If you need further evidence that the big money people are banking on wide-spread legalization of marijuana, you need not look further than the folks at Mondelēz International, current owners of Nabisco. They manufacture the all-time favorite food of stoners, Oreo cookies. And it seems the folks who make Oreos have a keen eye on the bounding weed market.
A couple days ago my editor texted me about this new product called “MOST Stuf Oreos.” More than Mega Stuf, more than Double Stuf, this stuff has enough Stuf to put your average American into a diabetic coma. She alerted me that it just came out, is a “limited-edition,” and is presently available at places such as Target, Walmart, and Rite-Aid. Well, there’s a Rite-Aid near me, and it is a drug store so it must be healthy, and I inferred my editor was making an assignment.
So the next day I labored out to the drug store where I secured the last package of Most Stuf Oreos they had.
Oreo has been on this limited-edition kick for a few years now, and some of them are pretty damn strange. I’d only checked one of them out previously, the Hot Stuf Oreos, and they were fun – as a one-shot event. Maybe two, but I was straight when I tried it. We all know how successful the limited-edition marketing ploy is these days, and I eagerly await the Nabisco folks commissioning Alex Ross to design an upcoming Oreo variant. Then, maybe, Skottie Young.
I went home and tried it. Again, I was not under the influence of anything other than journalistic curiosity.
Ahhh… actually, they’re not bad. I don’t always eat Oreos, but when I do it’s the Double Stuf Golden kind. They’re good on long drives. Unlike Real Americans, I don’t dunk my Oreos in milk – the Food Nazis talked me out of that crap years ago. Yes, it’s milk that’s crap, not Oreos. Most Stuf Oreos are entertaining and they taste exactly the way I expected them to taste.
Nabisco did not invent the concept behind Oreos. That would be the people at Hydrox, way back in 1908. Nabisco came out with their doppelgänger four years later and America quickly came to the realization that Hydrox sucked. That didn’t stop my grade school from serving them to us – I assume they were cheaper, although at the time Nabisco was a local company. I think that means Nabisco’s chemicals were locally sourced.
Hydrox lasted for quite a while, getting its last bites in 1999. However, in 2015 the Leaf Brands people, manufacturers of Astro Pops, Wacky Wafers, Farts, and of course, Sour Farts and Fruity Farts, bought the rights to the Hydrox cookie. Within two years they replaced the high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar, removed all hydrogenated oils and artificial flavors and now claim to be GMO-free, alluding to the possibility that Oreos are mined on Mars.
Ergo, Hydrox is health food so Most Stuf Oreos must be the belladonna of cookies by comparison.
However, right now finding a place that sells Hydrox is harder than finding a place that has Most Stuf Oreos in stock. I’m guessing most people at Nabisco don’t even know their competition has returned.
I will give Oreos props for making going to the supermarket tolerable again. I’d been in a funk ever since the Weekly World News folded; they were the only relief from the tedium of the shopping experience. This stunt got Oreos a lot of attention, and I’m hardly the only person writing about it.
Whether this was a review or a warning… that’s for you to decide.
I’m still trying to figure out if we should thank or blame our dear friend Ed for his role in taking the lard out of the Stuf, hope you save me a couple of the Most Stuf Oreos…
Sure. I know how to bribe my editor. Come and get it!