Food Labeling Campaign

[elfs]

Went to the grocery store today to pick up some carrots, and noticed that lots of things have these new rectangular tags in calming, organic greens and brown earth-tones. The store touts this advertising campaign information program, called "Simple Nutrition," as a new way of understanding what you're buying, and they all read things like "Organic," "Gluten Free," "Sodium Smart," "Natural," "Lean Protein," etc.

I propose they add two:

Onions, milk, yogurt, real peanut butter, steak, potatoes, broccoli, eggs, cheese, sauerkraut, walnuts, coffee, sugar, sour cream, kimchee, chicken, grapefruit, apples, celery, wine, carrots, beans, rice.

Doritos, most grocery bread, cheetoes, most breakfast cereals, instant rice, instant potatoes, instant anything, canned soups, anything labeled a "frozen novelty," anything labeled a "snack," and anything that feels compelled to tout on its cover just how healthy it is.

Comments

[kengr]

A phrase our local D&D group coined back in the 80s for joking references to some of the stuff that got brought as munchies seems appropriate:

"food-like substance"

Velveeta is most definitely "food-like substance" as are most "american cheese" slices.

[duskwuff.livejournal.com]

I've heard some yellowish milk-based items described as "cheese food product" (the words apparently increase in accuracy from left to right).

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

The scary thing about Velveeta is that it's more natural than one might care to admit, except for the bright orange part. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunost is pretty much the same thing. It's a reduced-whey product. http://www.cheeselovers.org/velveeta-cheese.html

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

cheese food product is what is produced after you feed cheese food to your pet cheese.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"Pasteurized, processed cheese food product." I've seen that on some green cans of things that are meant to be sprinkled on pasta. Or animal messes. Something like that.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

"Edible food-like substance" is the preferred term, according to the New York Times.

[(Anonymous)]

Ha ha ha ha...

[kengr]

Well, part of the reason to use our phrase was to imply that the stuff might not necessarily *be* edible (other than in the sense of "you can chew and swallow it")

We tended to use "Is it swill yet?" for edible but weird stuff.