I just couldn’t believe it when I read this. I was on Amazon looking for a specific size baking pan (commonly they are often called jelly roll pans - 10x15 inch pans). They can be used for any number of things and I kept finding recipes that said this was the pan size I needed so…

In the product description of one the pans I clicked on was the following:

“Eating a clean, healthy diet doesn’t mean that cookies need to be banned forever. Indulge your sweet tooth with butter cookies sweetened only with honey or ginger cookies made with whole-wheat flour. However you put a healthy twist on traditional cookie recipes, they’re sure to come out perfectly on these durable cookie pans.”

What. The. FUCK?? That first sentence is straight out of a Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem ad! Don’t tell me what to use the pan for just sell me the freaking pan. It’s a baking pan. I plan to bake with it. If it is a good pan I should be able to bake anything in it. As if only fatties are buying baking pans to make their evil cookies made with real butter and white sugar.

Ironically, a good nonstick pan is something to consider if you are trying to reduce the fat content in a recipe because less fat means less oil/lubrication and therefore a drier product that may stick to whatever you bake it in. But that should be an issue of logistics/physics, not an issue of diet choices or nutrition. Any decent nonstick pan should be able to handle a recipe that has been tweaked to make it more “healthy,” so no you don’t get to brag about manufacturing an average baking pan to make it sound like you are ahead of the curve or helping to lead the way in ‘healthy’ cooking!

I’m used to food itself being morally pigeonholed and policed with words like “decadent,” “indulgent,” “sinful,” etc. I’m used to reading a food label that brags about being trans fat free - when the product never had any trans fat to begin with. I’m used to hearing buzzwords like “all-natural” (when they can’t get away with calling it organic). I’m used to hearing how I can make a nutrition-packed green smoothie with the food processor they are trying to sell me, or how this new cooking method using this expensive appliance will be better than frying in oil. But to take a common versatile kitchen accessory and try and put a “healthy” spin on it? Seriously?

The pandering by advertisers to the image- and health-obsessed is getting ridiculous. Do you sell someone a fork by telling them they can eat a healthy salad with it and don’t have to use it on cake? Am I going to go shopping for a grater and read about how it slices veggies just as easily as it does that nasty fattening cheese?

For the record, I did not choose the pan in question - because it was not guarenteed to a high enough oven temperature. Which is something real bakers would care about. I will find a company that does not police my food choices while trying to sell me an inferior product. And for the record, my indulgent fat ass was looking for a pan to bake whole wheat zucchini cookies on - not that it’s anybody’s fucking business.

This privilege is being able to buy a product without being told what you should or should not use it for - or if you should use it at all.