Powdery Tums Mr. Tidbit usually restricts his startling grocery-product insights to items that are unarguably grocery products. But he feels justified in discussing the new Tums Quik Pak, both because many supermarkets have several aisles of over-the-counter pharmacy items and because many consumers of grocery products are shortly thereafter consumers of Tums.
So: Tums Quik Pak is a serious departure from the already multiple kinds of Tums, each of which is in the form of tablets. Tums Quik Pak is a box of 24 long packets of powder, much like the things one is encouraged these days to dump into bottles of water. But not Tums. Here are the package directions:
"Tear open one packet. Do not tilt head. Pour powder onto tongue (not toward back of throat). Close mouth. Allow powder to dissolve."
Mr. Tidbit must point out that, of course, the packets are next to impossible to tear open. But even if they weren't he can't imagine how this is easier or in any way better than simply chewing a tablet.
And, of course, they cost more. Lots more. The box of 24 envelopes (each 400 milligrams of calcium, equal to two regular tablets) sells for roughly the same amount as a 150-tablet (75 400-milligram servings) bottle of regular Tums. So each serving costs three times as much as Tums in tablet form.
AL SICHERMAN
