This little PSA is brought to you by the Friday thoughts in Moose’s Cerebral Goo. However, I feel I must provide a spoiler alert for this one: there are a few f-bombs in here, and Ima probably ruin Tic Tacs for you. You’ve been warned.
They’re tiny, fruity, and wonderfully delicious…a veritable fruit adventure. And, they’re zero calories. Yes, ZERO calories. So, theoretically, I could eat 200,000 of them with no adverse consequences. None, just pure unadulterated yumminess without the guilt.
But wait, how’s that so? The first fucking ingredient is sugar. Sugar! Pretty sure that sugar has caloric content. So, off I went to Dr. Google to find out the ‘truth’ of all this purposefully scant bullshit brought to me by the makers of Tic Tac (the most wonderful shit ever), Ferrero Brands.
According to the Tic Tac website, they can fuck with the nutrition label on Tic Tacs due to an FDA loophole: “Tic Tac® mints do contain sugar as listed in the ingredient statement. However, since the amount of sugar per serving (1 mint) is less than 0.5 grams, FDA labeling requirements permit the Nutrition Facts to state that there are 0 grams of sugar per serving.” LOFL, serving size: 1 mint. Who the fuck eats only one Tic Tac at a time?
So here’s the truth of it — grab a seat, cause you’ll wanna sit down for this: a single Tic Tac actually contains 1.9 calories. Fuuuuuuuuuck. So, the little box that I can, and have thrown back in one shot, 38 Tics/box = 74.1 calories. The bigger box, 200 Tics = 380 calories. Woops.
To make this realization even sweeter (see what I did there?), many of the other ingredients are not just bad for me, they’re really bad. According the the website isitbadforyou.com, possible long term side effects from consuming the ingredients contained in Tic Tacs in large quantities may include tooth decay (duh), weight gain (sure), cancer (WTF!?!), central nervous system damage (brain and spinal cord, again WTF!?!), and diabetes. I may be fucked here. Seems like there should be a surgeon general’s warning on these tiny little “zero calorie” grains of packaged death. So much for a good Friday Feel.
So, what’s the damn point of nutrition labels? I’m pissed. Better go have a Tic or two (boxes). In the meantime, check out the Cerebral Goo podcast if you haven’t yet. There are a couple of recent new ones, and podcast episode 109 is waiting in the wings. Just waiting on Salty to give it the green dye #7 light.