A FUN-O-FACE® HAS ZERO GRAMS TRANS FAT! by Douglas Hackle

I was at the convenience store not too long ago when I noticed a slew of snack foods on the shelves with labels toting the fact that the snacks contained zero grams trans fat, this information often conveyed with an exclamation point or two: Zero Grams Trans Fat!

The strong emphasis the snack manufacturers put on this presumably very significant and positive nutritional fact suggested that all these snack foods were, if not healthy, then at least semi-healthy choices.  What can I say?  I believed them.  They sold me.  So much so that I decided to part with $1.27 to purchase one such snack.  The one I picked, a Fun-o-Face®, is a hockey puck-shaped devil’s food snack cake enveloped in a chocolate coating.  On one side of the cake is a simple smiley face drawn in white icing.  The center of a Fun-o-Face is filled with cream. The phrase “Zero Grams Trans Fat!” appears like fifteen times on the front of the wrapper.

I took my Fun-o-Face home and sat down on my couch to eat it.  Although I knew the snack did not contain one drop of trans fat, I knew nothing about what the snack did contain.  So I read the back of the wrapper.

Based on a 2,000-calorie diet, a Fun-o-Face contains 4,000 times the recommended daily intake (RDI) of saturated fat; 5,000 times the RDI of polyunsaturated fat; 6,000 times the RDI of cholesterol; 10,000 times the RDI of sugar; and 15,000 times the RDI of sodium.  In addition, a Fun-o-Face contains “lethal amounts” of arsenic, cyanide, strychnine, hemlock, deadly nightshade, puffer fish venom, black widow venom, rattlesnake venom, box jellyfish venom, and radioactive toxic waste, among dozens of other unknown toxins.

But hey—at least it has zero grams trans fat!  Right?

Those neurotoxins didn’t waste any time shutting down my lungs and heart.  I died within about forty-five seconds of biting into the thing. 

What’s more, that Fun-o-Face was so damn poisonous that in the middle of my open casket wake, my belly exploded right there in my coffin, raining a terrible, radioactive fatty acid on all nearby friends and family members who had come to pay their respects to me, melting them like slugs, killing over fifty of them, including six babies, four toddlers, and my sister who was pregnant with twins.

But, hey—at least it had zero grams trans fat!

Right??