Eggo Butter Pecan Syrup and me

The Eggo Butter Pecan syrup is finally gone. I bought it several months back at a Super Target. It was cheap, and I was pinching pennies. We seemed like the perfect match.

Except we weren't. Almost immediately I realized the error of my ways. True, I had saved money– Eggo Butter Pecan syrup was only a couple dollars for a family size bottle, but unless I planned on entertaining an army of hungry breakfasters for hotcakes on a Sunday morning, chances are I'd be eating all that sticky syrup by my lonesome. But the issue was much greater than that.

It's easy to blame it on refrigeration. Had Eggo Butter Pecan syrup been made of more natural ingredients the package would have dictated that it be kept below a certain temperature in order to avoid spoilage, and I would have had to find room in my refrigerator for it. An easy enough task. But the real problem for any food purchase that requires cold for its survival is maintaining face time once that item is placed in the refrigerator. In the recesses of my Darby fridge lies an assortment of condiments that weren't good enough to be consistently moved forward. Mustards. Barbecue sauces. Light cream cheeses. They linger in condiment obscurity, far from the forefront of my mind. So, when I'm in the grocery store with bagels and cream cheese on my mind, changes are I won't remember the one hiding out in the Darby.

But this is not the case with Eggo Butter Pecan syrup. Because it doesn't require refrigeration for its survival it is designated to the cupboard, where space is limited and snack items are in constant rotation. So it's given considerable placement, and therefore is top of mind when it comes to making breakfast selections. When I'm at the store I start to think that I shouldn't really buy cereal and yogurt because I have Eggo Butter Pecan syrup, so waffles would make a better choice.

I like butter pecan. Love it even. It's good stuff. And I think it was the "butter pecan" part of Eggo Butter Pecan syrup that really captured my imagination. I thought it sounded mighty delicious. But instead it was this sickly tasting ultra sweet concoction of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavors. And I had 20 some servings of it left.

Waffles. Pancakes. A squirt in the oatmeal and cream of wheat. I decided to use it whenever I could and tough it out. True, I used pretty liberal amounts of it when it came to the pancakes and waffles, leaving most of it on the side of my plate to be washed down the drain when it came time to do dishes. But I gave it a good effort. Swallowed my pride. Put on my game face.

Well, the charade finally came to an end on Friday. It was the last squirt for Eggo Butter Pecan syrup. And I don't know if I've ever been so happy to throw a food item in the trash. From now on I was going to enjoy real maple syrup like never before. I'd use it sparingly and savor every little drop of it, thinking of Native Americans and Vermont and old time traditions of gathering sap.

But as Eggo Butter Pecan syrup fell from my hand to the heaping kitchen trash container I realized that like so much of my relationship with it, our separation wasn't going to be easy either. I would have to recycle it. Which means it will have another life someday. Or at least that's the hope, although hopefully as a more worthy product. I would find it highly depressing to know that it was going to spend eternity in a landfill. Because if I knew that its fate would consist of this I would have left it half full to say to the future citizens of the earth that back in the early 21st century not everyone was so fond of high fructose corn syrup and artificial flavorings on their pancakes. That some of us longed for real foods. But, with all the preservatives and half the bottle left, the future citizens of planet earth could try it out for themselves. I just hope it wouldn't taste nostalgic to them and remind them of the good old days. Back when high fructose corn syrup was still cheap and affordable and used in just about every mass produced food product known to man.