To Bean Or Not To Bean

In my last post, I detailed how I bought store-brand, no-beans chili and when I opened the can I saw it had beans. I wasn’t upset about that, but I wrote about the incident on this blog and somebody at Food Lion headquarters saw the article and phoned me. My phone records calls, and the call, at least the important part, went like this:

FL: “We want to assure you that our no-beans chili has no beans. Your article stating the contrary is incorrect.”

Me: “But there were beans in the chili.”

FL: “No there weren’t. We don’t like the implication that our chili has beans.”

Me: “But you sell chili with beans.”

FL: “Yes, we do.”

Me: “So what were the things in my chili that looked like beans?”

FL: “They weren’t beans.”

Me: “What were they?”

FL: “Bean-like objects.”

Me: “What are they made of?”

FL: “That’s proprietary. We can’t tell you.”

Me: “But doesn’t the law require you to disclose all the ingredients in your food?”

FL: “I’ll refer your question about the law to our legal department.”

Me: “My phone records all my calls. Do you mind if I blog about this phone call?”

FL: “Yes.”

Me: “You do mind?”

FL: “Yes.”

Me: “What if, at the end my blog post, I said this call never took place and it was purely fictional? Would it be okay to blog about the call then?”

FL: “I guess so. But you must report that our no-beans chili has no beans.”

Me: “I will.”

And we ended the call. Just for the record, I’ve eaten their chili-with-beans and it’s tasty. And that about sums it up.

Oh, one more thing. Their no-beans chili has no beans and this call never took place.

Let me think—am I leaving out anything? No, I think that does it. G’night, all.