Simplicity Gone Awry

I'm a simple person. I enjoy the simple things in life. I prefer simple designs. I write in simple sentences. I speak in simple terms. And, most of all, I appreciate simple food.

Some view simple as boring, uninteresting, basic. I disagree. When something is in it's simplest form you can truly appreciate its worth. There's no noise, no clutter diverting your attention to what is real.

Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest minds of all time, had this to say: "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

So, my question for you today is: Why, oh why, do food makers feel compelled to throw every ingredient imaginable into simple food?

This morning, unsatisfied with my (new) routine of fruit for breakfast, I decided to pick up a muffin from a local coffee shop. The server graciously shared the muffin menu for the day: bran, carrot, oat, banana, and so on.

Since experience has taught me that a muffin is never simply a muffin, I had to determine which were plagued with raisins (yes, I'm a raisin hater). Honestly, I don't get the obsession with raisins? Most times, they're thrown in as an afterthought, with little to no rhyme or reason.

Is it to ensure consumers get at least one of their daily servings of fruit? Let me tell you, when your fruit is lathered in butter (if it's even that nowadays) and covered with sugar (or HFCS), it doesn't count.

Or, and I'm leaning toward this one, is it that food makers use raisins as detractors, so we eaters can't actually taste the poor quality of their food?

I asked my helpful server if the bran (my favourite) had raisins. Of course it did. As did, the oat and banana. I was disappointed, but then saw the carrot. It was topped with walnuts, so I had a little hope. By this time my server, annoyed with my petulant questions, was helpful no more and barked: "nuts, no raisins!"

Guess what I found when I broke into the little carrot cake? Yup, raisins - loads of them. Along with incredible amounts of walnuts, carrot pieces and spices.


Even though I dissected the raisins from the cake, there was so much going on in that little muffin that I didn't know what I was eating.

With food, as in life, less is so very much more!