Tater Tots and Me

As you know America has produced many fine inventors in her 234 years of existence: Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and George Washington Carver are just a few of the fine contributors to the American way of life. But by my way of thinking two of the greatest American inventors were Nephi and Golden Grigg. (Did his mama really name her son “Golden”? Maybe she knew he was destined for greatness.)

“Who were the brothers Grigg?” you say.

Back in 1953, Nephi and Golden came up with the novel idea of chopping up potato slivers, adding flour and seasoning, then pushing the mash through holes and slicing off the cylinder pieces which came out on the other side. What came out on the other side was a little bit of heaven otherwise known as “Tater Tots.” The company that the Grigg brothers founded, Ore-Ida, has been selling tots ever since, and today Americans consume approximately 70 million pounds of tots per year. And why not--they are crispy, crunchy, and delicious! Napoleon Dynamite is not alone; how could anyone not love tots?

So this week when Karla informed me that she would not be home in time to prepare dinner and that the evening’s duty would fall to me—of course, my natural reaction was to think of the Griggs and their heavenly tots. Ben grilled the chicken; we sliced some cantaloupe; and I baked the tots. We all agreed -- it was a tasty meal.

Unfortunately, about 45 minutes after consuming our lovely dinner, Karla and I were at Ben’s meet-the-teacher night and a powerful headache came upon me. It was a doozy-- an extra, uber doozy. (For the last ten days I was doing pretty well in the headache department. In fact, on the way to the school that night I commented to Karla about how well I had been doing. Those proved to be famous last words because just as we were about to enter Ben’s fourth hour class… POW! Migraine city!). What could have caused such a reaction?

I’ve tried several tactics to curb these nasty headaches one of which is a very restrictive diet. Which as I have mentioned previously means —“if it tastes good I can’t eat it.” Certainly the chicken and the sliced melon did not cause my head to do the “crazy cranium crunch.” I don’t even want to say it…. but could Nephi and Golden Grigg’s wonderful invention “the glorious and delightfully delicious Tater Tot” be the culprit? Say it ain’t so, Napoleon.

When we got home from the school as I found the nearest, quietest, darkest room, Karla found the package of tots and sure enough they contain onions (a big no-no on my list of banned food substances). Who knew? Nephi and Golden put onions into their scrumptious recipe. You really can’t taste the ornery onion. You can’t smell the obnoxious onion. But my noggin knew that buried deep within the tasty, crunchy morsels of goodness was an evil onion and my noggin didn’t like it… not one bit.

The Apostle Paul never tasted delectable Tater Tots and the evil onions of doom contained therein—but he did know about dough and yeast and this is what he warned the churches in Galatia: false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough! (Galatians 5:9) He was saying it doesn’t take much bad theology to mess up a good thing. It doesn’t take many lies to get good people off track. Just as it didn’t take a lot of onions to send my head into a tizzy; it doesn’t take much false teaching to lead people astray. That’s why it’s important for me to read the labels of the food I consume (no onions of destruction, please!) and it’s vitally important for all of us to consume the Word of God so we won’t fall prey to false teachings (no heresies please!).

Well, I’ve learned my lesson this week—I won’t eat tots without checking the label first—and I hope that all of us won’t venture far into our day without checking into God’s Word; thereby keeping us free from any faulty thinking and focused on the Truth of the Lord!