# "Farm-grown vegetables" and other WTF ad one-liners
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 18, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677 "2007-09-18T23:48:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2007, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/1 "2007-09-18T23:48:09Z")
Campbell’s Select soup is made with farm-grown vegetables.
Call me clueless – but where else would the vegetables in canned soup be grown? In a laboratory?
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2007, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/2 "2007-09-18T23:50:34Z")
[Greenhouses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse)
[Hydroponics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics)
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### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/3 "2007-09-19T01:27:01Z")
Apparently feeling that “homemade” was too high a standard to live up to, a lot of restaurants began some time ago describing their specialties that were made in-house as “house-made.” :rolleyes:
How about just some goddamn chef-made food? Would that be too much to ask?
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### Author:  [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/4 "2007-09-19T02:29:57Z")
How about “grown with chef-made fertilizer”?
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### Author:  [@Tamex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamex)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/5 "2007-09-19T02:31:58Z")
I once bought a box of croutons that were made with “oven-baked bread”.
Considering that most bread is in fact baked in an oven, wouldn’t it make more sense to advertise if it _wasn’t_?
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/6 "2007-09-19T10:45:13Z")
[QUOTE=Terminus Est]
[Greenhouses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse)
[Hydroponics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics)
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, could be – but most likely to be? I don’t think so. They’d go for the cheapest possible, right?
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/7 "2007-09-19T11:27:29Z")
A drugstore store near where I used to live advertised “home-made fudge made right in the store.” I always wanted to ask whose home the drugstore was. I always imagined they must ahve had a crazy old fudge-maker living in the rafters.
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### Author:  [@Selkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Selkie)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/8 "2007-09-19T11:51:20Z")
“Free gift.” As opposed to a gift you pay for.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/9 "2007-09-19T13:18:42Z")
Advertisers do this a lot. A beer company (Schlitz?) used to advertise in the 30s that they “steam cleaned” their bottles. So what? Every beer company steam cleaned their bottles. A cigarette company (I don’t remember which one) used to advertise that its tobacco was “toasted”. Never mind that every other cigarette company advertised their tobacco as well.
This is just a way of implying that “our bottles are cleaner”, “we go that extra step to make our tobacco better”, and in the case of Campbell “our ingredients are superior”. It’s just a way to distinguish their brand from another brand that’s nearly identitical.
Marc
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### Author:  [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/10 "2007-09-19T16:05:31Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson]
A cigarette company (I don’t remember which one) used to advertise that its tobacco was “toasted”.
[/QUOTE]
Lucky Strikes.
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### Author:  [@Mooch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooch)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/11 "2007-09-19T16:09:39Z")
I recently heard an ad over the radio which boasted “hand-selected ingredients”.
Why, that could mean almost anything.
Shit, next time I go to a restaurant I’ll run down the menu with my finger and tell everyone I hand selected my entire meal.
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### Author:  [@Tully\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tully_Mars)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/12 "2007-09-19T17:27:15Z")
Beer that is “beechwood aged” but has a “born on” date to assure it’s freshness.
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### Author:  [@Meeko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meeko)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/13 "2007-09-20T02:24:31Z")
Don’t we have the “adding flavor to taste” line running around one of these threads?
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### Author:  [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/14 "2007-09-20T02:48:26Z")
I was housesitting for a friend of mine so I went shopping for some actual food because he had nothing of substance in the house. I hadn’t had ice cream bars in a while so picked up a box of them and there was a star on it and inside the star it said, “a source of energy”
Of course it’s a bloody source of energy, that is the entire point of food!
It struck me later that there is some small percentage of people who read that and get all excited because they figure they’re eating healthy now…ah well.
That annoyed me almost as much as the ‘it’s a fat free snack’ that I saw on a package of nibs. Of course it’s fat free; they’re almost entirely sugar and red dye, there isn’t any room for fat. That doesn’t make them healthy.
These might be better filed under sneaky advertising, but i’ll post it nonetheless.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/15 "2007-09-20T03:14:17Z")
I think it fits into this category, **drm** A lot of products like to put labels on them that make them sound like their environmental responsible. Products might have “can be recycled”. Duh, a lot of things can be recycled but that doesn’t mean they are.
\*AdcultUSA \* by James B. Twitchell is a decent look advertising in the 20th century. If you’re really interested in the subject it’s not a bad place to start.
Marc
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### Author:  [@Auntbeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Auntbeast)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/16 "2007-09-20T03:30:55Z")
I love the zero carbs label on crap that doesn’t ever, ever have carbs.
Fat-free on something that does not inherently have fat.
Am I the only one that has caught on to Subway’s “fresh baked” bread? Comes in frozen, and is thrown in the oven there. Somehow, that isn’t the image that “fresh baked” conjures up in my head.
Want me to run away screaming? Put “Just like Mom used to make!” on it. My mother was a lousy cook. (ooh, you scrape the burnt off the toast too! Whee!)
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### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/17 "2007-09-20T03:59:09Z")
[QUOTE=Meeko]
Don’t we have the “adding flavor to taste” line running around one of these threads?
[/QUOTE]
I really don’t understand why this line gets mentioned all the time. Do people really not get it? Or they get it and they just think it’s stupid? Because it makes perfect sense to me—and for the record, i don’t think it’s stupid, I’m indifferent to it.
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### Author:  [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/18 "2007-09-20T04:05:22Z")
Look at ads for homes for sale and see how many have “gourmet” kitchens and are painted in “decorator” colors.
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/19 "2007-09-20T04:57:05Z")
[QUOTE=pepperlandgirl]
I really don’t understand why this line gets mentioned all the time. Do people really not get it? Or they get it and they just think it’s stupid? Because it makes perfect sense to me—and for the record, i don’t think it’s stupid, I’m indifferent to it.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t get it. Of course that doesn’t necessarily make the ad stupid but it doesn’t mean I understand it.
Marc
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### Author:  [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2007, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/farm-grown-vegetables-and-other-wtf-ad-one-liners/419677/20 "2007-09-20T06:04:59Z")
It’s a pun on the word “taste.” When somebody says you’ve got good taste in clothes, they don’t mean you can tell the difference between a cotton blend and silk with your tongue. So the ad writers want you to think this item (whatever it is. I don’t remember) is something that exhibits your “good taste”–that you’re a person of refinement. But, you don’t have to sacrifice the flavor! You can enjoy what you’re eating (I’m assuming its food here) _and_ be a person with obvious good taste! Because surely, that’s all you really want in life…
I hope it’s not a commercial for cat food or something…
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