A Cockroach in your Pasta, Anyone?

Be warned, I'm going to rant.

A local family, connected to a friend of mine, found a cockroach in a bowl of Alpha-Getti's their son was eating. Last November.

Put aside the fact that it was canned pasta, and focus on what was found in it besides sauce and alphabet shaped noodles. 

What would you do? What's your first reaction? Take a picture, contact the company, ask for an explanation, some sort of assurance that the food processing is actually up to code...

Instead, months after the fact, Heinz sent a legal letter with a "sit down and shut up" offer of $150. Pardon me? They're not looking for a settlement, and to the best of my knowledge they weren't launching a bilk-the-company-for-money-scheme. They want an assurance that the food they eat from time to time is safe. They want their kids to not balk at eating everything from now on, which is pretty much how mine would react. 

When I was a kid, we sometimes made pizza from scratch. One time we opened up a can of pineapple, and found a dead worm of some sort. I didn't touch canned pineapple for quite a while after that. Finding a bug in your canned food is a pretty big deal breaker for kids.

But now, not only is the family's request being completely ignored by Heinz, but they're being ripped to shreds in the comments left by people for feeding their kids alpha-getti in the first place.

I just want to say once and for all to those perfect people who make every meal from field to table themselves, to give the rest of us a break. If you've got it all together so well, get down off that high horse and lend a hand in making our lives a bit easier, kinder, and softer.

I'm a meal planner. But sometimes I, too, need a quick shortcut meal. Life is busy. Stuff happens. Sometimes you've miscalculated the time something takes, or you forget something important, or you're just plain exhausted. 

I used to be that mom with the busy, clingy, whining child who wouldn't eat anything. I was desperate for him to eat something from a can so all I had to do was use the microwave for a minute in order to get something in his belly for dinner so I could get him to bed- and then I could crash, too. Although he was so picky he actually wouldn't even eat that.

No, canned pasta isn't that healthy, but neither are a lot of other quick drive-through options. Sometimes the lesser evil is found in a can in your pantry for an emergency meal when you're on the go from game to game or practice to practice. Or when you're sick and stressed out. Or whatever. 

The bottom line? Do the best you can, with what you have, in each moment. Be a little kinder to each other. And please, share this post, so that Heinz is forced to account for their role that started this mudslinging to begin with.