Considered this for Cafe Society since my two examples are food items, but could apply to anything, tho you usually see it in the grocery store…
I had been buying Country Crock spread, certain that it was butter, but a lower-calorie/fat kind, esp. when they had a special on the huge one last year. I was about to buy another container the other day, when I examined the tub more closely, only then noticing that, not only did it NOT say it was butter, it didn’t say it was margarine, or anything.
So yeah, the 5 second search I should have done last year indeed revealed it as being margarine, but sheesh is it soo hard to just plop that silly word on the bloody package?
The most notorious example of course has to be Breyers. When they changed their formula c. 15-20 years ago, the FDA forbid them from calling it “ice cream” anymore, so for several years they called it a “frozen dairy dessert.” Now tho I noticed the other day that the container doesn’t call it anything at all. Maybe Country Crock defied the FDA in a similar way and it exists in a nether region where it is neither fish nor fowl so to speak?
“Lower-calorie/fat butter” is an inherent absurdity. Butter doesn’t contain fat; it is fat. The only way to make butter with less fat is to get a smaller container of it.
And if it was butter, it would say that it’s butter, because butter is more expensive than margarine. By not saying, they did, in fact, make it completely clear what it was.
Well…they do make butter with less saturated and trans fats in it and more polyunsaturated/monounsaturated fats (look for “grass fed” butter as one example). It should be listed on the label. “Better for you” is a relative term though. It’s still butter.
A couple weeks ago I purchased these twelve cans of R134A refrigerant from Amazon. Yesterday I noticed it says, “R134A Industrial Replacement Refrigerant”.
So it’s not R134A?
I don’t know what it is. I need to perform AC service on a couple of my cars soon, and I just hope it works.
What product is that? That doesn’t look like butter.
And trans fat is almost unheard of in natural products, and nowadays is almost unheard of in anything. Trans fats were originally invented as something with the culinary properties of saturated fat, but which people hoped would be healthier. Now that we know that trans fats are even worse than saturated fats, everyone has stopped using them.
When I was a kid in the 70s, there were commercials for a product apparently most people (at least the target market) were familiar with, called Midol. I, being not in the target market, had no freaking idea what it was. And the commercials were no help. “It helps with the pain I get during, or before. And sometimes two weeks after”. I remember the dialog after all these years, because it made no damn sense! “Before, during and after” WHAT? And the product box on the commercial showed only the name Midol, no other text. I guess we the sensitive viewing audience were being protected from having to contemplate the existence of “that time”. Later, after I found out what “it” was, I saw the actual box had a lot more text than just the name.
This is like the current commercials for “male enhancement” products, that never actually say what they do, or are supposed to do, but the smokin’ hot babes shilling them all coo suggestively, even so. But what do they do? (They don’t do anything - that’s the beauty of it!)
Now you’ve got “table syrup” replacing maple syrup in the grocery store. Personally, I think it tastes fine and you can still get real maple syrup if you read the label. Table syrup is I believe just corn syrup with artificial maple flavoring, just the name sounds too cute by half.
It’s not such a bad thing when ads for certain products are not completely explicit about what they supposedly do.
I kind of miss the days when deodorant ads only hinted at the problems and social consequences of not using them, as opposed to current ads showing women who evidently must virtually bathe in the stuff to avoid producing a horrifying stench.
I thought that certain products aimed at kosher and vegan consumers still used them. Yeah, butter is better for you than margarine. If you avoiding butter because of Jewish dietary laws or because you will not consume any animal product, that doesn’t really matter.
AIUI, if an ad makes significantly vague claims and uses words like “helps”, “supports” and “promotes” then under US law it does not have to provide proof of any claims. Prevagen and Neuriva both claim to improve memory and brain performance. Ads for both dance right up to the legal limit and are very careful never to go further. Neugenix Total T makes some statements about how all men lose testosterone after a cerrtain age. Then, the ads make some very vague statements about “more energy, more drive” They don’t even specify sex drive. They just say “more drive”. The ads always end with “And she’ll like it to!” The various women in the ad make it very clear that what they mean is ‘You will once again be able to provide your wife with long lasting, very pleasurable sexual intercourse’ Again, for legal reasons, they never explicitly say that.
Well, it does also have milk solids and water in it. So 10-15% of it is not fat. If you want all-fat butter, you’re needing ghee or clarified butter. I don’t know how practical it is, but it seems you can reduce calories per serving size by altering some of the 10-15%.
HEAD ON! Apply directly to the forehead! …Okay, now what? They never told you what it was supposed to do.
There’s a commercial I see quite frequently on MSNBC for a product that helps people who have dry eyes. At one point in the commercial there’s a fancy animation of the newly restored moisture but at the bottom of the screen in fine print, it says “dramatization, the exact means by which [product] works are unknown”. Ah, okay then! Let me just squirt that shit into my eyes! I’m sure it will be fine!
To be fair I think scientists are still unsure how acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol) works but it is super-common.
How does acetaminophen work?
Even though acetaminophen has been used for decades, we still don’t know exactly how it works. But there are several theories, according to clinical studies.
Actually, ‘We do not know how it works.’ doesn’t really bother me. As long as there has been a lot of credible, documented and detailed research on how effective it is and what side effects it may have. A long list of scientific discoveries have started with ‘We know this thing happens. We don’t know how.’
A few years ago, I switched from methylphenidate (the generic for Ritalin) for my ADD, we tried various other non stimulant medications. We finally found that 100 miligrams of Qelbree each night works great. Qelbree is designed to help with ADD. That part is no mystery. For reasons I don’t really understand, Qelbree also greatly lowered my anxiety level. Considering that Qelbree does all this for me with no side effects and is vastly easier to get (methylphenidate is classified as a contolled substance. I understand and agree with that. It just causes problems fairly often) I consider it yet another wonder drug.
I keep seeing ads for something called “Blue Chew” which apparently is one of these. The ad consists of women suggesting that the viewer get this product for their men, implying that it will do something good without actually saying what it is. Maybe it will get your man to help out with the housework?
Huge thanks for this, I take Concerta myself and I don’t find it particularly effective. Dexedrine was too effective (there’s definitely a reason why they call it speed). I’ll have to ask my doctor about Qelbree.
Back on topic, it’s hilarious to watch medication commercials with the sound off to see if you can figure out what the product is for. There’s a pill out there that allows turtles to play soccer. No idea what else it might do but that’s pretty impressive on its own.
I have always taken the opposite tack. It should be a law that all ads must show the product being used as it’s intended. Cars must be shown being driven. Foods must be shown being eaten. And hemorrhoid cream must be shown being applied to hemorrhoids. Same for TP; gotta be shown wiping shitty anuses.
That would go a long way IMO to reducing the kinds of nasty commercials we’d be subjected to. or at least it would have back in the more genteel 1960s when I first had that brainstorm. Now? Katy bar the door.
