Tuesday, February 15, 2011

In Defense of Nutella


Scene from the movie "Bianca" with Nanni Moretti

Have you already heard about this lady who sued Ferrero for claiming Nutella is a healthy food?
To make a long story short: a Californian mom feeds her four year old daughter Nutella (I want to hope on bread), until she gets told by friends this spread isn't healthy at all (reading the nutritional info on the jar would have been easier), so she starts a lawsuit against Nutella producer "Ferrero".

Now, I don't want to convince anybody that this chocolaty spread is healthy; obviously, if you abuse it, it's even less.

Anyway, it's a social phenomenon: if Americans have peanut butter, Italians have Nutella (any personal preference is a different story).

Even though studies prove that peanut butter is a nutritional food, when you compare the ingredients and nutritional information of a conventional (not organic, nor natural) peanut butter and those of Nutella, you'll find there aren't such big differences: nutella might have generally more sugar, but some peanut butter brands use sugar too - and salt.

Anyway, I believe that Nutella is more inspiring than peanut butter. Nutella...literally makes you nuts.

There are songs, books and movies (see above) dedicated to Nutella.

Dario Cassini wrote a history of creation of Nutella in which he uses a made-up English to tell us about "how it all began".
It's a very hilarious story of God forbidding Adam and Eve to get to the Nutella tree and how the two, looking for something "good, very very good", prefer to leave heaven or even have pimples and diarrhea rather than live without Nutella...

In another booklet Cassini uses a made-up Latin to describe the thousand sneaky ways of getting to a Nutella jar when your mom is (or seems to be) away, which is a clear hint that EVEN MOMS WHO BUY NUTELLA KNOW IT IS NOT HEALTHY AND YOU SHOULDN'T EAT TONS OF IT!!!


*note that different Countries might use a different kind of oil according to their laws!