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Food

Hard to digest commercial filet

I’m having a hard time digesting this ad. First off, it draws upon McDonald’s marketing brilliance which relies upon a mnemonic memory device– a simple melodic jingle–to program our memory. The song is catchy and weird, perfect for the Gen X ironic set.

But then the creepiness factor sets it.

How do we reconcile the cute animated fish with the factory-processed soma sandwich it wishes to consume? This has always baffled me: why does the Pollo Loco place have a guy in a dirty chicken outfit outside its restaurant advertising cooked members of its species inside? Or any food product that portrays animals as funny cartoons when in fact the product being sold is something from a house of animal horrors? I guess I answered my own question. It seems as if the talking, cute animal characters of the food industry are meant to create a bit of cognitive dissonance regarding what we eat so as to distance the food’s reality from having any meaningful spiritual connection to our bodies.

Michael at Evolver.net writes:

Fast food advertising traditionally attempts to divorce the food from the animal and factory farm source and make it seem as though it had grown on trees (quite literally in the case of past McDonald’s efforts which have included artificial trees with plastic hamburgers growing on them in children’s play areas). In this case, however, McDonald’s alludes to the true source of the sandwich, fishing (massive, destructive overfishing in fact), but then turns the idea into a dark comedy, asking the viewer to laugh off the absurdity of how a complex organism like a fish (in this case an intelligent, singing one) could have become the “delicious” friend brown rectangle they are pushing into their mouths.

Unfortunately, this fish is viral.

Food / Video — No Comments
21
Jul 09

The death of food

Yep. American food culture is truly dysfunctional.

Via Boing Boing

Advertising / Food / Video — 2 Comments
8
Jul 09

Food porn

Sometimes it’s hard to make the case that most chow advertisements are a kind of food porn, but then the advertising gods deliver us something like this to make our point a little easier.

Documentary / Film / Food / Video — 2 Comments
20
Jun 09

Media food against media food

Though I haven’t seen Food, Inc., this looks to be another promising documentary about our monocultural food system. The film’s trailer starts off with a quick lesson in media literacy by juxtaposing the images of food market/ing with the reality food production. It should be noted, however, that the top PR and propaganda spinners know that people only remember pictures, and not words. So though the narration does a good job of deconstructing the images of the supermarket, one is still left with the pastoral image of an artificially abundant the food system (I say “artificial” because the high yield monocultural crops we are accustomed to are produced on borrowed time by depending on petroleum-based fertilizer that destroys biodiverse soil– a temporary fix that has long-lasting and destructive consequences on the food chain).

Nonetheless, I really like this sequence and hope the film is as compelling. The montage alludes to a deeper suspicion I have that supermarkets are more effective tools of food system propaganda than media. I urge people to consider the psychological conditioning of the market as one of the primary forms of system architecture.

Art / Economy / Food / Photography — No Comments
21
May 09

Sacred spaces of multinational cororpations

Nestle

Jacqueline Hassink explores sacred spaces of multinational capitalism: boardrooms of banks and corporations, and fitting rooms of haute couture. The above image is from Nestle’s boardroom. What strikes me about it is the far wall, which is the old Mercator map projection originally designed for shipping. In essence it’s a colonial map because of the obvious distortion of land mass that makes Europe and North America far larger than the southern continents.

This is the map most of us are familiar with from school, but it’s probably the least relevant map we could study, except for historical context or as a sample for a kind of thinking. In recent years there have been alternative map makers that have tried to reflect accurate land mass or even turn the world upside down (my favorite) to illustrate that how we map the world is a matter of interpretation. Not surprisingly, Nestle’s boardroom reveals a lot about their colonial subjectivity, one based on what Vandana Shiva calls “monoculture.” Moreover, can you imagine a more sterile, disembodied space for decision making that impacts peoples in far off lands? Imagine the strange rituals practiced in this space of global command and control.

Food / Video — 1 Comment
15
May 09

Slap chopping the American diet

Slap and chop your diet? So much for slow food.

Maybe without intending to do so, this video ends up being a pretty good deconstruction of our food system. As a humorous remix of Steve Porter’s Slap Chop, it decontextualizes popular (mis)conceptions of food: that it’s boring; it’s something needing to be done quickly and on the run; it’s a matter of convenience (not quality); a technological solution makes food better; and there’s nothing like a little violence and aggression to improve your diet! The only thing missing is a way to do this in your car.

Thanks Andree!

Food / Video — No Comments
14
May 09

Pollan: be wary of any food that’s advertised

If you don’t have time to read Michael Pollan‘s books, then at least watch this video. He makes a terrific argument for avoiding any foods that are advertised. This is a perfect example of how sustainability, food and media intersect.

From Democracy Now!:

Michael Pollan is one of the nation’s leading writers and thinkers in this country on the issue of food. He is author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto. In light of what he calls the processed food industry’s co-option of “sustainability” and its vast spending on marketing, Pollan advises to be wary of any food that’s advertised.

Listen/Watch/Read

PS Here is Monsanto’s “sustainability” campaign that he refers to in the interview.

Food — No Comments
17
Apr 09

More than boogers and pizza

Speaking of food, there is more to the Domino’s YouTube PR disaster than a bunch of board teens having fun with their cellphone cameras. It represents another example of the denigration of our food system. In Italy this kind of thing would be unheard of because the places where I buy pizza I have a relationship with the proprietor and cooks. We know each other, so through our relationship and human connection, we feed off each other, so-to-speak. We are not engaged in a dehumanized food environment.

The following commentary really captures what I think has been missing in the discussion of the Domino’s story. In it the author links the video with Sinclair’s The Jungle and Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation. (I recommend reading the whole commentary)

Communicative Action: Digital Sinclair:

From the perspective of a media ecologist, the actual food-handling and inexcusable “tampering” are secondary to the communication of the story itself. Upon reading and watching the story on-line, it occurred to me that I was witnessing a kind of Digital Sinclair. The workers, themselves, had exposed the horrific treatment of our food albeit without fully considering the consequences. (They have been arrested on felony charges.) The exploitation of labor was lost on Sinclair’s audience, and perhaps again with respect to Schlosser [author of Fast Food Nation]. Perhaps it was the very exploitation that each man sought to describe that drove the two Domino’s employees to perform their raunchy acts, and also to show them to the world at large. Perhaps the unspoken, psychological impact of thankless and robotic work in the fast food factory environment pushed them to abuse our food supply and then pushed them to cathartically demonstrate it to us. I’m only an amateur psychologist, but in terms of the medium, it appears as though the Internet and it’s many communication environments has taken the printed word, distilled it into the instinctive reactionary elements that touch us at some fundamental level, and eliminated the rest.

We still are given access to the horror, to revel in its raw power, but we are left without the depth of analysis and the contextual treatment that the literate-minded Sinclair, and his modern counterpart Schlosser, provided. The outcome is potentially the same. The sensational aspects of each story are what remain. The YouTube version of the story simply cuts out the wordiness of print and hits us where we react most instinctively. In the gut. If the outcome is oversight and reform, each of these examples spoke to the communication sensibilites of its public. If it’s understanding of the issue in a more complex and interconnected sense, with respect to its impact on labor and the human condition, it most certainly will fail. The critic will shout from the rooftops that this new medium is failing in a very specific sense, but I wonder if that critic might be forgetting the lessons of Sinclair’s experience.

Ecology / Food — 2 Comments
17
Apr 09

Farmer suicides = data crunch for dinner

200904170919

Our future?

This just in:

Mallika Chopra: 1,500 Farmers in India Commit Suicide: A Wake-Up Call for Humanity:

The crop failures, which took place in the agricultural state of Chattisgarh, were prompted by falling water levels. Nearby forest depletion and poorly planned government dam projects contributed to the falling water level. Combined with the vicious money-lending schemes that are prevalent in the region, many farmers felt that death was the only option in the face of insurmountable debt.

Judging from mainstream media coverage, the Chattisgarh suicide story is not ranking as critical (sportscaster John Madden’s retirement seems to be bigger news– thanks to the HuffingtonPost for keeping this story on our radar). This is unfortunate, since the mass suicide was probably the most important news item of the year, if not the century. Why? Because if you follow closely what is happening in India, you will see the farmer debt crisis is a sign of things to come for all of us. Farmers are driven to despair through global policies that deprive them of their ability to live and survive off the land. Drying water, peak oil, and monoculturalization are caused by a global debt slavery system that is shielded by the misused term, “progress.” The plight of Indian farmers in India is a consequence of when land-based people are converted into pie charts and infographics in New York and London, whose livelihoods are traded and commodified by financial managers that are unconscious of the casino game reality they are playing. Like it or not, the sock market is a really a video game with real world consequences, so dire that 1,500 farmers took their lives. And this is only the latest of a growing trend.

Sadly, in the global scheme of mediated reality, these are unworthy victims, disposable people whose lives are not as meaningful as the God of Growth that our society worships. Imagine the difference in public discourse if 1,500 stock brokers or celebrities killed themselves, and you get a sense of how inhumane our mediated reality has become. As Vandana Shiva argues, we cannot live in a post-food society. And she is right. So fuck the singularity and global electronic brain if we can’t eat. We have to put the issue of a fair and just food system back on the global table, because down the line none of us will be able to eat data for dinner.

For more info, start here.

Activism / Food — No Comments
5
Apr 09

A recipe for starvation

We have an oil dependent aggricultural system. If people are not able to grow their own food, then we are talking about the death of civilization, and that is no exaggeration (read Soil Not Oil by Vandana Shiva) because peak oil means the breakdown of our monocultural agricultural system. Democrat Rosa Delauro has introduced HR 875 which will severely impact independent food producers:

HR 875 mandates that anyone who produces food of any kind – meat, milk, fruit, vegetables et cetera – and transports that food for sale be subject to warrantless government inspections of their farms and food production records. These random inspections can be conducted at the whim of federal agents without regard to farmers rights or property rights. Further, the law would allow federal agents to confiscate records, product as they see fit as part of the inspection process.

Agents could also implement draconian restrictions regarding how farm animals can be fed, how fields can be managed and the end result of these restrictions could mean the end of organic, biodynamic and sustainable agriculture practices if these practices are deemed “unsafe.” Farmers refusing to comply would be subject to penalties. (From Nourishdkitchen,com)

A similar law was passed in India which made it illegal for independent farmers to process their food, thereby allowing Monsanto another tool to take over local agriculture (also in Soil Not Oil). Would it surprise you to know that Delauro is married to a Monsanto consultant? Also, did you know that six corporations control 98% of the genetically modfified organism market? Those companies are Avantis, Dow, DuPont, Mitsui, Monsanto and Syngenta (source: Fair Future).

I don’t want to sound alarmist, but this is not about safety but is about control of your food. This is a path towards future starvation. Do what ever you can do, and muster any ounce of energy you have to do something about this. For starters, go to this article for background and links to take action.

Finally, please check out Food Democracy Now! and FoodDeclaration.org

Food / Health / Marketing — No Comments
10
Apr 08

Yogurt marketing weighs heavily

I thought I was the only one astonished by the marketing of yogurt as a weight-loss product. With all that fat and sugar didn’t someone finally wonder, hmm, isn’t this a bit like ice cream?

Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent: Yogurt And Lies – Living on The Huffington Post:

For over 25 years, dairy companies have been advertising yogurt as a “diet food” and their campaign has totally worked. They have somehow convinced everyone that eating sugary, fruity cream can magically melt away the pounds, and yogurt is now a staple for many dieters. But even before Stonyfield started adding glass to their yogurt, we thought it was one of the worst fake diet foods on the planet. There are so many foods out there that are healthier, tastier and far more filling than a tiny cup of lactose. If you are a yogurt addict wanting to drop those last five pounds, here are some things to think about next time you’re in the dairy section.

Advertising / Food / TV / Video — No Comments
11
Mar 08

The first McDonald’s ad?

Just because someone on YouTube said this is the first McDonald’s ad, doesn’t make it so. Regardless. This is creepy!

Food / People / Quotable — 1 Comment
7
Feb 08

Quotable: an eater’s manifesto

Food-Poster-1
Photo of LA billboard by Antonio Lopez
ChangeThis :: An Eater’s Manifesto:

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. That, more or less, is the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.

We are entering a postindustrial era of food; for the first time in a generation it is possible to leave behind the Western diet without having also to leave behind civilization. And the more eaters who vote with their forks for a different kind of food, the more commonplace and accessible such food will become. This is an eater’s manifesto, an invitation to join the movement that is renovating our food system in the name of health—health in the very broadest sense of that word.

Michael Pollan

Technorati Tags: Michael Pollan

Food — 1 Comment
26
Oct 07

Food in defense of your body

Food-Poster
I have a cousin who used to have an herbal supplements business. He gave me some of the best advice in my life: the best medicine is the food you eat. It’s obvious to me that much of what is wrong with the US has to do with food, from the industrial production of it which destroys the nutrients of the soil and poisons agriculture, to the artery clogging ingredients of processed foods, to the low quality of most restaurant foods, to the transportation of foods causing global warming, to the imbalance of food stuffs that people consume, to the ill-health and lower life span this causes, to the nauseating taste of most prepared foods, and so on.

Michael Pollen, the one-man food revolutionary who authored The Omnivore’s Dilemma and now a new book, In Defense of Food: The Myth of Nutrition and the Pleasures of Eating, distills some his latest views in this fantastic interview. If you want to know what is going into your body and avoid future trips to the hospital, I highly recommend reading his work.

AlterNet: Health and Wellness: Michael Pollan: Americans’ Unhealthy Relationship with Food:

I spent a lot of time looking at the science of nutrition, and learned pretty quickly there’s less there than meets the eye, and that the scientists really haven’t figured out that much about food. Letting them tell us how to eat is probably not a very good idea, and indeed the culture — which is to say tradition and our ancestors — has more to teach us about how to eat well than science does. That was kind of surprising to me.

It really comes down to seven words: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” What is food? How do you know whether you’re getting food or a food-like product? The interesting thing that I learned was that if you’re really concerned about your health, the best decisions for your health turn out to be the best decisions for the farmer and the best decisions for the environment — and that there is no contradiction there.

Technorati Tags: Michael Pollen

Food / Marketing / Youth — 1 Comment
28
Mar 07

Food Is the top product seen advertised by children

It’s no wonder that obesity and diabetes are growing so fast in the US:

* 34% of All Food Ads Targeting Children or Teens Are for Candy and Snacks

* Half of All Ads Shown During Children’s Shows Are for Food

New Study Finds That Food Is the Top Product Seen Advertised by Children – Kaiser Family Foundation:

New Study Finds That Food Is the Top Product Seen Advertised by Children

As the fight against childhood obesity escalates, the issue of food advertising to children has come under increasing scrutiny. Policymakers in Congress, the Federal Trade Commission and agencies such as the Institute of Medicine have called for changes in the advertising landscape, and U.S. food and media industries are developing their own voluntary initiatives related to advertising food to children. To help inform this debate, the Kaiser Family Foundation released the largest study ever conducted of TV food advertising to children.

The study, Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States, combines content analysis of TV ads with detailed data about childrenâ€™s viewing habits to provide an estimate of the number and type of TV ads seen by children of various ages.

Advertising / Food / TV — No Comments
3
Mar 07

Food Network subliminal advertising?

Food — No Comments
25
Feb 07

Twinkie offense

Twinkies-Ad

When I was in college my co-op had a special junk food brunch. Among other things we ordered sugary cereal, Pop Tarts and Twinkies. The normally staid, academic bunch went temporarily insane (thankfully no one was killed!), breakdancing on top of tables and jamming Twinkies into the ceiling with forks. Those Twinkies stayed there for a whole semester without changing color or shape. Makes one wonder what’s in those darned things. Well, now we know. I’ll give you a hint: they are not baked. Read on…

Decoding the 39 Ingredients in a Twinkie – Newsweek Health – MSNBC.com:

At the heart of the book is the fundamental question: why is it you can bake a cake at home with as few as six ingredients, but Twinkies require 39? And why do many of them seem to bear so little resemblance to actual food? The answer: To stay fresh on a grocery-store shelf, Twinkies can’t contain anything that might spoil, like milk, cream or butter. Once you remove such real ingredients, something has to take their placeâ€”and cellulose gum, lecithin and sodium stearoyl lactylate are a good start. Add the fact that industrial quantities of batter have to pump easily through automated tubes into cake molds, and you begin to get the idea.

Even so, it can be unsettling to learn just how closely the basic ingredients in processed foods resemble industrial materials. Corn dextrin, a common thickener, is also the glue on postage stamps and envelopes. Ferrous sulfate, the iron supplement in enriched flour and vitamin pills, is used as a disinfectant and weedkiller. Is this cause for concern? Ettlinger says no, though you wouldn’t want a diet that consists solely of Twinkies. Ultimately, all food, natural and otherwise, is composed of chemical compoundsâ€”and normal ingredients like salt have industrial applications, too. Still, it gives you pause when he describes calcium sulfate, a dough conditioner, as “food-grade plaster of Paris.”

“Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats” (Steve Ettlinger)

Technorati Tags: twinkie

Design / Food — No Comments
26
Jan 07

Fruity packaging

Kix

No fruit in this package

Fruit Shown on Label Often Not in the Box, Kids’ Food Study Says (Via commondreams.org):

Fruit is a big seller for parents who want to feed their children nutritious food. So it’s no surprise that manufacturers prominently display berries, cherries and oranges on boxes of breakfast cereals, drink cans and yogurt containers.

Berry Berry Kix contains no berries whatsoever.
Unfortunately, according to health advocates, many companies fail to put the fruit where it counts — inside the products.

The Prevention Institute and the Strategic Alliance for Healthy Food and Activity Environments, an Oakland-based coalition of California’s leading public health, physical activity and nutrition organizations, say more than half of the most aggressively advertised children’s foods that show fruit on their packaging or even put the word “fruit” in their name contain no fruit.

Yoplait Go-Gurt Strawberry Splash yogurt, Fruity Cheerios and Berry Berry Kix are just a few of the products named in the organization’s study being released today, “Where’s the Fruit?”

Food — No Comments
3
Nov 06

TV dinning

They’re not just for trucks stops anymore…

Prime Rib, Minus the Prime-Time TV:

“[National Restaurant Association] surveys show that diners increasingly view restaurants as extensions of their own homes, and a large percent would like to see table-top TVs installed at their favorite eating joint.”

Advertising / Food — No Comments
3
May 06

Food marketers to tone it down

You can thank the media literacy movement for this:

Advertising Age – FTC, HHS Call for Strict Standards in Children’s Food Marketing:

Two government agencies are calling on advertisers to market only healthier food products to children in the continuing clampdown on children’s obesity.

Mediacologyputting the ‘eco’ into media ecology (and other tangential meditations)