For those about to crunch

Have you ever tried making your own granola? It's fun and you get something tasty to nibble when you're through. Most people would call it a breakfast food, but you may feel free to have it any time of day that you feel like grinding rolled oats, brown sugar, nuts, dried fruit, coconut, and I don't know what-all else. 

If you've been around since the 70's, you'll recall that Neil Diamond wrote and recorded a tune called "Crunchy Granola Suite." It's the quintessential Diamond song, one in which the Brooklyn-born singer wakes up one morning in California and is so worked up about the macrobiotic diets out there that he turns it into a song. Listen to the song, if you want to hear why so many of us were so glad when AC/DC came along. I mean, really, Neil. "Drop your shrink, and stop your drinkin', Crunchy granola's neat."????

I responded by eating granola while listening to AC/DC.  No shrinkin', no drinkin'.

After the initial fervor of the 70s, most of us accepted granola as part of a well-balanced diet and didn't pay that much attention to it. So it took action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to put the snack mix back on the front burner, as it were.

The FDA dashed off a legal letter to The Nashoba Brook Bakery, a granola manufacturer in Concord, Massachusetts. The issue is that Nashoba Brook has, for 20 years, been listing "love" amongst the ingredients on the package label.  

For those of you planning to give it all up and become FDA lawyers, here is how you word something this silly:

Your Nashoba Granola label lists ingredient ‘Love.’ Ingredients required to be declared on the label or labeling of food must be listed by their common or usual name. ‘Love’ is not a common or usual name of an ingredient, and is considered to be intervening material because it is not part of the common or usual name of the ingredient.

John D. Gates is the Chief of Granola Operations up there, and he says, "I really like that we list ‘love’ in the granola. People ask us what makes it so good. It’s kind of nice that this artisan bakery can say there’s love in it and it puts a smile on people’s face. Situations like that where the government is telling you you can’t list 'love' as an ingredient, because it might be deceptive, just feels so silly."

The FDA, sort of abashedly, told the Bloomberg News that removing "love" from the ingredient list is "not among the agency's top concerns."

To which Mr Gates said his granolamakers will do as the FDA says, but he asks for consideration to be allowed to put that four-letter word back on the label.

I love seeing that he is hoping to hear back from them.