Abdominal cramping and loose stools? Sign me up!
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user Phoebe. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Phoebe
“Olestra may cause abdominal cramping and loose stools. Olestra inhibits the absorption of some vitamins and other nutrients.”
So says the label on a package of Ruffles WOW! ripple-cut potato chips.
Perhaps you remember the story behind this label, which surfaced last year when the Food and Drug Administration gave its permission for Procter & Gamble to use the artificial fat olestra in snack products like potato chips and nacho chips.
Critics of olestra claimed the substance, a synthetic fat molecule which, because of its size, passes undigested through the abdominal tract, causes all manner of stomach upsets.
Suddenly, public discourse was flooded with terms like “abdominal cramping,” “anal leakage,” and “loose stools.”
(Gag.)
Procter & Gamble test-marketed these snacks in certain parts of the country. Having apparently settled the issue of gastrointestinal side effects, the company has begun circulating the snacks nationwide. They recently appeared on shelves at Northwest Florida stores as Frito-Lay’s WOW! brand of chips.
Have you tried them?
Being an intrepid columnist, I decided to risk my peace of digestion and taste-test these WOW! chips. I rarely eat potato chips, sniff (but we won’t talk about those boxes of Captain Crunch cereal that disappear once they enter my house.) but I was prepared to make the sacrifice so that you, dear reader, would be better informed.
I bought three bags of chips:
A bag of regular potato chips, like Lay’s.
A bag of ripple-cut chips, like Ruffles.
A bag of Doritos-style nacho chips.
I first tried the Lays-like chip. Crunch crunch crunch. Hmmm. These were not bad. In fact, they were quite tasty. I’d rate them superior to the regular chip.
Next, I tried the Ruffles-like chip. They tasted dry, and too salty. They were better than baked chips, or other low-fat chips, but not as good as the regular WOW! chips.
I then ate some of the nacho chips. They were a tad overspiced but otherwise acceptable.
But I felt cheered. A serving of these chips contains only 75 calories and 0 grams of fat – good news for people like me who snarf junk food by the bagful. Perhaps I truly could have my chip and eat it, too.
Later that night, as I lay in bed, I heard my stomach grumbling. More than grumbling, actually. It was thundering.
I’ll spare you the unpleasant details, but suffice it to say the next morning it became obvious I’d eaten something that disagreed with me. I was miserable all day.
To be fair to Procter &* Gamble, I did try the chips on three other occasions and I experienced no GI unpleasantness, except for one mildly upset stomach. I can’t blame these episodes on olestra.
I would even buy the chips again.
But I think P&G still has a perception problem on its hands. I left a huge bag of Ruffles WOW! chips on a table in the Daily News break room, and later that day, they were still there.
That is even more incredible than the concept of a low-fat, good-tasting potato chip.
This column was originally published in the Wednesday, April 29, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Image courtesy of Alessandro Avilés of Pexels.
Confession is good for the soul. So is ranting. Here is this week’s rant.
YOU STUPID IDIOT DRIVERS!
Not you. But you other morons who tricked the DMV into giving you a license to kill.
YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY!
After years of careful consideration, I’ve decided you drive badly because: You’re stupid.
How do you know if you’re stupid? Fortunately, I found this screening test. Take it and see how you do:
If you stop when you’re supposed to go, get out of the gene pool. I drove from Ohio to Fort Walton Beach in one day, through snow, ice, urban traffic, blah blah blah. My only risk with death occurred at the intersection of state roads 123 and 85, when the woman ahead of me STOPPED her car in the acceleration lane to check for oncoming traffic. I ran off the road to avoid hitting her. If my car had been equipped with half-inch-thick steel brush bars, the back of her Caddy would’ve looked like a Hibachi grill and the brain trust behind the wheel would be showing off a neck brace.
If you change lanes while driving through an intersection or where a smaller road joins a major road, you need to discover the wonderful world of pedestrianism. I’m waiting to turn right onto Lewis Turner. The woman behind me is riding my tail – her car is practically shoving mine into the road. The right lane is clear, but a blue car is approaching in the left lane. I start to turn. Suddenly, the man in the blue car whips into my lane. I jam the brakes, the woman behind me goes into advanced Type A defibrillation, and the man in the blue car drives blithely onward, a death wish floating in his wake.
If you pull into traffic and instead of staying in the right lane you swing out into the left lane, you really need to move to England.
If you drive slowly in the left lane, you need an anti-lobotomy. Driving in Germany was a gratifying experience. Traffic flowed smoothly – the speedier cars flashed by on the left, and the slowpokes did their thing in the right lane. Returning to the States was an exercise in frustration. Big, fat, cellulite Buicks and Mercurys plodding along in the left lane, their owners oblivious to anything but their own pleasure and convenience, traffic backed up for miles behind them, everyone hoping that one day these buffet mavens would evolve into a higher life form and hoist that big land yacht into the right lane.
If you pull out in front of oncoming traffic and accelerate to 12 mph, you deserve whatever horrible fate the karmic waves mete out to you. Once, I saw justice served. A little smart aleck in a Chevette – in total defiance of courtesy or traffic laws or the laws of physics – darted in front of a truck and stopped at a red light. I believe you can still find individual Chevette molecules at that intersection.
If you pull into a median turn-around and leave the rear end of your car hanging out in traffic, we all hope you like driving a compact.
That’s the screening test. The trick is to check yourself AFTER you’ve read this. If you’re still driving like this, do us all a favor.
Take a taxi.
This column was published in the April 22, 1998 Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .
Once upon a time the beautiful beaches of Northwest Florida were freely accessible by the public. They're still beautiful - if you can get to them. Image courtesy of Del Stone Jr.
In the shadow of Pride Week and Earth Day, you too could have spent your Saturday creeping bumper-to-bumper through Destin on your way to an oil-stained beach lined with murky brown water.
Ah, the rewards of growth. Praise the Lord and pass the asphalt.
When we speak of growth, we speak of rights – the right to live where we choose, to own our land, to procreate as we please.
Procreation might be the ultimate right, observed and respected by virtually every culture, with the exception of China.
You’ve got to give the Chinese credit. They understand that resources are limited and that uncontrolled growth threatens not only the snail darters of the world, but the imperious privileged who fan their wattles on the veranda of the bistro as they suck down those little umbrella-festooned cocktails.
Sorry to tell you this, Chaz, but the more people you got, the fewer “rights” you got. It can’t work any other way.
If people are so all-fired concerned about “rights,” maybe they’d agree to forego just one right – the right to reproduce the human race into extinction.
Imagine, for instance, how better life might be if 180 million fewer peopled lived between the shores of the United States.
Unemployment would be lower than it is already. Work would be plentiful, and everybody who wanted one could have a job.
Children would receive personalized education because classrooms would be less crowded. These better-educated children would grow up to become better parents, better workers and better members of society.
The pressure and pace of life would diminish. Kick back and enjoy the quiet, the fresh air, and the serenity that happens when society’s manic pace is shut away.
We’d have to bulldoze many of the existing structures. Bye bye, convenience stores on every corner. Bye bye, strip shopping centers. Bye bye, gross wings stores. How sad.
Once those structures were gone, we could set about restoring the land to what it was. We’d plant native trees, shrubs and grasses. Nature would do the rest. The small animals would move in first, then the larger ones. There’d be deer, and yes, there’d be bears. We’d have to be careful.
But the benefits would outweigh the disadvantages. The weather would return to normal. No more freakish El Nino winters, and freakish hurricane summers.
With the watershed restored, Choctawhatchee Bay would clear up. Grass beds would regrow. Fish would become more plentiful.
The gulf would become emerald again. The sand would glisten whitely. Those awful seaweed blooms would become a thing of the past.
Our energy sources would go further, as would our natural resources.
Most importantly, we would become human beings again, not the frustrated, angry, self-destructive rats in a case that we’ve become.
We can go on as we are, giving up more and more of our rights and living at a lower and lower standard. Or maybe we could relinquish a single right and enjoy the future benefits of moderation.
It’s something to think about as you’re trapped in gridlock, staring at the murky brown waters.
This column was originally published in the April 15, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.
About the author:
Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”
Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.
As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.
Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .