Chew on This: Strange Flavors Appear on Idaho Grocery Shelves

A buddy of mine chews on sunflower seeds.  Some guys chew tobacco, some bite their nails and others chew seeds.  He’ll sit on his deck and spit the shells out over the railing.  Eating sunflower seeds is a healthy habit.  Did I mention he also smokes like a chimney and can put away a 6-pack over the course of an afternoon?  The seeds are the best option of the three!

The other day, I was grocery shopping when I saw the pictured seeds at the checkout.  There has been an explosion of various flavors for snack foods in recent years.  You can get chips that taste like wing sauce.  There must be a dozen varieties of Cheerios.  I bought both blueberry and pumpkin spice a couple of weeks ago.  Pumpkin spice was a flavor of Spam marketed a few years back.  I love Spam but I didn’t see the option on the shelves.  Apparently, it didn’t return the following autumn.  Pumpkin spice has become the butt of jokes.  I saw a meme this week for pumpkin spice motor oil.

For my beer drinking friend, the last few decades have featured an explosion of flavors (including pumpkin).  Shelves of local stores offer huckleberry beer.  Dr Pepper now comes in cherry and vanilla flavors.  There’s a Dr Pepper cream soda.

One of my colleagues posted some months ago about vegetable-flavored ice creams.

You realize, these are all products from an affluent culture.  In some parts of the world, survival is based on digging for roots.

As strange as some of these flavors may strike you, we should consider the options a blessing.