Lite Creme: Difference between revisions

The implication of qualities or ingredients in a product that aren't there because of certain words or spellings of words that vary from the standard. This is usually done to get around government regulations on truth in advertising laws. This is how you end up with products like fruit/citrus "punch" when something contains no actual fruit, "choc" or "choco" when something contains little to no actual chocolate, and "creme" spread that contains no dairy cream. The intent of the law was to prevent advertisers from using words like "chocolate" and "cream" to describe products that didn't contain the ingredients mentioned, but the feds didn't count on [[Viewers are Morons|consumer illiteracy]]; too many people now assume that "froot with choco creme" is the same thing as "fruit with chocolate cream", and assume they're getting vitamins and minerals they really aren't. And advertisers happily take advantage of it.

 

 

Consumers during the age of mass food production in the 1900s lobbied against artificial foods being sold alongside 'normal' food and demanded such food be distinctly labeled; margarine, for example, received a push to be dyed pink so consumers would not confuse it for actual butter, and for a while it was illegal in some places to sell margarine that was dyed butter-yellow (it's naturally white). Company lobbyists learned using Lite Creme was an easy escape, as no one wanted an ominous 'artificial' label on their product. Official nutritional labels on products are ''somewhat'' more informative, though overly technical writing can obscure this for the same reasons. Ingredients being listed in decreasing order does not specify actual amounts, nor does the use of several names to indicate variations on essentially the same ingredient.

* Meat pies. Miscellaneous bits like tendons, ears, skin and snouts count as "meat". The meat may also come from camels and other random animals, instead of one of the more common domestic livestock, and even then the pie only has to be about a quarter animal bits to qualify as a meat pie. Mmmm, camel noses and soy filler. Delicious.

** Most of them are actually kangaroo. Australia has a problem with the overabundance of wild 'roos, so they are often killed in the huge state-sponsored hunts, and all the meat Australians couldn't eat themselves is exported as an inexpensive beef substitute.

* The dairy isle of many grocery stores also has Chocolate Drink right next to the Chocolate Milk. (Sure, it has real chocolate, but not much else.)

* In the U.S., Whole Wheat bread does not mean it is just whole grains. Unless a product says 100% Whole Wheat or 100% Whole Grain, it can be 1% whole grain and 99% refined grain. There are products that say "Made with grains." You know what else is? Soda pop. Also, any grain product that includes the USDA Food Pyramid is probably a refined grain.

* In ''[[Will and Grace]]'' the eponymous pair dine at a restaurant which serves Lobbster stuffed with Cheeeeese.

* One episode of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'' had him accidentally buying his girlfriend a box of "beljan chorklet".

** And it [http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/synthetic-alcohol-gives-drinkers-pleasant-buzz-without-hangover-addiction may become real soon enough.]

* It's not stated explicitly, but considering "real" food and fresh produce in [[The Verse]] of ''[[Firefly]]'' [[Future Food Is Artificial|are only available to the richest of the rich]] ([[And Zoidberg|and criminals]]), the "Fruity Oaty Bars" most likely contain only artificial fruit and may even have synthesized oats.

* In ''Phoenix Wright: [[Ace Attorney]]: Trials And Tribulations'', there's a scene where Phoenix tries a meal from the restaurant Tres Bien. Maya (temporarily working as a waitress) introduces the meal as some complicatedly-named dish involving lobster. When you discuss the ([[Lethal Chef|horrible]]) meal with the owner and chief cook of the restaurant, and Maya mentions the complicated name, he tells her that there ''is'' no lobster in the dish. He reminds her that the menu clearly states that it's a dish ''inspired by'' [complicated lobster dish], and Phoenix remarks "but it may not contain any actual lobster."

* Apparently averted in the ''[[Fallout]]'' world, where it's common to find "Apples" and "Salisbury Steak" that are still edible after 200 years. ''Fallout Tactics'' lampshades the improbability of accurate labels on pre-war foodstuffs (and at that point, it's a mere 120 years).

 

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