October 15, 2017

If You Are Buying Pumpkin Spice Protein Powder, You Should Just Give Up

Here are the year’s worst autumnal products.

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In case you haven’t noticed, pumpkin spice flavoring is no longer relegated to your Starbuck’s latte: You can now find pumpkin spiced peanut butter, dog biscuits, and even deodorant. If the trend is starting to make you feel nauseous, Washington Post reporter Maura Judkis, a recent guest on our podcast Bite, has some good news for you. “This year could be the beginning of the end of the pumpkin spice party,” Judkis wrote in her essay “I used every pumpkin spice product I could find for a week. Now my armpits smell like nutmeg.”

According to data analysts at Nielsen, Judkis reports, while pumpkin spice products grew by 20 percent in 2013 over the previous year, this year saw only 6 percent in annual growth.

On Bite, Judkis schools us on the best and the worst pumpkin spice products, speculates on the up-and-coming autumnal flavor, and explains why the pumpkin spice latte became the symbol of the “basic bitch.”  

And because we couldn’t help ourselves, here’s our list of the year’s most ridiculous pumpkin spice products. 

Native Pumpkin Spice Latte deodorant

AI Sports Pumpkin Pie Whey Protein powder

Jif Whips: Whipped Peanut Butter and Pumpkin Pie Spice

Greenies Pumpkin Spice Flavor dog teething biscuits

Kahlúa Pumpkin Spice

Burnett’s Pumpkin Spice Vodka 

Farmers’ Market Natural Pumpkin Spice bar soap

Showseason Pumpkin Spice Pet Shampoo

Rossi Pasta’s Pumpkin Spice Fettuccini Pasta

Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Bonus: Read Mother Jones editor Ben Dreyfuss’s piece on whether pumpkin is actually an ingredient in any of these products. 

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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