I’m still catching up from vacationing in Nantucket. This item was written by my wonderful research assistant Jennifer Moore.
This is utterly pathetic, IMO.
One afternoon, according to the New York Times story, "A Political Kerfuffle Over Marshmallow Fluff," the son of Massachusetts State Senator Jarrett Barrios asked for Marshmallow Fluff after eating one at elementary school.
This led Mr. Barrios to file an amendment to a school nutrition bill that would keep schools from serving the stuff, according to the Boston Globe.
Fluff is the epitome of junk food, comprised of corn syrup, sugar syrup, egg whites and vanilla. One serving of this concoction–I don’t dare call it food–has 9 grams of sugar. A Fluffernutter sandwich combines this sugary garbage with peanut butter.
In response to Mr. Barrios’s common sense, two legislators from the town of Lynn, where Fluff has its headquarters, filed legislation to make the Fluffernutter the state sandwich.
”We grew up on Fluff,” said Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein of Revere, one of the legislators petitioning for the Fluffernutter.
Ms. Reinstein said the legislature had better things to do than to debate a sandwich spread. ”With all the stuff we’re trying to do,” she said, ”now you’re attacking a local business, taking it out on Fluff.”
Legislators have better things to do than protect children from unhealthy junk? Really? That’s ridiculous, if that’s how Ms.
Reinstein truly feels.
What’s worse, however, is that Mr. Barrios gave up his fight after a week of wrangling over it in the legislature, according to a follow-up Times story. But Ms. Reinstein is relieved that the government can get back to doing more important things than trying to teach kids good eating habits, slow down the alarming rise in childhood obesity, and prevent diabetes.
"If we can just go back to our lives pre-Fluffgate, we’ll be fine," the Times quotes Ms. Reinstein as saying. "I’ve always said from the beginning that it’s insane that we’re doing this now."
Unbelieveable.