Published April 22, 2005

If only the bureaucrats at the Republican U.S. Department of Agriculture had consulted Mrs. No in developing the new food pyramid, which is revolting and vaguely discriminatory.

Instead, they blundered along, wasting money as usual.

As an overweight taxpayer, it's bad enough to see pretend conservatives spending wildly on war and social programs, using a formula they publicly decried--that old Democratic liberal recipe of guns and butter.

At least the liberals had better taste--because they had butter. Democrats had bread and beer too, and they liked sex. They might like a slice of blueberry pie now and then, between the sex and more beer.

But, obviously, Republicans despise food as much as they despise sex, which is their business, but when they try to impose their rigid and intolerant food values on the rest of us, we have to stop them.

For example, instead of butter, they now offer us "oils." Yet they don't have the sense to offer delicious and nutritious olive oil. They offer generic "oils" because the Big Midwestern Corn Lobby doesn't yet have control of the Mediterranean.

On the new pyramid, there is no Kass' Beer-Can Chicken, which world-renowned chef Charlie Trotter has just offered to cook up for my wife and me and friends at his famous Chicago restaurant. (Of course we'll pay. This is the Tribune.)

Also absent from the new pyramid are smoked back ribs served over a slice of white bread, as offered by the great Chicago barbecue master, Gary Wiviott, who will soon be teaching summer rib-smoking to readers of this column, so stay tuned.

The lack of food sense in Washington is revolting--no Polish sausage or brats, no onion rings or Dr Pepper, which means the new pyramid is for savages.

Through a confusing color-coding system, the pyramid offers horrid food. This probably includes skinless breast of chicken and mashed cauliflower pretending to be mashed potatoes, and balsamic vinegar sprinkled on a salad with bits of soggy canned tuna.

Once I pretended to like balsamic vinegar on salads with turkey slices and no bread or potatoes or pasta. Now I hate balsamic vinegar and all it represents. I can't even pretend to enjoy mashed cauliflower.

On the new pyramid, there is no listing for "beer," unless you count "grains," but "grains" probably refers to boiled wheat kernels mixed with chopped dry figs for what the health bureaucrats consider a scrumptious dessert.

"Grains" also probably refers to that hateful bitter brown bread that I can't stand, which starts arguments at our house because I toss it into the garbage when I think Mrs. No isn't looking.

All this proves the government doesn't know a darn thing about food. They already think we're too dumb to live--since they require stickers on raw pork reminding us to cook before eating. And now they offer lentils and obesity warnings.

OK, fine, we're an overweight nation. But have you read any of those boring deficit-spending stories? The federal government better look in the mirror before opening its big fat mouth.

What's truly frightening about the new food pyramid is the aggressive black unisex figure drawn hopping up a flight of stairs pasted to the outside of the pyramid.

This creature has huge arms and thighs and no hands and feet. Instead, it has deadly sharp points on the ends of what were once wrists and ankles.

By the way, why are all the aggressive government stick figures black, anyway? Isn't this discrimination? And why does a buff figure need a food pyramid? It's already in shape.

If you study this creature long enough, you will lose your appetite. But it will stick in your mind, so the instant you fall asleep, you'll dream of it chasing you, lunging and stabbing while you're going the wrong way on the escalator.

The rest of the pyramid is less threatening on the surface. It consists of several bands of color. Orange means "grains." They've dropped references to "bread" since bread is illegal, almost like smoking. Green suggests vegetables, red is for fruits, blue is for milk, purple for meat and beans. Then there is a bad color--yellow, a thin slash on the pyramid, for "oils."

Everyone knows yellow is butter's color, not oil's color. Yellow is also corn's color, and is corn not king? So there you go.

The feds could have saved a lot of trouble and $2.4 million of your money by asking Mrs. No.

Mrs. No is the boss of our food pyramid and diet at home, or the one I pretend to be on. My wife doesn't need a pyramid. She'd never spend $2.4 million on consultants and meetings. All she requires is one word.

"No," she says, when I try to sneak a box of Cocoa Krispies, Oreos, Cheez Whiz, Fig Newtons, white bread or other civilized foods into the shopping cart.

"No," she says when I offer to pick up lunch--a bag full of Polish with everything, fries and shakes.

"Honey, why don't you try a nice salad with tuna instead?" she says.

jskass@tribune.com