I know it would be a first, but I’m afraid that the United States Food and Drug Administration has gone amiss in its regulatory duties. And with all the attention being given to gateway drugs over the past few decades, I’m completely shocked that the FDA has left it up to the RedneckGranola to blow the whistle on Twang.
Twang Partners, LTD. (not to be confused with the great blog, Twang Nation) has been targeting its flavored salts to children for the past thirty years. Hey, you might be thinking, lay off. It’s just flavored salt. You would be correct. And hypertension is just hypertension. Cardiovascular disease is just cardiovascular disease, and left ventricular hypertrophy is just left ventricular hypertrophy. Face facts America, salt kills.
And the fine people at Twang have been dangling their sodium death packets in front of children’s faces since the 80’s. I remember when I first fell to the siren’s call at the tender age of 12. My poison was Twang’s deadliest game, Dill Pickle. At ten cents a pack I never had a chance. On a steamy April afternoon, just before the bus pulled away from Aledo Independent School District to distribute its womb-full of sodium-happy pre-teens, I tore away the top edge of the paper packet. I pursed the pouch, tipped my head back and tapped its contents directly under my tongue.
The lightning fast sizzle cooked its way from my taste receptacles to my brain instantly, the rush both thrilling and painful. The uninitiated will try to tell you that salt cannot be psychotropic, but they’ve never been there — sitting in the back of the bus while standing on the brink, heart racing, jaw clenched, eyes rolling into the back of your head. After flavored salt, there’s no going back.
Weeks later I moved onto Twang’s beer salts and then finally, the end game. Rimming salts. Sure, as kids my siblings and I would chip off a corner of a salt lick intended for the cattle and chew on it while riding home in the truck bed. But that was all just fun and games compared to the world Twang flavored salts opened up for me. Oh I never inhaled, but the lick did the trick. What kid could resist the bright colored packet and cheap high? And if together we don’t take action, dear readers, it could be yours or mine next.[divider]
Now available in convenient 1.15 ounce shakers!