First of all...CHEESY name. Natural Bliss. Really? I mean my morning cup is blissful and all, but that is some advertising puffery if I have ever heard it.
So why is this product worthy of my enthusiasm? Here it is. I have my one cup of coffee and 1 tbsp of Coffee-mate vanilla creamer EVERY MORNING...without fail....or I get a raging headache. I generally live by an "everything in moderation" philosophy when it comes to food and don't stress too much about the things I consume infrequently. But when it comes to something I drink every single day of my life...without fail...or I get a raging headache...I should probably pay attention to the labels.
Here are the ingredients of the regular Coffee-mate vanilla liquid creamer that I was totally addicted to: Water, Sugar, Corn Syrup Solids, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, and/or Cottonseed Oil, Natural Flavors and Artificial Flavors, Dipotassium Phosphate, Sodium Caseinate, (Milk Derivative), Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Polysorbate 60,Carrageenan, Betacarotene. Color.
That would be SIXTEEN ingredients, most of which sound like words from a chemistry course.
Here are the ingredients of Natural Bliss: Nonfat milk, heavy cream, sugar, natural flavor.
That's it. I recognize all those words. All FOUR of them. And none of those things were recently invented. So I've switched to Natural Bliss.
And one more thing. I find it very entertaining and ironic that the "natural" product is NEW! I'm pretty sure milk, cream, sugar, and natural flavor aren't new discoveries. So why didn't they just come up with the 4-ingredient version first? Was it easier to invent the product with the 16 ingredients? How did the fake product become normal, causing the real thing to seem new and exciting?
And all this got me thinking...what else in our lives is actually a substitute that we accept and treat as the real thing? Other food and drink? Sure, lots. What about communication? Is Facebook/texting/twitter truly decreasing our need and desire for face to face communication? Or it's like when my child sees a dolphin jump in the ocean and screams, "It's like Seaworld!" NOOOOOOO sweetie, other way around.
I want to be more careful not to let fake become normal so that real becomes novel.
