SFist wants peace in the universe, but sometimes we feel like starting our own war on Christmas. More specifically, the war on Frito-Lay's conspicuous Christmas advertising displays in our own local Safeway. We can bemoan the commercialization of Christmas --heck, we can rage against the rape of Christmas by the forces of the free market -- but this particular example adds a second tier of evil: not only does Frito-Lay appropriate the values of Christmas for marketing purpose, they leverage the imagery to force-feed junk into our kids.
In the market Safeway (please let us know if you have seen this elsewhere in comments), a 10 feet tall cardboard structure depicts a cartoonish Santa on a sleigh holding cartoonish snack packages: kids, if you like Santa, you must like chips. Children obesity, children shmobesity. (15% of children age 6 to 11 are obese, as opposed to a 5% twenty years ago. Another 15% is at risk.)
We already bitched about Frito-Lay advertising targeting the young ones. So we called them, and an assuaging lady told us "it is snack food, it is not meant as a replacement for a whole meal." OK, but why target the children? "It is meant for the whole family". Fine, but the advertisement in Safeway is not meant for the whole family, is it? "I will forward you to a public health person who will get back to you." Unfortunately, not in time for this post.
After the jump: some Christmas love, instead of some cheap chip hate.
So stay away from them chips, please. What to eat, then? For Christmas, the food identity is a bit more diluted than Thanksgiving: the turkey is still there --us French eat it with a chestnut stuffing on Christmas day, dinde aux marrons-- but not as dominating a presence. And there are few other items to provide comfort during the holidays. Oysters are a typical opening for a Christmas meal, and SFist Derrick provided a handy tutorial.
But most of the food we associate with Christmas belongs in the sweet end of the spectrum, Santa displays of salty chips be damned. We salivate over a bûche de Noël with a Douglas Fir essence gelato. More casually, we recommend three items, which we tried for you (and please feel free to add your seasonal recommendations in comments): Strauss creamery's egg nog, made of a few simple natural, organic ingredients: cream, egg yolk, sugar, nutmeg. Actually it's so simple you could make it yourself, perhaps adding rum to the recipe, but Strauss's eggnog comes in a nifty glass bottle that you feel really proud to bring back to protect the environment. And the taste will be consistently delicious.
Talking about eggnog, we purchased the ice cream flavored with it at Mitchell's. You can buy the drink there as well, but why would you, when you can get it mixed into a luscious and fluffy ice cream?
And lastly, we found our Christmas favorite tradition: marzipan stollen, the German coffee cake filled with dried fruits and almond paste. We saw plenty at Trader Joe's and the like, but we wanted ours preservative free. We eventually got some from Arizmendi bakery, which sells a rich fresh stollen and other Christmas specials. Other locations (which we haven't tried): Sterntaler bakery (click the link for where to find the stollen), whole foods or in the East bay, La Farine. Have yourself a Merry Christmas.
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I was actually thinking of covering chestnuts soon. But I haven't seen them at a market in the last couple of weeks. I'll keep an eye peeled.
Derrick
I had some but from --guess where-- safeway, which I stuffed my Thxgiving turkey with. I saw some at some produce store in Chinatown. I don't know right now. Peeling your eyes is fine, peeling chestnut is a pain, so maybe look for the jarred ones....
This is America and selling snack food is a business which means they want profits and if profits are increased when marketing to children so be it. Really we have no right to complain, after all children aren't ore obese because of marketing tactics they're more obese because parents CHOOSE to feed their kids lousy food and don't encourage them to get some excercise instead turning them over to the television and video games. It all comes down to the parents that should be held accountable. They are, after all, the ones that decide what their child can and cannot eat.
Amber,
I believe we agree. My point is that the frito-lay advertisement is trying to bypass the parents by communicating directly with the children. In that sense, children are obese due to marketing tactics, as they go around the barriers set by the parent.
Personally, I don't think anyone should be shopping at Safeway for anything.
But if you're counting calories, a glass of egg nog is much less healthy than a serving of chips:
Egg Nog (sans rum)
Calories: 305
Fat: 19 g
Lay's Chips
Calories: 150
Fat: 10 g
frankly, i worry that americans aren't obese ENOUGH. have you seen the communists lately? they're huge! we cannot allow an obesity gap!
A serving of egg nog is about 200 cals, if you count 8 servings in the pictured bottle (per the nutritional info on the label). Eggnog is bad for you, definitely. And if Berkeley Farms was advertising with cartoonish santa cows blatantly trying to get into the kid's school lunchbox, I'd be upset about that too...
Berkeley Farms:
Cedric...I agree that marketers should leave children alone.
What do you think about this:
http://www.bcm.edu/news/item.cfm?newsID=267
Multiple stores in Chinatown on Stockton have chestnuts in their bins. Some have them loose, others have them in mesh bags. The price is about $2.49/lb or so.
Trader Joe's carries shelled chestnuts.