Wagon Wheels: yummy, gummy, marshmallow, chocolatey, graham wafer, individually wrapped in gleaming plastic with slogans promising unworldly glee—Stop it already, you had me at Wagon! And you had my kids at the plastic wrap.
Those rascals see a wrapper and know that inside that thin petro-clear housing is something delectable, plump full of sugar, preserved fat and former-food-products so utterly refined they’re unrecognizable (i.e. wheat grain). Damn, they good.
So what’s the problem? The problem is they’re crap. Now it would be ok if the only issue here was that there exists no nutritional value in a Wagon Wheel. Like paper: "just gonna pass right through ya mam." However, that’s not the case. Not only is there zero of anything of value in a wagon wheel, it is actually harmful, and your liver will be working serious OT to get the crap out of you.
Who eats wagon wheels? Kids. And who hands them out? Hair-brained soccer moms. Juuuuust kidding. There’s nothing wrong with their brains, just their label-reading abilities. Spank spank! Earth to moms: orange slices, any kind of fruit or veggy, a home-baked muffin, or perhaps an organic power bar, are really the only appropriate food-items to hand out to kids running their rumps off on a soccer field. Don't even get me started on the plague of treats & candies given as a prize every time kids do anything other than play a video game.
The first ingredient in a Wagon Wheel is chocolate coating, then in brackets next to sugar (which I'll wager is genetically modified) is “hydrogenated modified palm kernel oil.” Look no further. It is the second ingredient! That means MOST of the wheel is made up of this fractured, rancid, toxic oil that wreaks havoc in your cell membranes. It's a TRANS fat. A little further down, at number five, is sorbitan tristearate. How you say? It's synthetic wax. I'll pass. Let's not forget that sugar came first. The average North American eats 32 teaspoons of sugar a day, 300 pounds per year. Can you say insulin spike? Can you say Type 2 diabetes? Or any of the other chronic diseases ailing our once vital population?
Then Dare has the cajones to write "made better" on the package. Really now. How so? Their answer under the "Made Better Facts" reads: peanut free facility, made in Quebec, source of iron. Let me get this straight, Dare DIDN'T use a common allergen so that's "made better"? Hi, we didn't use strychnine, isn't that great of us? Then Dare lists a location: Quebec. Ha. Yah. Ok. Because Quebec is the last untouched swath of pristine temperate forest on the planet. Dear God if that were true please don't put a wagon wheel factory there! But I'll give it to them for this: Quebec is infinitely better than China. Pfew. I would not buy anything edible from China -- especially "treats" -- research this and prepare to be horrified.
Big deal. They did play soccer. It’s just one Wagon Wheel after all. If only that were true. I see WW-type "goodies" handed out every weekend or at every birthday party or any time there is a kiddy celebration of any sort. Which is often -- kids graduate from Kindergarden and grade 3 and they graduate from taking a course and passing a swim class. “The kids deserve it! So fun. Look how they gobble it up and his cute purple lips from O.D.'ing on Nerds.” I get it. Back in the day candies, cakes and cookies were treats. But now they're so ubiquitous they're staples, like bread, daily, sometimes hourly indulgences. People forget that. It's not just ONE, it's a ton. These seemingly innocuous pseudo-foods are everywhere. If you think that's ok, read: safe for young growing bodies, then my food fight is with you! MIT found a 25% difference in IQ scores of children who consumed the most refined carbs compared to those who had the least. Twenty-five-per-cent!
I could call Dare Foods and take it up with them. But I can tell you what will happen. NOTHING. Read the book, “Salt, Sugar, Fat” – hopeless. So what will hurt them? Poor sales. That’s all. Consumers making good choices. Simple. Let’s do it!
I love my fellow moms and their kids, and we all have the best of intentions. However, this fake-food is not ok. Moms today did not grow up with the litany of preservatives, colourings, trans-fats, toxins and cheap ingredients that our kids are growing up with now. They used real SUGAR back in our day, genetically modified anything was science fiction. Let’s make change now. Shop smart! Make healthy choices & just say NO to the magical wheel.