Natebot
Promise Her Anything but Give Her Natebot

Sometimes I notice subtle changes in the cultural wilderness that we move through and wonder what primal forces are at play molding these changes. For example, have you noticed Kraft's recent change of packaging of their Neufchatel Cheese? No? and what the hell is neufchatel anyway?

Neufchatel is, according to the Wikipedia :

Neufchâtel is a semi-soft French cheese from the Normandy region of France. White in color, it is made with whole milk, unlike cream cheese, which is very similar but made with cream.

So it's got less fat than cream cheese because it's only made with whole milk. And that's why I buy it instead of cream cheese for anything short of a cheese cake.

Got it? Ok, bear with me as I plunges us deep into a mystery a whirl with brand management, marketing neologisms , and the socio-economic pressures of our zeitgeist.

Kraft used to package the cheese in the familiar silver cardboard boxes labeled Philadephia brand Neufchatel. The box would clearly spell out what kind of cheese one was buying when they picked up the silver brick of congealed cow's milk. I say used too because recently there has been a sea change of titular proportions at Kraft foods. Now the name "Neufchatel" is no longer to be seen on the packaging in large bold font - and instead it's name has been replaced with "1/3 Less Fat" These days its more important to make claims about the fat content than the actual content of your product. Hell, you could sell chocolate-covered pickled kosher pigs feet if you had a strong brand and claimed reduced fat: Holy Mole! Now with 1/3 less fat.

So let's get this straight. The packaging reads:

Philadephia 1/3 Less Fat

The assumption is 'Philadephia means cream cheese' like 'Levi spells jeans' which, if you are Westernized, just such unspoken brand-equations are part of your compass navigating through the culture jungle.

At this point you are saying, 'Natebot, you have too much time on your hands if you actually read the packaging of stuff you plan to put down your pie hole.' So what's my point?

Well here's the full story: I don't buy philly, I buy kroger - and I'll be damned that as soon as Kraft got rid of the name 'neufchatel' from their packaging then Kroger slashed the prices on their own branded Neufchatel cheese. Like rats leaving a sinking ship. I ponder the fate of my low-fat off-brand alternative.

Now frankly I don't care what they call the stuff, as long as I can know beforehand what it is I'm buying. I mean, it's not like I expect truth in advertising but would like some honesty in labeling. I mean would you pour something named "Mirage Farms: 1/3 less fat than real milk" on your Wheaties? I still remember the Little Rascals' episode they replaced the spilled cows milk with water and Plaster of Paris..."Don't drink the milk. It's spoiled. Pass it on."

At last I am left to wonder if this cheese is just suffering the indignity of other products of (and not-so-much-of) French origins. Was neufchatel so low in sales that Kraft wished to rename it, maybe in hopes we would buy it if we didn't know what it really was? Was it a reaction to the times, Kraft's marketeers keely attuned to anti-French sentiments boiling up in discontented heartlands and the rancorous swamps of the District of Columbia? And will Kraft, like Walter Jones, the Republican congressman who was also the brains behind french toast becoming freedom toast in Capitol Hill restaurants, regret their loose-gun renaming?

Well there you have it, a slice of my mind as I am reaching for some moldable cheese spread. I won't even start on what I think as I enter the politically-charged produce aisle.