Taffy and the Near Failure of 1950s Baseball Cards

Baseball card designer Sy Berger almost failed at his first baseball card venture because he chose the wrong candy to market.

Berger was hired to design cards to sell gum. His first cards, for characters like Hopalong Cassidy, were successful, but his first baseball cards were a dismal failure. Why? Because those 1951 baseball cards were packaged with a piece of taffy. Disaster. The taffy "picked up the flavor of the cards' varnish," one article read. Berger himself remembered, " 'You wouldn't dare put that taffy near your mouth.'"* The next year he used gum in the pack instead, and the pop-culture phenomenon of baseball card collecting was born.

Why did the taffy absorb the flavor of the varnish? Perhaps because taffy is hygroscopic, absorbing water from the atmosphere around it. The gum was clearly a better choice.

*"Sy Berger: The salesman who reinvented the baseball card." <i>The Week</i>, December 26, 2014.

Break-Away Bunny causes Easter chaos

They've fought trans fats, added sugars, artificial dye, and labeling malpractice. Now health advisory groups have found a new target: Break-Away Bunny.


Here's the problem: Break-Away Bunny is creased for easy breakage, but the pieces are different sizes. Try serving that to children!

"It's sold as break-apart candy as if that's a good thing," says Consumer Nutrition Advisory Protector Group President Michael B. Morish. "But if the breaks aren't equal, it just makes matters worse. Children start fighting about portion size, which can result in depression, higher blood pressure, and occasional black eyes."

Parents agree that Break-Away Bunny breaks families apart. "My kids fought over their Bunny for two hours," said one dissatisfied mom. "We had to smash it with a hammer and spoon the pieces onto a kitchen scale before they agreed they had equal servings."

Morish is also considering suing the company about labeling practices. "A serving size is listed as 43 grams, but you can only eat a single serving if you combine the ears and the tail," he points out.  "Otherwise, customers have no way to know how big a serving is. This could cause health problems for customers who depend on labeling for their consumption decisions." And why, he continues, "does a product with six pieces only list three servings?"

On the other hand, math teachers like using Break-Away Bunny as a classroom aid. "I asked my students to figure out what size of a group could have equal servings, and how big they would be," said one teacher, who asked to remain anonymous. "They were at it so long I watched a whole movie on my phone.  Of course they never solved it."

Despite the protests of math teachers, Morish plans to continue his crusade. "The public has a right to accurate labels and accurate portion sizes," he decrees. "Break-Away Bunny is going down."

Happy April First!








News Flash: Chocolate Cheerios contain "Real Chocolate!"


These "Chocolate Cheerios" brag that they're made with "Real Cocoa."
The question: how could you possibly have chocolate without cocoa? (Unless you mean white chocolate, which many chocolate lovers claim isn't chocolate at all.)
That's like bragging that zucchini bread contains zucchinis.
(Of course, in this world of avocado-free "guacamole spread" and fruit-free "Fruit snacks," maybe you have to be obvious.