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The emperor’s new frosting

3 min read

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Remember that time you tricked your kids into eating salad by putting what looked like cake frosting on it?

Nor do I. Because it never happened.

But now, thanks to the lunkheads in the Kraft Foods marketing department, you’ll be able to do just that.

“Salad Frosting,” a short-run version of Kraft’s Classic Ranch Dressing, is now a thing. The “frosting” comes in a squeezable package decorated with multi-colored squiggles reminiscent of ice cream sprinkles. The product press release features the image of a smiling cherub of a girl holding the Salad Frosting package. Lodged in her front teeth is a small piece of arugula, kale or other renegade leafy green that Twitter says only the Liberal Elite would eat.

Seeing the picture, I had one thought: Next month, Colgate will roll out Tooth Pastry – toothpaste packaged in a cake decorating tube. (For best results, use Colgate Tooth Spatula to apply Tooth Pastry and Colgate Tooth Pastry Remover Brush to make your choppers shine.)

And why not? It’s the natural progression of Kraft’s #LieLikeAParent campaign. That, too, is a thing.

“Let’s be honest, parents lie to their kids,” Kraft says in its press release. “It is their secret weapon in parenting, especially when it comes to food.”

That much is true. Mom claimed that eating bread crusts would make my hair curly, that piping hot beef stew would put hair on my chest. I followed her advice. Innocent lies. If I posed hatless and shirtless for my column mugshot, you’d see the proof.

But why bother with deception when good old-fashioned threats will accomplish the same end?

Many was the time that my dad made me sit at the dinner table for a good hour after everyone else had left because I wouldn’t eat whatever dish I didn’t like that day. Brussels sprouts. Salmon loaf.

Dad was an angry man. Deception was not in his parenting toolbox. Intimidation, unveiled threats and long-winded lectures were his three favorite weapons. He was not creative in their application, although he once threatened to impose tariffs on toys. He then realized that he’d actually be hurting himself because he paid for the toys. So he threatened to deport me.

“You’ll eat it and like it, Mister!” was his usual threat. Eventually, I’d eat it. And hate it as I had trouble swallowing it.

MAGA – Make America Gag Again

I learned from my father – never once did I force my son to eat anything. Instead, if he looked askance at a particular food, I’d tell him the story of how Henry Ford took prospective design engineers to lunch and observed if they salted their food before tasting it. If they did, the story goes, he would not hire them because they had preconceived notions.

Since my son didn’t know who Henry Ford was, the tale was useless. But, eventually, he would eat whatever disgusting thing was on his plate just so I wouldn’t tell the story again.

I advise you to let your kids pass on salad rather than trick them with Salad Frosting. Better yet, just use actual cake frosting. Two tablespoons of Betty Crocker vanilla cake frosting may have 30 more calories than Salad Frosting, but it has half the fat and one-quarter the sodium.

And that, my friends, is the dressing on the cake.

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