Sunday Rerun: Salad Daze

 Can someone explain the thing about getting kids to eat salad? I mean, sure, asparagus looks like something the weedwacker dragged in, and beets are purple death balls, and lima beans, brussel sprouts and cauliflower are best bought in frozen plastic bags to be applied to sprained wrists, but you pile up some lettuce, tomato, shredded carrot and green cabbage, some olives and croutons and bacon bits in a bowl and that's what you call your basic salad and that's tasty.

Maybe it was easier for me; I love salads and always have, although you have to add some meat or seafood if you're going to think of it as anything other than an appetizer.

Just as with books - some kids will take to reading and do so avidly for the rest of their lives - with salads, choosy moms know, you have to find a way to get some green stuff into the kids, so Kraft Foods (makers of fine wholesome nutritious products such as Cool Whip imitation whipped cream, Country Time imitation lemonade, Jello-O, the sweetened processed flavored collagen-based dessert, Kool-Aid imitation Country Time drink mix, Kraft Singles pasteurized prepared cheese product, Lunchables mystery meat and cheese in a box for busy moms and kids, Miracle Whip imitation mayonnaise, Tang imitation Kool-Aid, and Velveeta, the Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product) now introduces their latest contribution to American haute cuisine: Salad frosting.

I said Salad Frosting.

This is not really an advancement in food preparation, but, rather, an adventure in misnaming something that is as laden with chicanery as fake apple pie made with Ritz crackers or Krusty Brand Imitation Gruel.

Kraft has brought out "Salad Frosting," and it's just a tube of ranch dressing!

The goal is to make kids think they're putting sweet frosting on their salad as if it were a cake, but it's just dressing.


And they're not even trying to make it sound like it's even remotely healthy for Junior or Sis to put the stuff they think they want on the salad they know they don't. Their press kit accompanying the product says, "Kids will eat anything with frosting, right? It's a match made for dinnertime bliss."

Not to drag science into it, but there are 110 calories,11 grams of fat, and 290 milligrams of sodium in 2 Tablespoons of ranch dressing.

The same amount of vanilla frosting has 140 calories, but only 5 grams of fat and and just 70 mg of sodium.

So, in some cases, you'd be better off by spreading cake frosting on a tomato and telling your kid it's a salad.

Then for dessert? A nice slab of baloney pie!