Asbestos-Free Cereal: Difference between revisions

Sister tropes are [[Lite Creme]], [[All-Natural Snake Oil]], and the somewhat more malicious [[Never Needs Sharpening]]. A form of [[False Reassurance]] and [[Polish the Turd|Turd Polish]].

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* Fast food companies who tout their "100% pure grade-A beef", which sounds great unless you happen to know that "grade-A" to the USDA just means [http://meat.tamu.edu/beefgrading.html slaughtered before age 30 months]. It has nothing to do with quality.

* Products that tout themselves as being "a good source of protein," "a good source of calcium" or "100% of your daily supply of vitamin C" may be full of cholesterol, fat, or sugar. It's usually not difficult to get your RDI of protein or vitamin C, so these labels are in some places relegated to meaty fast food or sugary fruit-flavoured drinks that have nothing else going for them nutritionally.

** On top of all these points, the phrase "hand-picked" in reference to coffee is needlessly redundant. Coffee is not a very cooperative plant and the fruit on a given tree does not ripen all at the same time, so ''all'' coffee is hand-picked otherwise half the crop would be wasted.

* 7Up once advertised "5 all-natural ingredients" for about a month. These five natural ingredients included High Fructose Corn Syrup and Natural Flavors.

* Any "whole wheat" or "whole grain" bread that is actually mostly white flour.

** One problem is that in some parts of the US, the word "wheat" is (confusingly and inaccurately) used to mean "whole wheat". The manufacturer can claim that he used the phrase "wheat bread" to differentiate its product from (for example) rice bread, and in most of the country that would be reasonable.

* Lots of people buy meat with the label "Free-Range" on it, thinking it means the animals are allowed to roam freely outdoors (instead of being kept in cages or overcrowded buildings) before being slaughtered. What it actually means is that the animals are allowed to roam freely outdoors, but it doesn't tell you whether that's for 5 minutes a day (the minimum F.D.A. requirement for "Free-Range") or whether the animals spend the majority of their time outdoors.

 

* "No artificial flavours, colours or preservatives" is commonly used when there would be no expectation of having any of the above. There's also the fact that "artificial" vs "natural" only refers to the method of isolating the particular compound being used - creating them "artificially" vs extracting them "naturally". See also [[All-Natural Snake Oil]].

* Any plant product can be labelled "cholesterol free," since cholesterol only comes from animal products. That doesn't stop sellers from pretending like it differentiates them from their competitors.

 

 

* Adverts for eggs and milk often point out that they will "give you energy". This is true only in the most literal sense: eggs and milk contain calories, and calories are a unit of energy.

** at least eggs and milk are kinda good for you. but nutella's main sales-argument is also 'gives you energy', yeah, refined sugar tends to do that. sugar is also the main ingredient in 'energy-drinks', with the caffeine and taurine more of an afterthought.

* Brompton's bicycles claim to have over X amount of specialized parts on every bicycle (usually in the triple digits). Brompton also patented each part in a way that no other company can make parts that will fit on a Brompton. What this means is that Brompton has a monopoly on its parts. If your Brompton needs even the slightest bit of maintenance or repair, be prepared to pay through the nose because Brompton can charge any price it wants. (By contrast, there is a standard on most bicycle parts that frequently need repair, such as brakes and inner tubes, that nearly all other bicycle manufacturers follow, including those of higher quality than Brompton's.)

 

 

* Allegedly, a company that sold canned fish realized that white salmon was much cheaper than pink salmon because there was a lower demand for it. So the company started marketing the white salmon as "Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can!" Sales increased, until a rival started marketing their pink salmon with the promise that there was "no bleach used in processing!"

 

 

* On ''[[30 Rock|Thirty Rock]]'', Liz felt socially responsible because her awesome new jeans had a "Hand made in USA" label. Then Jack corrected her pronunciation, revealing that the jeans were made by the "Hohnd" people, slave laborers in the despotic island nation of "Usa" (pronounced like "Oosa").

* Shown in the first episode of ''[[Mad Men]]'', about cigarettes, with the tagline "it's toasted!" which all tobacco is. [[Truth in Television]] -- cigarette companies did advertise this way.

 

 

* The ''[[Mad]]'' book ''Madvertising (Or, Up Madison Avenue)'' (1972) had some gags promoting a nonexistent product to mock this sort of labeling:

** Ron's Only tomato sauce: "Does not contain any linseed oil or shirt starch"

 

 

* One ''[[Calvin and Hobbes]]'' strip had Calvin come up with an idea for selling "Calvin's Curative Elizir". When Hobbes pointed out that it was drainage water with leaves in it, he described it as "Fortified With Chlorophyll".

 

 

* Many submissions of tool-assisted [[Speed Run|speedruns]] to TASVideos.org mention that the run "does not color a dinosaur." (''[[wikipedia:Color a Dinosaur|Color a Dinosaur]]'' is an infamously low-quality coloring book for the NES, and is considered by TASVideos to be a bad game choice.)

* A [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uoic-rlw102411.php study of drinking water disinfectants] expresses concern that iodine based disinfectants are not regulated by the EPA in drinking water. Of course, this is because it is unheard of to disinfect water with iodine. Every system uses the much cheaper chlorine.

 

 

* ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]'' has segments "sponsored" by "Old Folks at Home Cottage Cheese", which is the ''only'' brand of cottage cheese which promises ''right on the label'' that it contains no arsenic. We're not saying other cottage cheeses do, but isn't it suspicious that they've never come out and ''said'' so?

 

 

** Similarly, an advert explaining that, while marijuana cannot be sold through the mail, "grass" can. People who fell for it got a packet of lawn clippings.

* A Company that was selling clotheslines as "wind-powered clothes dryers".

** This story is also told about canned salmon. In this (somewhat more likely) version of the tale, the salmon in question was simply a different variety whose flesh was paler, and the advertising campaign was meant to quell consumer fears that something was wrong with the white salmon.

** There's a third version of this story out there in which the white salmon is advertised as a rare delicacy with a price to match, even though there's no difference in flavor or quality between it and regular salmon.

 

 

* One of the games in ''[[Rhythm Heaven]] Fever'', "Packing Pests", has the player working at the "Spider-Free Candy Company".

 

 

* [http://xkcd.com/641/ This] ''[[Xkcd]]'' strip, which provides the page image and is the [[Trope Namer]]. [http://xkcd.com/463/ This one], too.

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=974#comic This] ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' comic.

 

 

* Bubs from ''[[Homestar Runner]]'' sells donuts shipped from a third-world country named Homemáde, so he could legally print "From Homemáde" on the box.