The Biggest Lies in Food Packaging
I understand that in the greater scheme of things, being able to quickly and easily open a package is not that consequential. Starving kids, dying whales and so on and so forth. I get that. That doesn’t change the fact that, for whatever reason, struggling to open something is an incredible assault on the psyche. Something about the psychiatric stew that is feelings of both physical and mental inadequacy, along with a desire for whatever is inside, posthaste, creates an absolute storm of torment inside the human brain. We’re in the year 2024. We’ve put men on the moon. Robots can make bad art. How are we still being told that this is the best possible way to package products?
Here are a few that I feel are a direct prank on civilization…
Capri-Sun
Let’s get it out of the way: Leave it off, and people are asking how it was left off. Put it in, and I’m a nostalgia-posting boomer. Either way, we all know it well. A plastic, slippery package that is more difficult, I imagine, than administering an actual IV drip, with a straw carefully calculated to be just sharp enough to break human skin.
Goat Cheese Tubes
Aside from the direct unpleasantness of its appearance, which most closely resembles a vacuum-sealed ghost turd, once you’ve broken the seal, it’s a complete free-for-all. How much goat cheese does Big Goat think people are taking down in a single sitting? What am I supposed to be — the stinkiest man at my local hospital? It’s a similar texture to so many other things that have figured this out. There’s a reason hummus isn’t distributed in tubes.
Tortilla Chips
I don’t have a clear solution here, but I do know that I feel a mixture of pity and fury near the end of every bag of tortilla chips, looking at the fallen chips at the bottom. Would selling tortilla chips in a cardboard box set the world aflame? There must be a solution that doesn’t involve a quarter of the chips returning to the form of the corn flour from which they came.
Bacon
It’s not like packaged meat is a joy for the senses in any configuration, but by god, does bacon take the cake. It feels like something that should be opened during surgery. It’s packaged like you’re going to need to smuggle it across the border. Once you get it open, congratulations on having what feels like a wet plastic school folder you fished out of someone’s ass crack. The “resealable” ones are worse, given that they don’t work, and demand small-digit manipulation on a food that, by design, makes your fingers slippery.
Milk Cartons
We give a lot of shit to Canada for their bags of milk, and we should. But that’s because it’s fun to do, not because they’re not a little right. Some manufacturers at least have figured out how helpful a cap, aka an actual point of distribution, is. For so, so many cartons, though, we’re still left with a wispy wet paper flap that feels and smells like a dirtbag’s wispy mustache.
Unstackable Cans
This is actual mental warfare. Cans, by their appearance, demand to be stacked. It’s almost like their greatest dream is to be part of structure, to be locked toe-to-top with their friends. But when a can has some little lip, or tab, that prevents it from joining with its brother underneath? Good god, I want to submarine it into the wall. I can’t explain exactly how, but a can that refuses to stack feels like the can itself is being childish. Grow up!
Skinny Salsa Jars
What do you think, I’m made of free time, self-respect and bowls? I’d eat Chef Boyardee out of the can if I could microwave it and it wouldn’t cut me. The chips go in the jar, and if you don’t understand that, you have failed to understand your base function. If you put your salsa in a skinny jar, you might as well package it with tapered candles and a tiny, delicate sterling silver spoon.
Flour
A decorated bomb squad member couldn’t open a bag of flour without having to clean the whole kitchen. Putting a light powder dedicated to adhering to any surface in a paper bag is like storing it in a bellows. At least if it did come in a bellows, I would be able to predict where it would end up. If someone were able to create a chemical weapon with the textural properties of white flour, the world would be vacant in one month.
Ketchup Packets
A mouse would need two of these if he was eating at a tiny mouse restaurant. The amount of ketchup in each packet is so inconsequential as to be practically nonexistent. Except, of course, if you accidentally sit or step on one, when, through some violation of physics, it’s now enough to paint an entire car interior. Perfume samples shouldn’t be greater by volume than ketchup packets.