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These are tough times that require tough conversations. Conversations of things that we, as Americans, all have to come to terms with at some point in time.

It’s about standing up for right in the face of overwhelming wrong. Dare I say the continuing fight against evil.

Pineapple just can’t go into everything willy-nilly.

For the longest time I have been a staunch opponent of pineapple being included on pizza and while I value the right of all of us to have opinions, in this case you are wrong if you want to put that particular fruit on pizza.

I’ve stood quietly for too long.

While I have no aversion to pineapple on its own, I have very serious objections to including it in many a savory dish. Its general wrongness should be obvious and yet far too many people are willing to stand by and bend to the idea that it should be so.

There is a common perception in this world that there is a place for sweet and savory and on the surface I have to admit to a certain level of hypocrisy when it comes to this point. Asian cuisine has presented several options of just this very combination that I’ve come to enjoy, but I still stand firm that things like pizza are not the same.

Now, why exactly do I fall along this particular party line? This anti-inclusion stance that would keep this fruit off of pizza? It would be easy to say that it goes against the laws of nature, but this kind of argument requires more of an explanation.

First off, it’s far too sweet on a pizza for me. A good pizza sauce, in my opinion, should contain the right level of spice — things like oregano, pepper, salt, garlic,  and in the case of my own sauce at home, some fennel seeds. At the same time, the inherent sweetness of the tomato base itself balances the spice to create a truly wonderful sauce.

Adding pineapple to this, creates a travesty of sweet that the Canadian bacon, which often accompanies the combination, can’t balance against.

Others are going to argue differently and maintain it’s a pairing made in Heaven. You are wrong and the sooner we can all agree to this the better off I will be.

However, I can’t justify an entire column explaining my disdain for pineapple on pizza. I’m afraid my readers would get tired of being so wrong if you do indeed favor this particularly abhorrent combination.

So I will bring to the table my more recent discovery of food stuff that shouldn’t contain pineapple — bratwurst.

I am clearly not an expert on bratwurst, but I am a fan to the point that sometimes it borders on obsession. I have tried many variations of brats and have come to love just about every style I’ve had, other than blueberry, which like the righteous rant of the column up to this point, should not be included in any savory dish. Perhaps we’ll touch on that at another time when you are ready for more such truths.

We, like so many others this weekend I would imagine, broke the grill out beneath the amazing warmth of the sun. Prior to that, I had been doing our twice-weekly shopping and saw a pretty good deal on brats and so picked up the package.

I have to admit I wasn’t paying the closest attention to the packaging and it was only when I got home that I realized I had mistakenly picked up pineapple brats. I nearly pitched them right there, but a man has to own up to his mistakes and so I vowed I would give them a chance.

This is probably thanks to my grandma who imparted on me the adventure of trying new things and certainly this has been the case with the inclusion of my better half in life, who also adds enough class to the house to make up for my shortcomings.

In short, this is another food combination that shouldn’t be a thing. First off, I really didn’t taste pineapple per se, but rather it tasted more of cinnamon, which quite frankly isn’t much better and was kind of confusing.

To my immense pride and a testament to my own willpower, I ate my meal with very little complaint.

Hey, I’m capable of progress.

Yet it did nothing to change my mind about the lack of versatility of the pineapple and with this second example in hand, I can be fairly certain of my stance of keeping pineapple out of some foods.

By all means, eat it in fruit salad or things like that, but leave it off pizza, brats and whatever else you try to make a monstrosity of. Yes, there are people that like this kind of food, but you all are a bunch of weirdos.

What’s next in this cavalcade of absurdity? What other pairings are being conceived of in Frankenstein labs? Pineapple and lutefisk?

Actually, that might be something to try. It’s not like you can ruin the fish any further.