Peanut Butter By the SLICE! What is the World Coming To?!

FrustratedPilot · Post by **FrustratedPilot** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 2:02 am

Hi.The news reports that in Oklahoma a new product is being test-marketed...pre-sliced peanut butter. The slices are individually wrapped in cellophane, just like American cheese.I know this is the nation of instant gratification and pre-fab this and assembly-line that, but isn't this kind of overdoing it? Hey, the main charms of peanut butter are its shapelessness and its gooeyness. What do you people think?

Tuscahoma · Post by **Tuscahoma** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 3:20 am

I read that news article. Theoretically, it's supposed to help kids from being messsy. Aren't we taking this whole pre-fab pre-packaged thing a little too far?! I mean, what next, pre-sliced jelly! Hell, let's just sell pre-fab PBJ sandwiches complete with a little box of milk to drink. Oh wait, I can see it. This will be one of those lunchable boxes, with little slices of bread, jelly and pb. Now you just need to throw in a juice box, and little Timmy's set for the day!Grrr!--Tuscahoma, working on growing a pre-sliced banana to go on a Peanut Butter n' Nanna sandwich

Wish · Post by **Wish** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 6:04 am

Hey..it might not be all bad. In fact, one of these days, you might look back on a particular keen idea and say 'Gosh.. that's the best thing since sliced peanut butter!' -Wish
Offering another possibility

FrustratedPilot · Post by **FrustratedPilot** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 6:19 am

...In theory, you wouldn't need separate slices of "jelly"--they've already got those fruit roll-up things (which also strike me as being incredibly unreal).But you want a good idea? May as well make this one public domain: multi-colored chocolate chips! (Dyed white chocolate.)

Xnext_coder · Post by **Xnext_coder** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 6:28 am

if i could explain the pain this has caused my brain from trying to understand the need for sliced PB....then again, we've been stealing the whole concept of "childhood" over the years...

Psiogen · Post by **Psiogen** » Tue Jul 17, 2001 9:16 am

Pre-sliced peanut butter...
AAAAARGH.... brain... bleeeeding...------------------
Sylvan
<A HREF="http://spork.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>http://spork.keenspace.com</A>

Animaniac · Post by **Animaniac** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 12:08 am

Tuscie said:
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>I mean, what next, pre-sliced jelly!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Too late, here's the article from the Weird News wire:
---------------------------------------------
(2001-07-12)
ODD NEW PRODUCT: PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY `SLICES'
GLEN ELLYN, Ill. (Wireless Flash) -- It could be the best thing since sliced bread: An Illinois company is marketing individually-wrapped "slices" of peanut butter and jelly.
The so-called PJ Squares are solid squares of peanut butter and jam which resemble those packaged American cheese slices.You're supposed to slap one of the squares between two slices of bread to make an instant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.The squares are only available in the Midwest right now, but company president John Codilis says he plans to roll the unusual food product out across America next year.Although the PJ Squares were created to simplify sandwich-making, Codilis says around 40 percent of consumers are eating the slices solo.
---------------------------------------------Anyone remember Google's jars of Peanut Butter and Jelly (which are still available). I remember they used to make jars of peanut butter and fudge, too. Does anyone else remember that or am i crazier than my shrink says?Animaniac
::"Journalists use the word "guru" only because "charlatan" is too hard to spell."
-Adrian Wooldridge, Wall Street Journal.::

Muttley · Post by **Muttley** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 1:59 am

'scuse me, can I borrow that soapbox? Thanks: - Tuscahoma said:
The one that is scariest to me is the possibility of some company developing a terminator gene, so that any seeds produced would be rendered infertile.I seem to remember that the GM crops being pushed at the Third World, along with the weedkiller and insecticide sprays that the GM was intended to protect the crop from, were deliberately engineered to be infertile; to produce seeds that would not germinate. When it was pointed out that Third World farmers relied on retaining a portion of their crop as seed for the next year and for cross-breeding, the agribusinesses tried to argue that they were just protecting their patented rights (grrrrr) but had to concede that it meant the farmer was guaranteed repeat business for the next crop, or the family starved. Smiled while they said it too.I'm not against GE in theory; I'm against the use of it by people who are not constrained by ethics.Do you by any chance mean most Western "big-business" farmers <IMG SRC="http://www.keenspace.com/forums/frown.gif"> The little guys take care of the land; the big businesses just "maximise the bottom line" and to hell with the landscape.Nireena: I thought that the cubic watermelons were just grown in square boxes? Or am I thinking of something else here?You touch on a point that's often overlooked, the fact that farmers have been doing "genetic engineering" since the race first started cultivating crops. "Wheat" being more-or-less (genetically engineered) | (selectively bred) "grass". You said:
When I studied in Europe for a year, I read so many stories of farmers whose livelihood was ruined: due to current regulations??? Which part of Europe was that? I'm not aware of any regulations like that in the UK, France or Germany, though it's not something I could be absolutely certain of outside the UK. The present government is supporting GE crop trials, with a lot of opposition from Greens. There is also considerable grass-roots consumer resistance; supermarkets are making a point of labelling and selling food producst as "GM-free". Supermarkets only take this kind of measure if there's money in it.I'm a supporter of GE, for selfish reasons I have mentioned before. Being a Type 1 diabetic, I have to inject insulin every day. The insulin I use is a close analog of human insulin, but is produced by a process pioneered by Genentech in the late '70's: bacterial DNA with the gene for human insulin inserted is used to produce two separate protein chains which are then combined chemically to produce human insulin.As Nireena said, while I don't condone blindly embracing Genetic Engineering, I can't condone blindly banning it either.Muttley
Gunner Milligan, can you play "The Maple Leaf Forever"?
"No Sir, after an hour I get tired"
" . . . you're under arrest . . ."
(Spike Milligan, "Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall")

Nireena · Post by **Nireena** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 5:20 am

What truly boggles my mind is an article I read on cubed watermelon. They've actually managed to genetically alter it so that it grows in a cube shape- easier to stack in the fridge, you see. In the same article, they also mentioned "fizzy fruit". They've found a way to saturate ordinary fruit with CO2 so that when you bite into it, it fizzes like soda in your mouth. People object to the genetic engineering of crops to make them more disease resistant and to grow in more diverse conditions, yet you don't hear a murmur of complain against cubed watermelon, or seedless watermelon for that matter. A plant bio major friend of mine explained just how they have to get seedless fruit and you'd think that would worry people but no... As long as it's convenient, they'll put up with it. If they don't directly see a benefit and don't understand the science behind it then it's bad. Argh.

Thor Thorvaldson, Jr · Wed Jul 18, 2001 5:35 am

Does peanut butter have the correct consistency to be sliced? Seriously, take out a big slab of peanut butter out of the jar and try to slice it. I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that it should be marketed as a smear of PB, not a slice of PB. This idea is something you'd see on Seinfeld, for God's sake! It's right on the shelf next to pudding skins, muffin tops, and bro's.Thor
Neuman!

Xnext_coder · Post by **Xnext_coder** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 6:16 am

Nireena, you're 100% on that comment. I was a Med/Bio major before going into PC's and let me tell you - one of the reasons I left was that I was disgusted with the ethics in those two fields. Bottom line, there aren't any, and the ones that do have ethics are ostrecized.

Tuscahoma · Post by **Tuscahoma** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 7:03 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Thor Thorvaldson, Jr:
Does peanut butter have the correct consistency to be sliced? Seriously, take out a big slab of peanut butter out of the jar and try to slice it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Normal peanut butter, no. But the food scientists behind this little gimmick did a little research, put in a few additives, and voila, peanut with the right consistency for slices! Ugh!Nireena: The one that is scariest to me is the possibility of some company developing a terminator gene, so that any seeds produced would be rendered infertile. The problem arises if genetically engineered (GE) crops start cross-pollinating with non-GE crops, rendering their seeds infertile. One farmer may have the money or desire to invest in GE crops, and his neighbor may not, but the neighbor, who might have been saving his seeds, may have to buy more seeds anyway just because he lived nearby.Or the fact that the FDA is allowing GE crops to be passed without having to prove they are safe, when at least one research study has suggested that the most widely used process of genetically engineering crops, independent of what gets added, may introduce elements harmful to the digestive system of mammals.I'm not against GE in theory; I'm against the use of it by people who are not constrained by ethics.--Tuscahoma, gettin off of his soap box

Nireena · Post by **Nireena** » Wed Jul 18, 2001 10:23 am

From what my plant bio friend told me, it's actually not a "terminator gene" that does it. It's actually a much clumsier method, for watermelons at least:All living things need an even number of copies of their chromosomes to reproduce. (We have 2 copies.) This way each parent gives one copy, resulting in a child that also has two copies. What the growers do is take an ordinary plant and treat it with highly toxic mutagens that result in a polyploidal plant (a plant with multiple copies of chromosomes). They look specifically for a plant with 4 copies of each chromosome- a mutation that can reproduce since it has an even number of copies of chromosomes. They cross breed this plant with an ordinary one, resulting in a plant with 3 copies of each chromosome. Odd number of copies, can't reproduce (each parent can't give 1 and 1/2 copies), hence no seeds or stunted ones. Now we've been doing a basic form of this since the dawn of cultivation. The polyploid mutation does occur sometimes in nature: we notice a berry bush or a plant with unusually large fruit and we'd encourage its growth. Advanced genetic engineering is the same principle only faster- selecting desirable traits and encouraging them. I can understand the objections to mixing genes from animals, but if you keep it within the same plant or even from one plant to another that's not so bad. When I studied in Europe for a year, I read so many stories of farmers whose livelihood was ruined: due to current regulations, any crop found with any evidence of genetic engineering (even accidental pollination from airborn pollen) must be destroyed. While I don't condone blindly embracing GE, I can't condone blindly banning it either.*looks down, startled*
*sees soap crate*
*meekly steps off it and slinks away*

Stujb · Post by **Stujb** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 4:00 am

If you'll forgive a comment from the lurker gallery: Muttley's comments put me in mind of an interesting (read, mind-boggling) patent case in Canada.The guts of it is that a farmer was sued for patent infringement after his crop became contaminated with GM seed from neighbouring fields. The mind-boggling bit is that the suit was upheld with some pretty hefty damages - despite the fact that this guy hadn't done anything to acquire the gene in question, and certainly hadn't benefited from it. A related links page: <A HREF="http://www.biotech-info.net/percy_schmeiser.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.biotech-info.net/percy_schmeiser.html</A> The farmer's site: <A HREF="http://www.percyschmeiser.com/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.percyschmeiser.com/</A> The case has gone to appeal, which is reassuring as there are some terrifying implications. And I'm as pro-gene science as Maccabee is.
[This message has been edited by Stujb (edited 07-19-2001).]

FrustratedPilot · Post by **FrustratedPilot** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 5:02 am

Pro-science? Yes.Against litigative bullying? Even more so!

Tuscahoma · Post by **Tuscahoma** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 7:13 am

And just to heat up the conversation, I saw a news story last night. A company is researching to genetically engineer and clone a cat that does not produce the protein to which some people have an allergy. So, they hope to someday sell, for a hefty sum, hypo-allergenic cats.Comments?--Tuscahoma

Xnext_coder · Post by **Xnext_coder** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 7:47 am

I'm dead against bio-eng...the people involved with it will eventually "own" via tradmark human beings...were it done by companies that were ethical that would be one thing. however, with the current state of thigns, i am very much angered by the people who are supposed to oversee this (pockets lined & bribed) and the companies just go about their business. Yes, i have a VERY big problem seeing everything God's given us being turned into an empty commodoty, seeing our freedom slowly ripped out not by govermental laws but by the almighty dollar.There's a song by DCTalk that had a line which went "In God We Trust is an american pawn [shop]". Kinda two-fold here...society & economics may be pushing for this but we're literally letting them. That simple.[This message has been edited by xnext_coder (edited 07-19-2001).]

Maccabee · Post by **Maccabee** » Thu Jul 19, 2001 8:19 am

I support genetic research and genetic engineering as a matter of principle.Being an old-line Progressive, I'm all for heavy government oversight and regulation, but I think stopping this research is condemning millions of people world-wide to misery and early death.I want that cure for Downs Syndrome. I want cloned replacement organs. I want body-crafting. Yes, there's a downside to it, as with any new technology. I still have enough faith in human nature (enlightened self-interest if nothing else) to believe that the good far outweighs the bad.Greg Eatroff, extremist.------------------
Risus est telum ultimum contra tyrranem. Nullus dictator exercitibus allibus ridiculem vulgi longe resistare potest.

T Campbell · Post by **T Campbell** » Fri Jul 20, 2001 12:57 am

Welcome to the posting side, Stujb!

Stujb · Post by **Stujb** » Sun Jul 22, 2001 9:05 am

Thanks, T - I suppose there's some pressure to stick around now, eh?