There must not be too many serious political problems in Massachusettes, because the legislature there has been spending its time worrying about that grave threat to the Republic, the combination of Marshmellow Fluff and peanut butter known as Fluffernutter.
To all those state legislators who have ever neglected weighty issues in favor of fluff, the politicians of Massachusetts have now done you one better. They spent last week debating the merits of Fluff, with a capital “F” — the marshmallow cream that many New Englanders consider the ideal accompaniment to peanut butter.“Fluffergate,” as one pol named it, began when the son of state Sen. Jarrett T. Barrios (D) reported that his elementary school in Cambridge gave students the option of eating Fluffernutter sandwiches for lunch. A Fluffernutter is, of course, made with peanut butter and Fluff — an amalgam of corn syrup, sugar syrup, vanilla flavor and egg whites.
Fearing for the nutrition of school lunches, Barrios proposed a measure that would limit schools to one Fluffernutter day per week. That brought complaints from the Lynn, Mass., company that makes Fluff, which says its product is far more healthful than it might seem, given that it is marshmallow goo. Fluff has just 60 calories per serving, they say.
They used to say that puritans were people horrified over the idea that someone somewhere was having fun. Well, meet the New Puritans, who get horrified over the idea that someone, somewhere is eating something tasty.
To be fair, the complaint is that the schools are giving children marshmellow sandwiches and calling it lunch, *not* that parents are feeding their children such things. What parents want to feed their kids is their business. But surely we can do better by our children, nutritionally-speaking, in our schools.