Monday, September 17, 2007

Vanilla-vegetables

Can I ask you something? Well, I'm a baby and although I've got my ideas about a lot of things, I might not get them right all the time. So here's my dilemma. If you are offered mashed vegetables with some meat for lunch (it might not happen to you often, but imagine being a baby and being offered this practically every day) would you prefer it with the taste of vanilla or just the simple natural vegetable and meat taste?
(please leave a comment to let me know what you think!)
Well, the reason I ask you is that a couple of weeks ago my mum bought the cereals to add to my food. At the supermarket there were only two brands, Nestle and Plasmon, and my mum brought home one box of Rice from Plasmon. On the box it's written that one can use it either to add to the vegetable broth or to milk and since Plasmon advertises a lot on TV (grow up healthy, is their slogan) she thought it was quite a good choice. The surprise came when she added the cereals to my food. First she thought that her nose was playing tricks on her, but then she had no doubt: the rice was vanilla-flavoured! A quick glance on the box revealed that Plasmon had added flavours to the cereal, but not a word about vanilla! My mum was rather disgusted, and wrote a letter to Plasmon to let them know what she thought. After a while the reply came

Dear Mrs. Valgardsdottir
We excuse the late reply to your request, and would like to inform you that vanilla flavour has been added to all our cereals after several taste-trials among a group of our clients, who judged that the taste of the cereals with added vanilla-flavour was better for their babies. Furthermore, the sweet taste helps the babies to get accustomed to more savory tastes during the first steps of weaning.


blablablablabla..! Now let's say that there are parents that prefer vanilla-flavoured vegetables and meat (I would be curious to hear them actually) -but wouldn't it be fair to KNOW what you're buying? Now take a look at the picture of the Plasmon-cereals! Can you see written anywhere that vanilla-flavour has been added? If you buy biscuits from Plasmon you can choose between Vanilla, Chocolate or No-flavour biscuits as clearly evidenced on the box. But if you buy the cereals, you get vanilla...or, well, you buy another brand...which is just what my mum did.

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