Ordinarily I avoid any product that has ‘fecal urgency’ as a possible side effect. For the first time since that ugly chocolate-covered laxatives incident, I’ve broken that rule; and what better reason than in the name of journalism (and a desire to make poop jokes).Science calls it olestra but the kids call it olean–a buzzword sure to enter the American lexicon alongside popular favorites ‘Nutrasweet’ and ‘crack.’ It’s fake fat, explained in a handy brochure as ‘a new food product made by starting with natural ingredients. . .put together a new way.’There’s some double talk that would make Orwell proud: Olean isn’t chemically engineered by a secret underground society of mad Proctor & Gamble scientists, it’s just a bunch of natural stuff that just happened to fall together.What a breakthrough for my puny mind, those science fellows add a little sugar here and some vegetable oil there and voila: amazing fat-free potato chips. It isn’t until 25 years of research later that the poop hits the fan (literally). It just lends to my theory the same guy invented New Coke and AIDS.Pringles has honored our little mecca of fast-food mini-mall hell as the test market for it’s olean chips, so I marched to my local supermarket to try them myself. The clerk I bought them from informed me that they were ‘selling like hotcakes,’ exciting news for toilet paper manufacturers everywhere.Buying the delicious BBQ flavor, I was excited to see that the Pringles slogan had been modified: ‘Once you pop, you can’t stop (pooping)!’ I ate a handful or two, and am pleased to report it was like a party in my mouth.Not only are they better than your standard rice cake health snack fare, they actually improved on Pringles by adding a delightful chemical aftertaste. So for the taste, I give it my highest rating: four toilets.My snack food euphoria quickly ended upon sight of a menacing warning label mentioning ‘loose stools’ as well as an 800-number and, for mutant computer nerds who have lost the ability to verbally communicate, a web site address. Disturbed, I assumed the identity of alter-ego Billy Fink, a snack-loving truck driver, and called.Snack expert Leslie lulled his fears away with carefully scripted answers. ‘Was Billy going to have to stop his truck every five minutes because of anal leakage?’ Oh no, Leslie reassured him, ‘that’s not a warning like what is on tobacco or handguns, it’s an informational statement.’ Eating Pringles is as safe as eating beans, she continued.Leslie was on a roll: The reason for the statement is not to avoid pesky lawsuits, it’s there out of the goodness of Pringles heart. The chips were tested on people just like me ( apparently she’s never met Billy) at every meal for 56 days, and they all thought olean was Jim Dandy! Billy commented that if he had the poops for eight weeks he’d smash some snack boy heads, to which Leslie laughed uncomfortably.But Billy was a special case, after all he had eaten three cans while watching the Dukes of Hazard. Leslie promised to send info-packed brochures ( apparently to read on the toilet) and recommended that if Billy was really concerned, he should see a doctor.Unlike that fat-boy Fink, I neither ate that many chips nor ( unfortunately) watched the Duke boys exciting exploits. But to be safe, I’m going to carry the handy pop-top can with me the rest of the day.Because with fat-free Pringles, Once You Poop, You Can’t Stop.
Nathan O. Crabbe is a sophomore majoring in pre-journalism
