Chris eats his vegetables.

Hey, everybody!  I trust that you’re well.  We find ourselves at a significant moment in history.  Earlier this evening, I consumed the last weird food product from my initial trip to Whole Foods.  Thus far, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with these foodstuffs.  Some were surprisingly good (rambutan, meatless jerky) and some were not so good (fuck you, Limburger cheese).  Since I’ve exhausted my original supply, I am relying on YOU to give me some good suggestions for future taste tests.  Feel free to leave a comment below or e-mail me at BarnabyHurdle@gmail.com.  But, enough of this jibber-jabber!  It’s time to meet the food du jour…

Vegetable Tempuraw!

I'm 60% sure that these are not psychedelic mushrooms.

I have a confession to make.  I’ve got no beef with vegetables.  I chose this snack based entirely on the (disgusting) appearance.  Judging by looks alone, Vegetable Tempuraw consists of mummified veggies coated in peanut butter and boogers.  Vegetable Tempuraw is made by Awesome Foods™, headquartered right down the road from me in Bridgeport, PA.  As you may have guessed by the clever name, Awesome Foods™ specializes in raw foods (TempuRAW…get it?).  The creators of Awesome Foods™ also own a raw/organic food store in the suburbs of Philadelphia called Nature’s Harvest.  This is not to be confused with Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes.  Dear God, I hope that the Mom and Pop organic food store and the sperm cookbook get each other’s mail once in a while!   FARCICAL!!!  It’d be like Frasier but with marginally more semen.

Do NOT eat that flan.

That’s enough sperm-talk for now.  Let’s learn a little about raw foods!  Raw foodism (yup, it’s a thing) was created by Swiss doctor, Maximilian Bircher-Benner, in 1897.  That’s right, Californians, you didn’t come up with this!  Apparently, the good doctor discovered that eating a bunch of raw apples cured his jaundice.  Dr. Max, who also invented muesli, opened a sanatorium in Zurich which has been cramming apples into people ever since.  Since raw food isn't cooked it still contains bacteria and micro-organisms.  Usually, eating bacteria-riddled food is avoided but raw food advocates believe that consumption of the correct types of bacteria can be beneficial.  Specifically lusted after is a kind of bacteria called “gut flora.”  You know, this stuff…

I'm going to need Dustin Hoffman, a rubber suit, and a monkey...

I should really start researching the stuff I eat before I eat it.  Lesson learned.  Here’s what I’m getting into with my bag of Vegetable Tempuraw:

Yams, Zucchini, Daikon, Bell Peppers, Onions, Snow Peas, Cashews, Filtered Water, Fresh Lemon Juice, Granulated Onion, Dill, Parsley, Himalayan Salt, Black Pepper.

That doesn’t sound too bad!  Being a curious kitten, I took it upon myself to look up Himalayan Salt.  Wikipedia tells me that Himalayan Salt is salt mined in the Himalayas.  The Awesome Foods™ website tells me: “We use only Himalayan salt in our products, since it is free of pollutants often found in sea salt and table salt. Himalayan salt contains 84 minerals essential to life, since it was formed over 250 million years and remains in its original pristine state. It is mined by hand from a protected area of the Himalayan Mountains. This natural unprocessed salt contains a highly crystalline structure, which allows nutrients to be absorbed at the cellular level, purifying the body physically and bio-energetically.”  You say potato; I say a bunch of nonsense…

Why?

Time for the main event!  Upon cracking open my bag I’m greeted with a familiar smell.  The veggies give off a smell very similar to potato chips.  I’m guessing it’s just the smell of salt.  Forgive me…Himalayan Salt.  All the vegetables are desiccated and covered in a strange beige paste.  Things are not looking great.  I pick out a mummified piece of zucchini and pop it into my mouth.  Not bad.  Not bad at all!  I work my way through the various vegetables and they all taste about the same.  The onion, dill and salt give everything a fairly homogeneous flavor.  The strangest thing about the Tempuraw is the texture.  All of the veggies are sliced thinly and are dried until extremely fragile.  The snow peas, in particular, are like chewing on a fine piece of balsa wood.  Much like the meatless jerky, Vegetable Tempuraw is pretty tasty but I doubt I’d go out of my way to find some more of it.  Alright, Internuts, that’s all for this week.  Make sure to send me some suggestions for more strange foods and I will take them under advisement before my next shopping spree.  Have a great weekend, gang, and I’ll see you back here real soon!