A little bite of hair never hurt nobody

There is one item the fine folks at General Mills Inc. forgot to add to their ingredient list of the Nature Valley Salted Caramel Nut protein bar I was snacking on one day last week.

Hair. That's right, human hair, best I can tell, one black strand, about an inch-and-a-halfin length, stuck right in there between the almonds and the partially defatted peanut flour. Those things are mentioned on my box, but not the stray strand that somehow made it into the individually-wrapped packaging. I trust a wayward hair does not affect the gluten-free nature of my bar, not that I care, really. I eat certain things so I get gas. Kind of a hobby of mine, flatulence. Let's me know things down there are working, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, this is a true story, I'd even raise my right hand and swear to it but then I'd be typing only with my left hand and the next sentence would then probably read something like, 'Ghuy ffyj fr goanemojvdev niiudvn?' Nobody wants to hear that.

I was at my desk last Tuesday, I believe, when snack time rolled around, and, sadly out of both Three Musketeers and Twix candy bars (just who's restocking my top left desk drawer, anyway?) I had to grab the aforementioned Nature Valley Salted Caramel Nut Bar. I had a box of 15 bars, and this was the second-to-the-last one, with the first 13 being just fine, taste-, sodium content-, and texture-wise. I really had nothing to fear.

As I worked (I use some verbs rather loosely), I munched on my bar, noting how well the chicory root extract and the soy protein isolate complement each other to create a taste sensation that's both salty and sweet at the same time. I like that quality in my protein bars, as well as my women. Just sayin.' So I was about three-fourths of the way through the bar, having eaten the first several bites with the package still wrapped around the base. For the last bite, I pulled the package off, thereby revealing the freed follicle. 'Hmm,' I thought as I slowed my chewing, 'that doesn't quite belong there.'

I first assumed the hair had originated somewhere from the top of my desk, which, in all honesty, has never been described as either 'clean' or 'neat' or 'insect carcass-free.'

Yeah, but it was stuck in there. I mean, like baked in, or stirred in, or mashed in, however they make those things, it was partially in the bar, not just laying haphazardly in the package. That means, I surmise, that someone in the bakery lost it (just where is the headnet accountability these days?) and it tumbled off into the production line and stuck into a random bar that would end up in a local grocery store that some poor schmuck (me) would buy. I suppose it could have been worse, it could've been like a fingertip or something. Now that'd be icky.

I don't know if this hair was from a female or male, or from the top of a head, or an arm, or a beard, or, well, let's just stop there, anatomically speaking. All I know is it was black, really dark brown maybe, straight, and short. I don't know where these bars are even produced, so it could have come from anywhere in the country, or even the world, for that matter. The box does say General Mills Inc. is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn., but that doesn't tell me mu ... oh, good lord, please say it ain't from a Viking fan. I doubt those people shower very often.

I've experienced a few things in my days regarding unwanted ingredients in stuff I was planning on pushing in my pie hole. In fact, it was a fairly routine occurrence in my childhood, as my family obligingly bought groceries from a small-town store owned by a great-aunt, and let's just say, the products weren't always at peak freshness. We had bugs in our Corn Flakes, bugs in candy bars (they really seemed to like the almonds in Hershey Bars), bugs in our macaroni, and my mother still cringes in embarrassed horror when she recalls the time I had a friend over for lunch and the 'noodles' in the Mrs. Grass soup were swimming in the broth.

I once had a bottle of Coca Cola at a local tavern, and when I tipped it back to take a swig, a big chunk of mold or some other fungal fruit stuck in the neck. When I showed the bartender, he accused me of putting it in there. For this newspaper several years ago, I wrote a story about an area woman who was washing her grapes when a black widow spider fell out. Just to add some depth to this story -- I do that sometimes, at no extra charge -- I Googled 'strange things found in food' and learned that a hair is really no big deal. Not, anyway, compared to the lady who bit into a Milky Way candy bar and thought she had hit a hard peanut, only to discover somebody's tooth. In another case, a man was pouring a bowl of Rice Krispies, when a dad bat fell out. Snap. Crackle. Squeak. Other objects discovered in food products included a frog in a can of Diet Pepsi, a razor blade in somebody's ice cream, nails in a pre-packaged macaroni and cheese meal, and a 9-millimeter bullet in a hot dog. With that last one, it's a good thing the guy found it before eating it, or he would have had a real shooting pain.

Sorry. Sometimes I don't know when to stop.

I didn't sop eating my protein bar, either, no, I plucked the hair and swallowed the last bite. I mean, really, what could it hurt, it was just a strand of keratin, which by chemical composition is 45 percent carbon, 28 percent oxygen, 15 percent nitrogen, 7 percent hydrogen, and 5 percent sulphur (again, extra information, no charge). By contrast, the Nature Valley Salted Caramel Nut Protein Bar contains fructose, vegetable glycerin, whey protein concentrate and 180 mg of sodium (enough to embalm a baby bunny, I'd guess) so I'm thinking it might just be more healthy to snack on a handful of human hair. Not much protein, though. My bar has 10 grams. Daddy does like his protein.

THE

BORN

LESAR