Fluff-a-Nutter

Only in the realm of politics does a sandwich spread occupy valuable time on the legislative agenda and as a result, the news as well.

For those of you not from America, the sandwich spread is called Fluff. Most traditionally you use it to make a Fluff-a-nutter sandwich. Here is a description I snipped from the web:

Fluff-a-nutter:

Peanut butter and marshmellow fluff. Marshmellow Fluff is a regional New England delicacy. It's a very sticky white cream, usually just called Fluff. It has the consistency of a big vat of melted marshmellows. I like fluff and strawberry jam, but the traditional application is with Peanut butter. You only get one pass at applying it to the bread (because it's extremely sticky) and you certainly don't dip the knife in anything else once it's been in the fluff jar.

Why do I mention this? It seems that state representative Jarrett Barrios was outraged because his child was served a Fluff-a-nutter at school for lunch. His response? Introduce legislation to banned the use of marshmellow fluff in public schools. He's a politician, so he probably never considered making a healthy lunch for his child to take to school. That would require both intelligence and effort and apparantly Barrios isn't big on the intelligence part.

He sums it up thus:

"A Fluff sandwich as the main course of a nutritious lunch just doesn't fly in 2006. It seems a little silly to have an amendment on Fluff, but it's called for by the silliness of schools offering this as a healthy alternative in the first place."

Blogger Mike Margolis countered:

"Barrios is wrong though, it isn't a little silly to have an amendment on Fluff, it's beyond silly."

Why?

• An occasional fluff-a-nutter at school isn't going to hurt anyone
• The company that makes the stuff is a family owned business based in my hometown (Lynn.) Do you think maybe the local politicians up there might put up a fight on this insanely stupid legislation?
• Barrios has now actually wasted legislative time on a debate about marshmellows. I repeat, marshmellows.

In Barrios' defense he hails from Cambridge, which might top Berkeley, CA as the most liberal city in the country. So he likely has an intrinsic need to save people from themselves when they obviously can't make a sane decision (like not eating Fluff) on their own.

Even better, he proclaimed himself a libertarian on the radio. He might want to give himself a refresher on the definition of the word.

And the funny thing is that that sandwich really isn't that bad. Peanut butter is high in protein, healthy fats and cholesterol reducing agents. The Fluff is straight sugar but you don't use that much in making the sandwich. Use wheat bread and you have two out of three healthy ingredients, which I'd guess is a far better healthy/unhealthy ratio than the majority of American kids get.

One of the many, many things that simply make you shake your head at the rampant stupidity of your fellow human beings.