat.

I told her we would make both, or we could possibly even make a rainbow sun-catcher—a single gift they could share—but it would be a few days, because we needed to think about the best way to approach the project(s). So we studied rainbows and light, and I explained how, in a way, a rainbow is a sun-catcher: that it is a refraction and dispersion of light cast by the sun. 

And so one day while watering the flowers at my mother’s house, with the sun beating down from over our shoulders, she hatched an idea: “We can make a rainbow for Grandma to see right now! You make the rainbow, and I will catch it for Papaw!”

And so I did. And she did. And I thought our project was complete.

“No, no, no,” she said when I intimated as much later that day. “I still want to make a rainbow for Grandma and a sun-catcher for Papaw. Something they can see forever. I want to draw the rainbow, but I don’t know how to make a sun-catcher.”

I told her I would research ideas. A few more days passed, and she grew increasingly insistent.

“Mom, I really need to make those gifts for Grandma and Papaw,” she said. “How else will they know I love and miss them?”

There was no denying the urgency in her voice. I gathered the necessary supplies and we got to work, the only real hiccup being the lack of proper “indigo” and “violet” markers (she was insistent we make the rainbow exactly according to prism specifications). But we improvised with what we had, and she beamed with pride upon the completion of each project.

And then even more so a couple days later when we turned her drawing into a t-shirt she can wear whenever she wants to send a message to her grandmother. And I suppose she’ll beam again when we frame the original, but that is a project for another day.

---

Somewhere in-between the first arch of the rainbow and the finished shirt it hit me: we were completing these gifts on the eve on my parents’ wedding anniversary. Their first one since my father passed away. Their first one since my mother passed away. Their first once since my jaw became inexorably clenched in its current position.  

I gaze at the sun-catcher, now irreverently taped to our window, and notice a puff of air eke out of my lungs. It travels up through my trachea and escapes from behind my teeth. A sigh.

I try to focus on the light but find myself succumbing to the push and pull of gravity and inertia—of nothingness and everything—all at once.

My feet rise from the Earth and then come down again, every hushed step and terrible stomp a battle between unseen forces. 

I go where they take me.

A Celebration of Life

The world is burning and people are dying but we took this one day to celebrate life.

She’s lost a grandpa and a great uncle this year. She had her first year of preschool interrupted by the coronavirus. She hasn’t played with a friend in 10 weeks or hugged her high-risk grandma in 12. The last time she saw most of her cousins was at her grandfather’s funeral.

She’d been looking forward to a big party with friends and family for the first time in her short life, but she accepted the sad reality we’re in.

So when she asked for a unicorn birthday cake, you can bet I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. making the cake — and decorating for a party of 3 as though it was the party of her dreams.

The Pandemic (From the Perspective of a Three Year Old)

My daughter’s favorite stuffy has been bedridden with a terrible cold for two days now. She’s also started writing/singing songs about needing to stay home to stay well.

We’ve had to walk a fine line between being open and honest with her — and keeping her at peace. But invariably every time we have to explain something new (why play dates are cancelled... why we aren’t going to preschool... why we can’t go to the playground... why we can’t go to restaurants... why we can’t go visit grandma...), the stress digs in a little deeper, no matter how delicately we deliver the words.

Just a reminder that even the littlest humans are indeed still human, and this is a tough time for them, too.

So be patient. Walk away if you get angry, and give them a hug even when their sadness defies all reason. Do whatever you can to make the most of this time together, and when all else fails, remember to give yourself a break, too.

How a talking fork helped me become reacquainted with my past life

Our homemade version of Toy Story 4’s “Forky.”

Parenting is a solitary gig, even when done in pairs. You see friends and family less and less, and things you once did eagerly, and regularly, become a distant memory. That’s not to say it’s all a bum racket, but it isn’t exactly for the faint of heart, either (particularly when family, aka free babysitting, is 160-2300 miles away).

But it is what it is, and you do your best, keeping an eye on the clock—and so inadvertently rushing time—just waiting for the day when your kid can accompany you on various adventures. At age two, everyone says it’s OK to take your kid to an age-appropriate movie (oh, the cinema! Remember that?). But at age two, your particular mini-me shies away from crowds and cries at loud sounds, and the movie theater is, sadly, a combination of her two biggest breakdown triggers. So you sigh from the sidelines as children’s movies come and go, and you stay in. And in. And in.

(The vague recollection of you going to the movies 2-3 times a month pre-child feeling more and more like a different life entirely.)

But your child is growing, and though the triggers have remained the same, they are increasingly less so, and so one day – after you’ve gently mentioned how much fun it would be, little by little for weeks – she agrees that yes, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

So you call a buddy, pack headphones into your bag, say a hail Mary (never mind you aren’t Catholic; you need all the help you can get) and head to the theater.

You hand her the headphones while you’re still out on the sidewalk; you make a game out of the escalator ride up; you buy her absolute most-favorite treat; and you head into your theater just as the movie is about to start (because you know better than to risk sitting through 13-minutes of previews).

When she opens her mouth to speak, the words that come out are precisely what you’d feared: “I want to go home.”

Sure, you expected that, but your heart falls to your feet all the same. But you’re not going to go down without a fight, so you pick her up and give her a hug. “It will be OK. Let’s just try it for a minute. If you don’t like it or it’s too loud, we’ll leave.”

You don’t expect her to agree, but she surprises you. These little humans are funny like that.

“OK,” she says. “Let’s try it.”

And that was that. For the next 90 minutes, she sits perfectly still, shifting only a little just to get more comfortable. She doesn’t make a peep except to laugh or say “thank you” when you hand her a treat.

As you walk out of the theater, you sense a strange feeling. It takes a second or two before you’re able to define it. Could it be? Is this really?

…happy…

So much has happened, so much has gone wrong, you’d almost forgotten what it was like. You can feel the moment etching into the folds of your brain, a veritable oasis after walking through four years of desert.

When you take a moment to reflect, you can’t decide if this is the absolute best children’s movie ever—or if what you’re feeling is really just the joy that comes with being re-acquainted with the theater. With your old friend.

Oh, how I’ve missed you.

When you’re in the bathroom for a post-movie potty break, the reality of the day hits you.

You can start going to the movies again.

You feel a weight lift as you welcome in a small bit of freedom. Your mind briefly turns to the rest of the day as you realize just how many tasks lay ahead. Your daughter’s little voice brings you back to the room as she finishes washing her hands.

“Can we make a Forky after my nap?” she squeaks.

You don’t even pause to think. The day has written itself.

“Absolutely.”