Sugar Shock

Recently my husband and I drove about four hours to visit our son in Vermont. We stopped halfway at one of those highway rest areas--not the Jersey Turnpike kind that makes you hate being an American, but the other kind you find on small highways--helpful, offering the weary traveler bathrooms and maps. I wasn't hungry, but since on car trips I use food as a buffer between myself and the huge 18-wheelers that I fully expect to fall over onto us every time we pass one, I entered a separate building marked "Vending Machines" to see what edible drugs, if any, were for sale.

Mitch scoffed at the prospect of finding anything healthy in a mechanical, unrefrigerated coin-operated box, but I believed that, with a careful eye, something with nutritional value might be discovered. Aha--I found it! A new choice displayed among the Doritos and Twizzlers and Oreos: tuna salad and crackers. Or, if one preferred, chicken salad with crackers. How cool is that? I had to have it. It was only two dollars, and besides, it was so cute. (See photo.)

Back on the road I busied myself with opening my treat. The packaging job was stellar, raising my expectations, and inside I found a package of six little crackers, a mini can of tuna and a teeny plastic spoon. I dug right in. By now you've already guessed that it was disgusting and inedible, even though it was Bumble Bee, a perfectly respectable brand. Still, there was something odd about it.  A glance at the ingredients revealed it contained fructose and corn syrup. Now, I don't know about you, but when I make tuna salad at home I do not add sugar. So why would they do that for the general public?

Discuss.