Foodwitchery!

We’d be remiss in our foodographical studies if we didn’t link to this spectacular diss of everyone’s favourite Scots oat-eater Gillian McKeith by Bad Science guru Ben Goldacre. If you’re looking for some reasons why the healthy eating ‘industry’ is way out of whack, this is a very good way to start.

By the way, the You Are What You Eat cereal bars taste pretty good, especially the citrus ones. The list of ingredients doesn’t obviously mark them out as healthier than the competition, though. See? That’s unbiased journalism, or blogalism, or whatever.

Ish.

So will you die?

In the hysteria around the CHICKEN AIDS epidemic, it seems that punters are thinking about staying away from Bernard Matthew’s turkey products so they won’t be infected with CHICKEN AIDS too. None of the man’s food has been recalled so far, but the plucky – hah! – East Anglian is set to suffer from a lack of people prepared to die for the sake of sweet, sweet turkey ham. So does avian influenza actually kill you through the medium of the golden drummer?
This BBC website page has a sensible list of questions. Cooking kills the virus and therefore any precooked meat is fine to eat.

The verdict: Eat of the processed turkey. There’s no danger! Until we hear better. And then it’ll be too late.

Just how clever is YOUR little wife?

Clever enough to feed her own children? Let’s hope she’s this clever!

Ah, the comfortingly sinister food ads of yesteryear…

Wal-Mart steals the Smiley

As you may have read, ASDA’s parent company Wal-Mart are seeking to prevent anyone else using the yellow smiley face symbol. They’ve been using it since, oh, 1996, you see. That’s WAAAAAAY before anyone else.

Can you imagine the implications this has for society? Find out after the break.

Pimp My Catchphrase – Snack Site Gets Slapped

Did you know that giant company Viacom bloody well OWN the phrase ‘PIMP MY’? OHMYGOD TRUE. In a less-than-brillaint Onion article come to life, snack-hacking website www.pimpmysnack.com has been strongarmed into becoming www.pimpthatsnack.com.

This is bullshit. Not in the untrue sense, either.

Anyway, the site’s still boss so check out the giant kit kats and turbo toblerones and what have you. Sigh.

Flora pro.activ reduces cholesterol absorption*

*Bollocks does it. The Advertising Standards Authority have told off Flora’s parent company Unilever because they said the expensive pale yellow stuff ‘actively reduces cholesterol absorption’. Which tests don’t prove, sadly. Still, at least it makes your wallet lighter, at around twice the price of other spreads.

And while we’re here, let’s take a moment to marvel at the wankiness of this spread’s name.

• no caps – that’s informal, that is. This spread wears flip flops and three quarter length shorts to work and nobody cares because it gets the job done, goddammit.

• A dot in the middle – that’s internet! Jesus, that’s so forward looking. pro.active probably has lots of friends on myspace. Do you want to know a secret? On flora’s own promotional website, it’s actually Flora pro·activ, with the bloody dot in the CENTRE of the space, not at the bottom. In word terms, this is like wearing wrap-around shades, a manbag and a fucking visor.

• Don’t you like the way they dropped the e off of Active too? Makes, it punchier, don’t it? More on-message. Fuck off.

The fugitive e is used by Nestle to make women buy their food, in the Fitness – sorry, Fitnesse brand of cereals. So much more feminine! Sveltesse yoghurt too, which sounds like an underarm deoderant but tastes all kinds of WICKED. So that’s okay. Did we wander off there a bit?