Yesterday was one of those times when I really wished I'd taken my camera along when we went grocery shopping. It must be very handy having one of those new-fangled cellphones on your person when you run into strange sights. You see the aisles of the old Atlantic Superstore were crowded with palettes filled with unsold Easter candy. There were mountains of leftover chocolate Easter bunnies, chocolate hockey players (this is Canada, after all), chocolate Sponge Bob Squarepants (is that character even popular anymore?), chocolate trains, buses, horses, pussycats, planes, tractors, nuclear power plants and (it appeared) anything else that could possibly be poured into a glossy mold. We even found one mysterious item that looked like chocolate coated road kill.
You have to wonder what happens in the weeks following any occasion when tons of candy can be put out for sale that nobody buys. Do they save it for next year? If so, where do they put it? From what I've seen previously after every other major sugar event - Halloween, Christmas and Valentine's Day being the other main ones - the stores are always massively overstocked. It's not like the stuff even counts as being nutritional so they can't very well fob it off to food pantries either. It seems apparent that every grocery store in North America has similar quantities of now defunct holiday candy. It's kind of scary if you ask me.
Do you suppose it might ever occur to those who make and market holiday specific candy that it's all become too much?
No, probably not.
♡
Thought for the day:
You are what your food eats.
My food eats sunshine and water so it's all good! :)
ReplyDeleteI've always known you're a wise woman :-)
DeleteWell, I know of one place where they feed leftover chocolate to pigs. The pigs seem to like it, so that's good. You might argue that two-legged pigs do well on it, and I suppose I would agree with you. A Bear might try some, but I think any Bear of my acquaintance would prefer apples and berries. Usually.
ReplyDeleteBlessings and Bear hugs!
Bears Noting
I've heard that pigs in desperation will eat anything. They'd probably prefer apples and berries too.. and mushrooms with Hollandaise sauce.
Deletethose new fang-fangled cell phones are not new...but I don't have one either.
ReplyDeletethe Ol'Buzzard
Hah! I have no social life either and am just as glad, all things considered.
DeleteIt's a good thing that chocolate is nothing but laboratory chemicals these days. Whew!
ReplyDeleteThey can just melt it down for re-use in that case.
DeleteSupermarket type chocolates aren't even chocolate anymore, so I agree with Randall. But what a waste, whether good food or nasty stuff! Your title is so appropriate, and your last statement is so true. If they feed the pigs this garbage, I don't want to eat those pigs, and no, I'm not vegetarian.
ReplyDeleteHope you had a lovely Easter weekend, with some healthy chocolate!
It is awful and not fit for people or animals. When I think of the effort that goes into the huge production process it makes me feel sad. As for pigs, I don't know if Canada has factory farms but I hope not.
DeleteYes, I always have a little stock of European dark chocolate around. It doesn't take much of the good stuff to satisfy, does it?
We have a running joke at the office with our resident hoarder. While the rest of us tear through treats, she holds back. Her Halloween candy lasts until Easter and her Easter candy until Halloween. And the worst of it is that when one of us is desperate, she's happy to point out that we'd still have treats if we hadn't been so quick to gobble them up, if we'd learned a bit of candy moderation, if you will.
ReplyDeleteTequila, on the other hand, never lasts in her presence.
You mean she doesn't share? I'm amazed you haven't all taken steps to hide her tequila - then again, maybe she's too much fun to watch after a couple of shots. We all have our eccentricities.
DeleteI am here to report that one year (1978)--the first year I was in my first house--there was not enough Halloween candy in the stores. Kids, larger kids, teenage kids, and their parents and grandparents locusted up to our porch with pillowcases, no costumes, and baleful looks, and in a half hour we were out of Fun Size and panicking. I took off to the grocery store and found all my immediate neighbors in the same panic and trying to decide whether to buy bulk beans and pass them off. We all slunk home, turned out the lights, and put 911 on speed dial.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty funny and likely the reason panic rooms were invented in recent years.
DeleteRemember when mothers made the Halloween treats? The lady in our neighborhood who specialized in taffy apples was very popular and hardly ever got her windows soaped or had the outhouse pushed over. Boy, those were the days.
Truly frightening .... But, being a migraine trigger for me, anything involving chocolate gives me fear tremors.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling there's not much chocolate left in these things by the time they're done. Still, I'm sorry to have reminded you of a painful subject.
Deleteit's mostly the 'stuff' that triggers the crisis ~ a difficult subject to avoid anywhere you go these days..... i placate myself with fantasies of harmless chocolate (and baked goods) in the afterlife. i'll spend the first millennium or 2 traveling between the bakery and the chocolatier. With frequent stops at the fabric shop, hardware store, library, ...... with Maestro trotting alongside. of course, they'll all cater to dogs as well, and i won't be allergic to other people's dogs. there will be live music in the streets, which i'll stop often and participate in, and it will only rain often enough to have an excuse to use my latest lovely brolly as i splash barefoot through the puddles. how's that for a full blown fantasy at 7:30 in the morning?
DeleteWould you like a little chocolate with your chemical additives? What agribusiness has decided is fit for human consumption is no joke.
DeleteYour version of the afterlife sounds wonderful to me. When I join you there (or you join me as the case may be) I'd like to add soft green hills, forest glades, white beaches, gardens in old country villages, snow without cold, mountains that reach to the sky, pubs where we can drink with our friends and never get drunk, magicians, parades, dances, wise men and women, and of course, delightfully unimaginable surprises galore. Naturally, our dogs will be there too and all the other animals as well. I'm sure Maestro and Garth will get on very well together.
I've dreamed of that place both asleep and awake.
I'm glad you have too.
:-)
Most of that crap ends up on a table marked "free" at the nearest adult living center, right along with the day old bread and bagles.
ReplyDeleteI did get a chocolate bunny this year, but it wasn't worth eating....the chocolate tasted like plastic. Blah. I'll have to remind the Easter Bunny next year that I'm too old to get crap in my basket, sheesh!
Nunly
That's one of the sad but true statements. Nasty business.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear you got one of the multiply recycled bunnies for Easter. They probably should just have put a wick in it.
EEEEEEk, that chocolate bunny is letting us know, in no uncertain terms, that your commentary is spot on! (Your thought for the day is truly a conundrum....immensely ponderable.)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you enjoyed it, my friend. People should give more thought to how their food is raised.
Delete