Wraps Are Popular Again, and That's Bad News

It looks like wraps are back, writes Ellen Cushing at the Atlantic. McDonald's and Popeyes made menu announcements to that effect this month, and they're all over TikTok as well. All signs, then, point to a resurgence in "one of the biggest eating fads of the 1990s," writes Cushing. And this is not a cause for celebration in her view. "Wraps are awful," she declares.

• "At best, they ruin perfectly serviceable fillings by bundling them up in a gummy, cold tortilla. At worst, they do this with less-than-serviceable fillings. They're like a salad, but less refreshing, or like a sandwich, but less filling—a worst-of-all-worlds Frankenstein's monster, an indistinguishable food slurry wrapped in edible cardboard, like the world's rudest present."

But the essay isn't just a culinary critique. Cushing sees a more troubling issue at root: the return of "extreme thinness" in culture. Some of the terms have changed since the '90s—low-carb is high-protein, starvation is fasting, dieting is wellness—but Cushing sees signs of a "thinness-obsessed" nation all around her, from wraps to the rise of drugs such as Ozempic. (Read the full essay.)