Kraft Is Introducing ‘Candy Mac & Cheese’ for Valentine’s Day, as if We Need More to Fear

You ever bite into a creamy, comforting forkful of mac and cheese and think that what it really needs is some sugar? No! You have not! But maybe Kraft is suffering from quarantine brain because that’s exactly what it’s offering this Valentine’s Day. “Candy Kraft Mac & Cheese is made with the same cheesy Kraft Mac & Cheese Americans know and love, but includes a candy flavor packet to turn the mac & cheese pink and add hints of sweet candy flavor,” the company says. We assume eating the pink, sweet pasta together is intended to force couples into trauma bonding.

Kraft of course understands that this is a troll move, and perhaps we’ve fallen into its marketing plan a bit by being so aghast. And actually, the first part isn’t so bad. If it were just pink mac & cheese, fine. It’s not like that orange color is “natural” anyway, so might as well get weird with it. But it’s holding the “sweet candy flavor” in the mind’s eye, thinking of eating tangy, artificial cheddar with a hint of conversation heart, that’s really hurtling us into a damaged weekend.

To get a box, one must enter a contest on the Kraft website and the company will be sending 1,000 boxes of the stuff, which from the promo photos evokes raw beef or perhaps Russian beet salad, to 1,000 lucky (???) winners. Kraft, in an explanation for its crimes, says “love makes people do strange things.” Which, no. Love makes people listen to their partners podcasts. Love makes people buy almond milk instead of regular because that’s what their spouse prefers. Love does not make people pour pixy stix onto dinner. Like, was this a way for Kool-aid, which is also owned by the Kraft Heinz company, to offload some flavor powder after a summer low on cookouts? Does anyone out there want this?

What else is there to day? This sucks, man. This fucking sucks.