Special K(iss My Big Pink Butt)

Dear Kellogg’s,

Special K is pissing me off. Your cereal tastes like lightly toasted, malt-infused scraps of cardboard. You know it. I know it. Everyone knows it. It is so low in nutritional value that even all of the “fortification” you do to it barely brings it up to the level of iceberg lettuce. In my estimation, it’s a food product only in the sense that eating it won’t kill you. Allegedly. That’s also the reason that your highly-touted “Special K Diet Plan” works (if it does): if you spend your day eating a hundred calories of cardboard cereal dampened with half a cup of skim milk, of course you’re going to lose some weight. It’s called starvation. Most people in the developing world are desperately trying to avoid that condition, so it seems a little tasteless (pun totally intended) to be promoting it as a “healthy way to lose weight”, but I suppose you’re hardly marketing in the Congo.

Given all of these things, I cannot help but feel affronted when I see your latest commercial for the “Chocolatey Delight” version, which apparently is supposed to be even better than the lick or two of brownie batter that the svelte model-mom pictured on the commercial is thinking of “ruining her whole day” with. God FORBID she take a lick of that evil, evil residue in the mixing bowl. What she really needs is a tiny bowl of your cereal and a dribble of skim milk. She’ll be just as satisfied! With a smug smile and a determined glare at the now-powerless bowl of tricksy brownie deliciousness, she conquers her weakness. Hurrah! Saved from a full 1200-calorie day!

Also, women (and men, to a different degree) have enough shaming messages about our bodies out there. I realize you have a rather large cash cow going with your diet hype, but if you could please refrain from insinuating that a person who licks a spoonful of brownie batter instead of having the “self-control” to eat your cereal is on a downward spiral to hell, it would make me feel at least a tiny bit more reassured about sending my children out into the crumbling world. Really, it’s brownie batter, not black tar heroin. No one is out turning tricks to score some Betty Crocker double fudge delight while their neglected infants sit at home in dirty diapers. A little perspective, if you please.

While we’re at it, let’s be real about what exactly constitutes “delicious” here. Comparing brownie batter to Special K in any form is like comparing great sex to an unwelcome tongue kiss from a clammy-skinned cousin. The two experiences aren’t even remotely the same. Your cereal doesn’t even contain real chocolate; instead it boasts “chocolatey chunks”, which are made from SUGAR, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED PALM KERNEL OIL, COCOA PROCESSED WITH ALKALI, COCOA, SOY LECITHIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, and MILK. What in the hell is “cocoa processed with alkali”, exactly? Should we really be eating that? It sounds like something better suited to stripping paint, for God’s sake. Except for the milk, the entire concoction sounds suspiciously like a science project. Finally, the stuff even looks unappetizing; the chunks bear an unpleasant resemblance to hamster poop to me, and we’ve already discussed the cardboard flakes thing.

Therefore, bearing all of that in mind, I am asking that you cease and desist in promoting your product as either a one-to-one substitute for actual chocolate products or some sort of proof of the virtue of those who choose to eat it instead of having a moment of indulgence here and there. Otherwise, I may be forced to leave a bag of flaming hamster poop at the front entrance to your headquarters.

Regards,

Coco

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