Cookies or Poison...or Both?

Almost every day for work I pack my lunch. I usually take a stick of cheese; a yogurt; some soy crisps; one or two pieces of fruit or some raw veggies; and a no-sugar pudding cup. I’m not a daily "calorie counter," but when I’ve figured it out in the past, these items usually add up to about 700-800 calories. I also keep some “snack” bars in my desk for late in the afternoon when I’m so hungry I could eat my tape dispenser. I’m not too picky about what bar it is…it could be a South Beach cereal bar, or a Special K bar, or an Atkins bar or any of a dozen different brands as long as it’s between 100-200 calories and not too much sugar. If I stick to this eating regimen, and then eat a healthy dinner, I know I will lose weight consistently.

I’ll admit…I do get a bit weary of eating the same thing every day. It gets a bit monotonous. So, I will try different brands of yogurt, pudding cups, fruits, and bars, as long as they don’t have a lot of sugar. Whenever I see something new to try, I get a bit pumped up…some variety! Everyone needs a little variety.

Today I tried a new bar called POWER CRUNCH High Protein Bar which I got at the vitamin store. I was so excited. It looked a lot like my favorite vanilla crème filled wafer cookies. I love these so much I could eat the whole bag (and I have actually done so a few times):

My favorite cookie "Vanilla Creme Filled Wafers"

I had high hopes...

I was SO looking forward to eating my POWER CRUNCH bar, which was described in the advertisement as a “delicious” “crème filled” bar “bursting with…protein.” Fitness folks all over the internet raved about these bars…”awesome,” “I was wowed by the taste,” “my favorite bar.” I was looking forward to being wowed, too.

So, as the work day wore down, I began to get hungry. YAY, time to eat my POWER CRUNCH bar! I ripped the package open. So far so good…it was actually quite pretty…it looked like a white chocolate bar. I took a bite. It was…Absolutely Horrible. It was bitter with a revolting chemical taste. I spit out what was in my mouth and threw the whole thing into my waste can in disgust.

POWER CRUNCH must be one of those things that skinny people will eat (people like the ones in the advertisement)…there’s a reason they’re skinny…they apparently have no taste buds and will eat candy-coated cardboard just to stay alive.

“Power Crunch…the bar for Skinny People who can’t taste anything!”

It got me to wondering...Is this why skinny people are skinny? They can’t really taste anything so they’ll eat a "fake cookie" that tastes like rat poison; and conversely, since they can’t really taste anything, they stop eating "real cookies" after one or two?