Wha Guru Chew

When I got home from bible study last night I decided to go to bed early. As I was going to sleep, singing as usual, the song I was performing happened to be the '80s favorite "Anything, Anything" by Dramarama:

"I got wasted, she got mad,
Called me names then she called her dad,
He got crazy and I did too,
Made me eat Wha Guru Chew..."

I made up the last line, of course, but it made me think: did I still possess a specimin of the sesame-almond chew toy? I leapt up, went into the kitchen, and seconds later I had fished a sticky, decades-old package of Wha Guru Chew out of the "junk" drawer (see photo above; my camera is incapable of close-ups).

This specimen of Wha Guru Che is at least as old as my first car, Wheezy (circa 1990). Some may remember when the Wha Guru Chew was kept in the trunk along with other unaccountable things.

My brother Jim and I first ran across Wha Guru Chew in about 1981. We were at a sporting goods store with Dad buying camping stuff. We found Wha Guru Chew in the check-out line among the "impulse buy" items like hiking mints and those tablets that purify poison water.

These are the ingredients:

roasted almonds, malted cereal syrup, honey, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, unrefined expeller-pressed safflower oil, wheat germ, salt, pure vanilla, lecithin.

We weren't allowed to buy a Wha Guru Chew at that time, but the gooey, speckled, resinous blob definitely made an impression on our adolescent selves. The picture of the temple on the front! The ridiculous name! Its aspirations towards being a health food offering Hindu piety! The fact that it looked like shit! ("expeller pressed"!)

It seems that Wha Guru Chew is still around, although the packaging has been foolishly updated. The old design was really all this product ever had going for it. I bought one once and tried to eat it. 100% natural and 100% disgusting.