Organically-grown jerkoffs

 General Blatherings
Jun 122012
 

This guy definitely eats organically-grown, sustainable lentil stew several times a week. And that makes him A BETTER PERSON THAN YOU.

I really, really can’t stand food snobbery, especially from self-righteous “foodies” who obsess over the organicness and sustainability of every goddamn thing they eat.  Yeah, it’s good to avoid eating too many pesticide-laden food.  It’s also good to consider the big picture and how our ever-demanding diets affect animals and the environment.  HOWEVER, being concerned about these things is no reason to be a self-congratulating prick about it.

The organic movement is largely driven by marketing and the bullshit associated with that, but the smugness that comes with it is what gets my goat the most.  It’s turned a lot of ordinary shoppers into snobs, much like the Prius cars with their smug drivers. Some people just want to eat healther food, which is great, but others want you to know they’re eating it and what a caring, world-conscious person they are for it. *snort*

Personally I will buy organic versions of certain veggies that tend to harbor high levels of pesticides (such as celery and cucumbers), but that’s pretty much where it ends.

“I stopped at a market to get a fruit platter for a movie night with friends but I couldn’t find one so I asked the produce guy,” says the 40-year-old arts administrator from Seattle. “And he was like, ‘If you want fruit platters, go to Safeway. We’re organic.’ I finally bought a small cake and some strawberries and then at the check stand, the guy was like ‘You didn’t bring your own bag? I need to charge you if you didn’t bring your own bag.’ It was like a ‘Portlandia skit.’ They were so snotty and arrogant.”

As it turns out, new research has determined that a judgmental attitude may just go hand in hand with exposure to organic foods. In fact, a new study published this week in the journal of Social Psychological and Personality Science, has found that organic food may just make people act a bit like jerks.

“There’s a line of research showing that when people can pat themselves on the back for their moral behavior, they can become self-righteous,” says author Kendall Eskine, assistant professor of the department of psychological sciences at Loyola University in New Orleans. “I’ve noticed a lot of organic foods are marketed with moral terminology, like Honest Tea, and wondered if you exposed people to organic food, if it would make them pat themselves on the back for their moral and environmental choices. I wondered if they would be more altruistic or not.”

via TODAY Health

Heart Attack Grill claims its first victim mid-burger

 General Blatherings, Unfuckingbelievable!
Feb 212012
 

Holy shit!  A burger restaurant named Heart Attack Grill–which advertises to our fattest, most disgusting and depressing citizens (even giving them free food if they weigh over 300 pounds)–has actually KILLED someone with its food.  Dead.  Right there in the fucking restaurant.  Is this awesome or what?  It’s like watching the American dream come to life right before our eyes!  And how appropriate that Fox News was there on the scene.

LAS VEGAS FOX5 -A man suffered a heart attack at a restaurant known for glorifying bad eating habits. The ‘Heart Attack Grill’ lived up to its name Saturday night.

Amateur video of the man being wheeled out of the restaurant by EMTs was posted to several websites.

“He was having the sweats and shaking,” said ‘Nurse’ Bridgett, who was working at the restaurant when the man in his 40s began experiencing chest pains.

“Doctor” Jon Basso, who opened the infamous restaurant in October, told FOX5 at first he thought it was a joke.

“One of the nurses came back to me and said, ‘Dr. Jon, we’ve got a patient who’s in trouble.’”

The restaurant is known for not holding back on the food it serves. The menu includes items like Flatliner Fries, and Bypass Burgers. A meal can easily exceed 8,000 calories.

The gentleman who suffered the heart attack was in the middle of eating a Triple Bypass burger when he began experiencing the symptoms.

via FOX5 Vegas

This here is the founder of Heart Attack Grill. He died in March, 2011 due to "the flu." Riiiight.

OK, OK…maybe it’s not “awesome” that some poor asshole died in this restaurant.  But to me the concept is, because that’s the restaurant’s whole marketing shtick.  ”C’mon in and die while y’all eat, hyuk-hyuk!  No, not really!  But maybe!”  It’s a horrifying and vastly depressing statement about what we’ve become as Americans.  Imagine:  some of us are so empty and unfulfilled that we eat ourselves to death.  We’re a grotesque, morbidly obese nation and this restaurant is the pinnacle of what a nation of desperate face-stuffers can accomplish.

Have a nice day! :)

Artisan: the latest marketing bullshit buzz-word

 Marketing Scumbags
Nov 022011
 

Over the past couple of years I’ve noticed a new trend that the marketing people are using to sell food:  slapping the label “artisan” on it.  The word conjures up images of smiling, plump folks in aprons (probably in an old-timey house in the countryside) sculpting each piece of food meticulously by hand, carefully inspecting each one before laying it gently in the package for your consumption.  In reality, 99% of this stuff comes from a giant factory like anything else–the word “artisan” is yet another marketing bullshit word used to con you into thinking you’re getting something really, really special.  Some stuff made by small local companies might qualify as being made by actual “food artisans” (cheese and tofu come to mind), but now that Starbucks has begun using that term, all bets are off!

For some reason I haven’t gotten around to posting about this, but the other day I ran across a post on Gawker about it:

There you have it, America: you (we) are all so dumb that all it takes is one clearly false adjective to convince us to mindlessly open our wallets and pay for the privilege of shoveling the same lab-created chemical pseudofood concoction as always down our gullets.

The Gawker post references a USA Today story on the subject, so I had to go read that as well!

Marketers know that consumers buy into this artisan imagery. More than 800 new food products have christened themselves artisan something-or-other in the past five years, reports researcher Datamonitor. While fewer than 80 new foods dubbed themselves artisan just four years ago, the number more than doubled to nearly 200 in 2010.

“The word artisan suggests that the product is less likely to be mass-produced,” says Tom Vierhile, innovation insights director at Datamonitor. “It also suggests the product may be less processed and perhaps better tasting and maybe even be better for you.”

After reading these, I knew it was time to post about it and share a few photos I took (starting last year) when I began noticing this stupid trend.  But before that, I have to share with you a blog I discovered while writing this post:  it’s called That Is Not Artisan.  This woman is my new hero–she goes after the marketing mis-use of this term with a vengeance!

OK, now for a few photos of my own… I know I’ve taken more, but I’ll have to do some digging.  The above blog should pretty much cover all the artisan-ness you need, though.

I snapped this one just the other day. Not only is this made by artisans, but it's made with ANCIENT GRAINS! What the hell does that even mean?

Ohhh, artisan stuffing! And what's with that logo? Looks like it was scrawled by someone's two-year-old.

Which part is artisan: the cheese or the cracker? We'll never know!

I think this was the first "artisan" product I saw at the grocery store. You know it's bad when I gotta have a picture of it...

 

Rob Delaney: Face Rapist

 Fun Stuff
Oct 282011
 

This little article by comedian Rob Delaney is easily the funniest thing I’ve seen all week!  Check him out on Twitter, too…he’s a hoot.

Sometimes I pretend my mouth is a tight wet pussy and a Big Mac or a scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch is a big hard throbbing cock that I’m just jamming in there like I’m my own face rapist. Except I like it. What I mean is, it’s disgusting and patently not OK what I’m doing, but it totally makes me come. God, Nature, etc. are like, “Noooo!” and I’m like, “Yeeesssss! Get in here! Get in my greedy mouth-pussy and just jizz gallons of tasty horror down into my guts till I explode under a highway on-ramp like a dead and bloated kidnapped college volleyball player who used to be sexy but then got hooked on junk and would do anything—ANYTHING—to get it, including the types of things that can get you murdered and dumped under a highway on-ramp.”

via VICE

McDonald’s latest trainwreck-in-waiting: the English Pub Burger

 Marketing Scumbags
Jul 102011
 

There are SO many things wrong with this:  the idiotic idea of an English Pub Burger, the non-English-Pub-ness of said burger (not only on a basic level but the inclusion of American cheese), the obvious desperation of McDonald’s marketing dept. in trying to come up with yet another way to repackage a simple bacon cheeseburger, the way the ad treats the customer like a complete idiot by explaining all that super complicated Brit lingo that anyone who watches TeeVee (and what American doesn’t?) already knows…  It’s simply horrible, shitty ad for horrible, shitty food.  It’s what we’ve come to expect from McDonald’s, though, so in that respect, bravo for this attempt at pub grub!  Wait…do I need to define “pub grub” to you in case you don’t know what it means?

On the heels of yet another devastating last-place finish among burger chains, McDonald’s may be trying to spice up their gray meat by going even grayer — or rather, greyer — with the English Pub Burger it’s testing in at least one Illinois town.

via The Consumerist

 

Fat, diseased children are happy children

 Bullshit Detector, Unfuckingbelievable!
Nov 232010
 

Christ on a cracker!  McDonalds and PepsiCo are going to “help” write the UK’s health policy.  You know, because they care so much about health and nutrition!  So this means Ronald Mc-fucking-Donald is going to be shaping their government’s stance on what constitutes a healthy meal–greasy, fatty meat will soon be considered to be just as good for you as an apple.  I’ll bet they’re already doing the same here…

The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonalds and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kelloggs, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned.

In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five “responsibility deal” networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month.

The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises. Working alongside them are public interest health and consumer groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health. The alcohol responsibility deal network is chaired by the head of the lobby group the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deals sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The leading supermarkets are an equally strong presence, while the responsibility deals physical activity group is chaired by the Fitness Industry Association, which is the lobby group for private gyms and personal trainers.

via The Guardian

A-Bomb cake controversy

 General Blatherings, Unfuckingbelievable!
Sep 132010
 

Fascinating!  At first I thought this couldn’t possibly be real, but apparently it is.  I found a couple of original newspaper articles about it (here and here) on Google News which are quite interesting.

The entire function would have occurred without notice had it not been for the presence of a photographer from the prestigious Harris & Ewing Studio.[1] What triggered the controversy was a picture that the commander of the Task Force, Vice Admiral William H.P. Blandy, and his wife posed for with Rear Admiral Frank J. Lowry. In it, the so-called “Atomic Admiral” is seen cutting into an elaborately engineered “mushroom cloud”-topped cake (with token assistance from Mrs. Blandy) while Lowry looks on with a smile. The unusual pastry was there in the first place because of an order to an East St. Louis, Illinois bakery by Lieutenant John T. Holloway, a member of Blandy’s staff. “It was strictly a business request,” said Eugene Kuehn to the Associated Press at the time. Kuehn, with the help of a bakery supply salesman named L.Y. Stephens, designed the strange looking dessert and had it delivered by car to Washington.[

via CONELRAD Adjacent

Are we OK with being suckered?

 Bullshit Detector, Marketing Scumbags
Aug 162010
 

Why do we, as consumers, tolerate it when food advertising depicts one thing but the actual product looks nothing like it?  I’ve always wondered why we’re willing to just let the marketing douchebags pretty much do whatever they want and never hold them accountable.  Maybe it’s just generally accepted that we don’t get what we pay for.  Still, it surprises me that there isn’t a law about this.  Truth in advertising or something like that.

This Taco Bell item, for example, suffers from a serious identity crisis.  It doesn’t know what the hell it is!

I think it’s safe to say that most people have a decent grasp on the distinction between advertising and reality. Most of us know that the cheese on our Whopper isn’t going to perfectly placed like the cheese on TV or that the bacon on our Baconator probably won’t be identical to the crispy, glistening bacon we see on the poster. But at what point does fast food cross the line between “acceptably different” from the picture and “completely unrecognizable”?

via consumerist.com

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