MockMom

New Names for Your Kids’ Favorite Foods That Will Ease Your Raging Guilt

 

Free-Range Cheez-Its

Much like chickens, Cheez-Its are healthier, happier, and more nutritious when they are free to roam as they please. So stop worrying when your kids release those little golden squares of salt, gluten, and cheese-like substance from their cardboard prison and scatter them about your house and yard for later consumption. Each time you catch sight of your offspring plucking a fluorescent orange cracker from underneath a couch cushion and popping it into his mouth, just remember, you are simply showing your commitment to the free-range lifestyle.

Wheat Thins

No modifier required. Everything you need to know is right in the name. Wheat is a nutritious and hearty product of the heartland. Thin indicates that your children won’t get obese from eating whole boxes of these delightful, wheaty crackers with nutty undertones. The two liter soda he just snuck from the fridge will probably take care of that, though.

Non-GMO Oreos

OK, Oreos may or may not be free of GMOs, but no one knows what GMOs are anyway. So why not?

Artisanal Apple Juice

Sure, it might still be little more than sugar water, but all you have to do is add the word “artisanal” and it instantly conjures images of you and your children wandering through an apple orchard, plucking rosy apples from dew-soaked trees and bonding as you hand-press the juice under the setting autumn sun. Hey, it sure beats cracking open a jug of Juicy Juice in Costco while you’re arguing with your kids over plastic bags.

Classical Cinnamon Toast Crunch

Every time your kids chow down on those little squares covered with loads of sugar and a list of substances you can’t pronounce, not only are they consuming their recommended daily intake of many key vitamins, minerals, and carcinogens, but also it is almost as if they are reaching back in time to share a meal with the men and women of antiquity. After all, cinnamon is the spice that launched a thousand ships or something.

Cage-Free Goldfish

(See Free-Range Cheez-Its.)

Locally-Sourced Sweet and Sour Chicken

Sure, the chicken meat might be slathered in batter and deep fried, and the dipping sauce might be high-fructose corn syrup with red food coloring, but it doesn’t get more locally-sourced than the Chinese restaurant around the corner from your house. Who needs a farmer’s market?

Pride Popsicles

Where some might see frozen, rainbow, high-fructose corn syrup on a stick, you see an expression of your family’s progressive values and inclusiveness. It’s never too early to start teaching your children the value of symbolic activism.

Greek God Yogurt

If it was good enough to fuel Hercules, surely it’s good enough for your kids to eat twice a day, every day. Each container may contain as much sugar as a miniscule serving of ice cream, but the muscles and heroism don’t lie.

Organic Mac & Cheese

Just kidding, of course. This isn’t a real thing.

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About the Author

Andrew is a writer from Orlando, Florida. His work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Higgs Weldon, RAZED, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Defenestration Magazine, Scary Mommy, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Paste Magazine. He also writes on his website, Explorations of Ambiguity, and you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. His first book, Fatherhood: Dispatches From the Early Years, is available now.