Wyngz – The cool way to say “not wings” (Fun facts about food Friday)

Facts about Food Friday

I really hate when people spell things with a ‘z’ instead of ‘s’ anyway, but apparently this is a real thing now – A government issued mandate that requires food manufacturers to label certain types of food this way.

So basically, “wyngz” are any chicken products that are sort of shaped like chicken wings, but aren’t actually wings at all. In fact, this is the ONLY misspelling that’s allowed and it has to be exactly this way with both the ‘y’ and the ‘z’ in order to be legal.

Not only that, but there is an entire list of very specific details that must be followed:

• The chicken used in said “chicken product” has to be white meat
• “Wyngz” has to be in the same color font and not hidden inconspicuously
• Here’s where we start getting specific – The smallest letter in the name can be no smaller than one-third the size of the largest letter used in ‘wyngz’. Get out your rulers, folks!
• It also has to state that it’s not wing meat (or isn’t ‘just’ wing meat), such as “contains breast meat and wing meat,” and has to be linked by an asterisk next to “wyngz,” pointing people to a more specific description of what they may or may not want to eat now.

Digiorno is doing it right on their boxes there.

And actually, they’re going one step farther by trying to make this sound like a great thing. If you go to their website, they explain that the reason for the “fancy spelling” is “Because they’re not wings. They’re even better!”

/facepalm

Really, I think this one sums up the new “spelling” quite nicely:

 

 

 

(Gah! My spell check was really angry at me for this post of “wyngz,” ha!)