Super Foods, huh?

They say "no good deed goes unpunished," and I've found the culinary confirmation of this cliche.

Last night, I stopped into Whole Foods to pick up a couple of things, including dinner. I grabbed a package of sashimi for myself, and vegetarian maki for my wife, who's still squeamish about eating raw animals. Just in case the sushi might not satisfy our appetites, I also grabbed a pre-packaged salad labeled "'Everything' Super Food Salad." It looked colorful and a quick glance at the ingredients (frustratingly located on the bottom of the package) confirmed that it contained no meat.

We didn't get to the salad last night, so it became today's lunch. While it was indeed colorful, I've just discovered that "super foods" must not refer to their flavor.

Let me start with the raw cacao beans. Now I'm no culinary expert, but I'm pretty sure that Cacao is the raw material for chocolate. And chocolate is yummy. However, I've now figured out why Cacao must be thoroughly processed before it becomes a Hershey bar. Christopher Columbus's posse once mistook a large batch of native Cacao beans for rabbit poop. Looking at them on my salad, and even after tasting them, I can clearly see how easy it would be to make this mistake.

The salad also contains Goji Berries. These look like bright red raisins, only they are much softer. The skin is about the consistency of really-old-people-wrinkled-hands skin. The taste really isn't bad, but that consistency is just a tad disturbing.

Any salad which contains blueberries, spinach, peanuts and cashews can't be all bad. But the bitter Kale, strange Acai yogurt dressing, and oddball berries mentioned above made it pretty tough to choke down.

But at least I can now feel confident that blueberry cobbler and a bag of peanuts are part of a Super Foods diet.