PETA sexploitation ads: Coming on a fire truck near you?

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Only if you live in Baltimore.

According to AdFreak, a Baltimore city councillor has proposed selling ad space on city vehicles to add an new revenue stream. PETA has already mocked up their own custom ad for the occasion, claiming that seeing a half-naked woman and a bad pun "will drive Baltimore residents to PETA's heart-healthy vegan recipes that will keep them firing on all cylinders."

Yeah, whatever.

Why is this Playboy Bunny's lettuce bikini so horribly photoshopped? #FdAdFriday

I suppose the combination of model Sheridyn Fisher's body heat and the studio lights would wilt lettuce pretty quickly, but come on, PETA.

Of course, it's not as if the Playboy Bunny has never been photoshopped before. But it's probably the most awkward and least fun photo editing job anyone's ever had with one of her photos.

You can see the "real" lettuce swimwear in the video version here:



Via Adrants.

Kellog's Frosted Beefs

Via Flikr

Last week, I blogged about crushed beetles in Starbucks "vegan" smoothies.

Today, my friend and fellow blogger Neil (who is a vegetarian) found something interesting in the Kellog's UK product site.

It seems you can search cereals and other products by ingredient.

Here's "Beef":

Wait, what?

From the Frosted Wheats ingredients page:

"Shredded Wholewheat, Sugar, Humectant (Sorbitol), Beef Gelatin, Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12."

Gelatine ("it's made from bones, you know") is a common food additive and a real pest to vegetarians.

But wait! There's more.

He also searched "pork":

Yep. Rice Crispies Squares have pig in them:

"Toasted Rice Cereal (35%) (Rice, Sugar, Salt, Barley Malt Flavouring, Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12), Marshmallow (33%) (Glucose Syrup, Sugar, Pork Gelatin, Flavouring), Fructose, Vegetable Oil, Invert Sugar Syrup, Glucose Syrup, Humectant (Glycerol), Flavouring (Contains Milk), Emulsifier (E472e, E472a), Antioxidant (E320)."

I'm not a vegetarian, and I have no problem with animal products in my foods. But many people are, and do. Including, ironically, health nut John Harvey Kellogg, who once said:

“A dead cow or sheep lying in the pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher’s stall passes as food.”

The UK site even has a whole section recommending vegetarian diets for young children.

The Canadian and US sites aren't as easy to navigate by ingredient, and searches for beef or pork take you to meatloaf recipes.

However, I did find this on the American site:

What is the source of gelatin in your products? 

Gelatin, which is used in some of our products to provide texture, is derived from either beef or pork. Products containing pork gelatin include Kellogg cereal products with marshmallow additives (i.e., Kellogg's® Marshmallow Froot Loops cereal and Kellogg's Smorz® cereal) and all varieties of Kellogg's® Rice Krispies Treats® Squares. Products containing beef gelatin include all varieties of Kellogg's® Frosted Pop-Tarts®, Kellogg's® Frosted Mini-Wheats® cereal, Kellogg's® Rice Krispies Treats cereal, and the Kellogg's® Fruit-Flavored Snacks that contain gelatin. 

The information provided here is intended to act as a general guide only. We ask that you always check the Nutrition Facts on the side panel of each of our packages to determine if the product contains any ingredient(s) that you want to avoid.

The moral of the story? Animal products show up in the strangest places. When you buy packaged foods, always read the ingredients list. (And always be suspicious of terms like "natural" flavour or colour.) If you're a vegan, vegetarian, Hindu, Jew or Muslim, you may be surprised how often you're breaking your vows.

Do vegetarians buy BBQs?

Of course some do. You can do amazing things with grilled vegetables and mushrooms.

But this flyer, from a local distributor for BBQing.com, seems to be betting not only that its potential customers are not vegetarians, but also that they hate PETA.

Now, I am not a vegetarian and I do dislike PETA's marketing tactics and extremism. This brand is probably making a smart strategic move by targeting guys (let's face it) who eat lots of meat and like to feel obnoxious about it. Canadian Tire and Home Depot can't do this, because they have to appeal to everyone. These guys can afford to be assholes.

By the way, if the "mashed potatoes" gag seems familiar it's because this billboard has been floating around the internet forever:

But if you're going to wear that statement around, you might as well get the original.

"Barrista! There are bugs in my vegan smoothie!"

At least they spelled "flavour" the proper way.

I don't know why vegans even bother with fast food. Remember when everyone was outraged by beef tallow in McDonald's fries? More recently, there was concern over hidden bacon in Chipotle's pinto beans.

Part of the problem is that there are two divergent customer demands: on one hand, people want junk food made with as many "natural" ingredients as possible; on the other are personal food restrictions based on religion, philosophy or allergy.

The latest big brand to be torn by this tension is Starbucks.

Via Tumblr

Jezebel explains that after "customers insisted that Starbucks start to use natural ingredients whenever possible," the coffee chain started using cochineal extract instead of chemical dye to make its strawberry soy smoothies pinker. (They also add lycopene, the pigment from tomatoes.)

Cochineal extract is certainly natural. To make it, you grind up a bunch of these guys:

Via this blog

The resulting pigment, known as carmine, has many industrial uses. And it's common in food.

Wikipedia says:

"Carmine is used as a food dye in many different products such as juices, ice cream, yogurt, and candy, and as a dye in cosmetic products such as eyeshadow and lipstick. Although principally a red dye, it is found in many foods that are shades of red, pink, and purple. As a food dye it has been known to cause severe allergic reactions and anaphylactic shock in some people. 

Food products containing carmine-based dye may be a concern for people allergic to carmine, or people choosing not to consume any or certain animals, such as vegetarians, vegans, and followers of religions with dietary law (e.g., kashrut in Judaism and halaal in Islam)."

The true nature of the ingredient went viral in the veggie community when a vegan Starbucks employee leaked it to This Dish is Veg. There was soon a petition up at Change.org which so far has 2,427 signatures.

Starbucks isn't budging yet, though. Corporate spokesman Jim Olson told msnbc.com, “We certainly respect and understand the interest this is getting, but it is a very common ingredient in foods and juices and beverages.”

There's actually a very simple solution to this problem: leave out the dye, and expect customers to accept a paler pink smoothie. Hell, I make my own for breakfast all the time. Strawberries add their own "natural" colour. It just isn't the bright pink that people seem to think they want.

Do you think that such a thing is possible?

Cottage cheese thighs?

"Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine," who are basically a vegan advocacy group, are hating on cheese again.

These billboards were recently erected outside Albany, New York, in dairy country.

Strangely, this is part of a campaign to have cheese removed from (or reduced in) school lunches.

"PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., has written a letter to members of the Albany city school board, asking the city to cut down on dairy products served in schools to help students reduce the risk of childhood obesity.
...
School lunches in Albany include an abundance of cheesy foods. The city’s high school menu, for example, includes dairy- and fat-loaded offerings such as chicken parmesan and lasagna with three different types of cheese. Cheese pizzas are available daily."

I won't defend the nutritional value of crappy school lunches. But as an ad guy, I find PCRM's ads as useless as ever. Eating too much fat makes you fat? Gee... thanks. Quite the medical breakthrough there. Targeting one food as the enemy, however, oversimplifies the issue.

Tip via Sociological Images