"Up to..." when used to describe things like internet speeds
"Wholesome" when used to describe food. Not really a lie, per se, but "wholesome" has absolutely no meaning when it comes to nutrition and just sounds good
"Zero calories" or 0 grams of [blank] in the nutrition information. The regulations let them round down if it's less than 1 gram standard unit of measurement for that item (edited from grams).
Any time you see "free" there's always at least an implied asterisk
"Up to" in terms of anything. Up to inherently also contains zero.
In regards to free, I've found that a general rule of thumb is that the larger, the bolder, the more differently colored, the more drop shadows added, the shinier, or the more 3D looking the word "free" is, the less free it will actually turn out to be.
The "zero calories" is a US thing, in the EU manufacturers are required to show nutrition per 100g. They can add percentages and serving sizes if they want, but per 100g or 100ml is required, so you can calculate your own serving sizes easily.
"Zero calories" or 0 grams of [blank] in the nutrition information. The regulations let them round down if it's less than 1 gram.
For example, take a look at the "Serving size" of some cooking spray. 1/3 of a second of spray means 0.25g... So everything is zeroed out in the Nutrition facts.
I made some chili verde chicken, just chicken and sauce in the slow cooker and served over rice. When I tried it, it was super salty. So I go check the bottle, 85mg sodium per serving. But a 350ml bottle had over 50 servings!
"Zero calories" or 0 grams of [blank] in the nutrition information. The regulations let them round down if it's less than 1 gram standard unit of measurement for that item (edited from grams).
A particularly egregious example is TicTacs, which are labeled as having 0 calories despite being almost pure sugar. The practice is also very common with alternative sweeteners, which have fewer calories than regular sugar but far from 0.
I think "natural" was determined in court to hold jo required quality, or be free from artificial, man-made or modified elements. So wholly opposite the standard meaning of the word.
They always come for language first.
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth."
Stainless steel. Because the common understanding of stainless is not what the stainless in stainless steel means.
Organic foods. Obviously this varies by location, but there are no universally standardized and enforced definitions of what it means to be organic that it comes close to being meaningless. You'd be surprised at what "organic" growers can get away with.
Genuine leather. It's so misleading it's pretty easy to argue that it's essentially a lie.
20% off. When it's the same cost as it was last month, you just upped the price, then put it on sale, so that in the end it evens out.
Part of the problem with stainless steel is that it's not a singular material. It's an entire galaxy of alloys with a huge range of properties, and some are more corrosion resistant than others. It is certainly possible to concoct some alloy that is for all intents and purposes absolutely rustproof but it's unlikely to have the other mechanical properties you need for whatever it is you're doing.
If you're looking at any object (probably a knife, or maybe a sink or faucet fixture) that simply declares itself "stainless steel" but the manufacturer refuses to admit which alloy even if you press them in a vise, that does indeed usually mean you're looking at some junk. Low chromium and low nickel stainless alloys are the least corrosion resistant but all other things being equal are also typically the easiest to cut, machine, stamp, or otherwise work into shape.
"Organic" especially pisses me off when applied to honey. There's no such thing as organic honey. Bees have a range of three miles or more, and they will forage on whatever they like.
Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and legally enforced by transnational organizations such as the European Union and also by individual nations, based in large part on the standards set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM),[20] an international umbrella organization for organic farming organizations established in 1972, with regional branches such as IFOAM Organics Europe[21] and IFOAM Asia.[22]
It's actually a technical term disguised as common language.
Most people think genuine means "as real as you can get". Which is true in everyday language.
But when it comes to leather, "Genuine" is a quality grade that means "The lowest quality of leather that technically includes actual animal hide." Usually it's bits and pieces glued together.
I am pretty sure that "bits and pieces glued together" is the grade directly below it known as "bonded leather". I think "genuine leather" is the first grade that is real leather. It just isn't actually very good leather.
It's impossible for an ISP to guarantee speeds though, because it's not just their connection that's being used.
Do they use this to weasel out of reasonable expectations of connection quality? Yes, absolutely. But they also can't do anything about the speed of the server you're downloading from.
I gave up sailing the high seas during the golden age of streaming. Unfortunately it has already come to an end with the majority of streaming services including ads for their highest tier.
I have wasted so much of my life on watching commercials, I refuse to waste anymore.
A "family size" bag of Doritos is not sized for a family. Or I on my own count as a family.
It's enough for a family because the portion sizes are like 4 chips.
Military grade
This one is funny to me because the military commonly goes with the lowest bidder. So I take it to mean that "military grade" is absolute garbage made by the lowest bidder.
Not only that, but the US Military runs on state-of-the-art logistics. This means that military equipment can, and often is, incredibly high maintenance because you're never far from a base that always has everything you need to keep it operational. In this environment, there's no need to make anything super robust and reliable, so... they don't.
How many chips are you guys eating? There's enough chips in those bags for several normal sized portions of chips. You're not supposed to eat them until you're full
Tbf, a family-sized (now party-sized) bag of Doritos does contain a day's worth of calories (2250) for a single person. I can't keep them in the house, they call to me.
I miss the old military surplus stores. 2/3 of the stuff was cheap crap, but every now and then you'd find something insane. I had this flat periscope, it was designed to go up through a slot on the roof of a tank. You could easily stand on it, and it wouldn't have broken.
“Military grade” means “made by the cheapest contractor available, using sub-par materials, to juuuuuust meet the bare minimum requirements set by the government”.
It’s like when housing developers advertise that all of their houses are “built to code”. Congrats, building code is the bare minimum requirement for the house to be considered habitable. It needs to be up to code to be able to sell. Someone advertising that a house is “built to code” is saying “we would build this worse if we were legally allowed to do so, but the law says we weren’t allowed to cut any more corners and still pass an inspection.”
"Natural" and "artificial" flavors are determined by how they're made/obtained, not by what the ingredient itself is. You can have the same ingredient labeled as either artificial or natural.
Like "Natural strawberry flavor". Made by cooking wood shavings in alcohol. No strawberry was harmed in the process.
Or like Sebastian Lege did it in one of his shows: He mixed a number of acids to make "Banana Flavor". Or when he talked about "natural smoke flavor", which is a byproduct of producing charcoal, and the company he visited claimed they produce several thousand tons a year...
"No preservatives" - Sugar is a preservative. Salt is a preservative. Vinegar is a preservative. Lemon juice is a preservative.
"Sugar-free" - but they add alternative sweeteners that have a range of other health issues associated with them.
"Cholesterol-free" - I once saw this on a juice container and had a laugh.
What people don't realise is that with food formulation, what you take out, you have to put something back in to replace it. A low/no sugar product will likely be higher in something else like fat to make it a palatable product.. So labels make claims on some things, but will purposely not mention the others.
Cholesterol-free is such a bullshit label anyway because dietary cholesterol doesn't do anything special to your own cholesterol. You are not a chicken and the egg yolk will not go directly to your bloodstream. Your blood has human cholesterol that you made yourself from the rest of the sugars and fats you ate, digested, converted, stored, and reeconverted.
I give "gluten free" a pass because it's not always obvious. Some people do have very severe reactions and some products do, unsuspectingly, contain gluten in the form of filler content or for some other mechanical use. Sausage is specifically known to use wheat product as filler and binder. Same for deli meats and veggie burgers. Some places will even throw breadcrumbs into their ground beef for burgers to fake it's tenderness, so it crumbles like a meatloaf would.
Then there's seasonings. Potato chips are made from potatoes, right? But not all chips are potato chips. You'd hope a gluten-issue person would be able to identify pita chips or bagged crackers from the chips selection would have gluten, but it turns out, despite being a corn chip, Dorito dust can affect gluten sensitivities. Soy sauce and malt vinegar are issues, and seasoning mixes use flour to help distribution
Oh, and processing aids. That's another kettle of fish. Same with things that are added and then taken out, or vice versa, as long as they are the same amounts, they don't have to be on the label unless it's an allergen. (Australia)
I'm always wary of places that cook or bake their own food, especially home businesses. They don't have the money to pay an accredited food lab to do their labels and testing for them. I've done my share of food label auditing, and I've seen some pretty shocking things.
"Sugar free" is such a red flag, you know they are going to go crazy with the artificial crap. I try to eat less sugar but the same goes for alternative sweeteners, plus I can't stand the taste of them. I look for "Sugar free" so I know not to buy it, that shit's going to be disgusting.
most of the brand names one uses aspartame. some sugar gree gum, mints use omstly xylitol. some non sugar sweeteners actually contain sugar in it, they try to be deceptive by labeling it dextrose, or maltadextrin.
I was in a PetsMart and I swear they had regular ass sticks that they found outside with $5 price tags on them. You could literally walk 10 steps out of their front doors and find the same thing for free.
My fucking big goofy dumball of a dog will continuously get sticks stuck in his mouth from trying to chew of them vertical instead of horizontal and its bad. He'll walk up all happy and just drip blood on my lap with his mouth stuck open. One time we came inside and didn't realize until like 30 minutes later that he had a big twig stuck in there, he was happy as can be .
Indestructible toys are a catch 22, anyways. I found a couple of toys my old bud couldn’t destroy but he got bored of them very quickly. All of the satisfaction comes from the destruction.
We just started getting him soccer balls from 5 Below. Cheap enough and big enough to last a little longer.
Spoken like someone who lives in a cold dry climate. I could bake cookies inside of my car in the summertime, and it is regularly well above the safe wet bulb temperature for human tolerances, even in the shade. You walk outside, and it feels like you’re breathing hot swamp-flavored fog. Bathing alone isn’t enough in those circumstances, because you’ll be a sweaty mess by the time you get to work anyways. Bathing is important, but you also need something to stop the sweat from immediately making you stink again.
Labeling that says “Made with xxxxx”
for example “Made with 100% all white chicken!” ‘WITH’ is the key word here. The item might be only 3% chicken and 97% other junk, but that 3% of chicken is 100% all white! This isnt just food items, could be cleaning supplies, or a lot of other things too.
‘Made of xxxx’ could be better, or ‘Made 100% with/of’….
No idea who downvoted you, some dude who refuses to believe that? I didn't believe that until I met someone in the food industry and they were like "Oh yeah, that's just to make you believe it's real stuff". Turns out, McDonald's Patties with 100% Real Beef relies heavily on that with, who would have guessed. The rest is sawdust filler material, but hey at least some portion of it is 100% real beef.
Just means that it has less than a specific threshold of the item per serving. And their servings are often arbitrarily small enough in order to conveniently miss that threshold
In the states, you have to watch for phrases like chocolatey or chocolate flavored. If you see those, it is 0% real chocolate. Even our minimum standard for actual real chocolate (I think 35% cocao) is a joke.
Cheesey, Chee-z, The Chees-iest, any variant of that and it's not real cheese. Cheese is a regulated term. It's not just qWiRkY marketing, it's designed to distract you from the very fake product you're consuming.
Not so much a lie but jumping on the bandwagon. A lot of traditional products that never had gluten in them to begin with now show "Gluten Free!" on the label, as if they did something good for you rather than simply redesigning a product label.
I feel like in that case it's more like "We now double-check this food wasn't made in the same area as foods with gluten". Cross-contamination can be a pita for celiacs
Someone already mentioned the shared facilities thing that can lead to cross contamination. Another reason is: gluten-containing products aren't intuitive. Soy sauce, malt vinegar, a lot of sauces and seasonings, most canned soups(where I live,) and some cheeses contain gluten.
Unless you are hypersensitive to gluten, gluten free beer is nonsensical. A slice of bread contains 124,000 ppm of gluten. Lagers have 63 ppm, stouts 360 ppm, and ales can have up to 3,000 ppm. So even an ale has roughly 3% of the gluten a single slice of bread has.
87% of beer sold in the US is a lager. That is .0005% of a slice of bread's gluten.
you would have celiacs at that point, sensitivity to gluten is just marketing for the gluten free companies that people that dont have celiacs. wheat allergy is a different disease. best way to check is through blood tests, and noticible symptoms. most people that buy gluten free foods, that doesnt have the disease dont even know the connection between the proteins and the disease.
This is such bullshit manipulative marketing, similar to when companies will put out an ad saying something like "ONLY $1.99/MONTH" in large, bold letters and then below it have tiny fine print saying "for the first month, then $420.69/month".
"Free of dyes. Soft pear scent.". Boom. Done. Not only is it short, but it's clear and accurate. Almost nobody cares if it's "clear" as long as it's dye-free.
Flavored dish soap is kinda wild in general. Yes, I want the things I eat and drink off of to all taste vaguely of chemical lemons.
The default should be plain soaps and plain dish detergent. Some are so potent that the scent sticks to the dishes even after washing, and unfortunately, the food too. Especially that dawn spray soap.
I can't see this product without thinking of astronaut Chris Hadfield. He tells a story of going blind in space, because they apply a surfactant to the inside of the EVA helmet as an anti-fog coating, it's basically a mix of oil and soap. And a drop of it got in his eye, while in a spacewalk, it stung and his eye slammed shut and began to tear up, and because zero g, tears don't fall, so it just pooled in his eye socket until there was enough tears for it to spill over the bridge of his nose into the other eye.
"Now we use Johnson's No More Tears, Which is what we should have been using from the beginning."
Do the laying hens die of old age on those humane farms, or where do they go when their egg production is no longer at peak profitability?
What happened to all the male chickens?
We had a huge push here about waterproof vs waterresistant. "waterproof" means you can drop it into like, 12 ft of water for some crazy amount of time and it'll be fine. Water Resistant is a much more flexible term like "If you use it outdoors and a drop of water gets on it you should be fine. Of course, no average consumer knows the difference and so they assume water resistant means water proof.
"biodegradable". For PLA Plastics, they are only biodegradable under commercial composting environments (CNC Kitchen made a video about it). For other things, I think it is mostly the same (CBC Made a video on this too (they looked at plastic alternatives though, and the duration of their testing was a bit short))
This. In our city, many people put their organic waste into plastic bags (which are labeled as biodegradable) because they are sold at many stores. However, after doing a tour through our recycling facility, they told us they don't have the equipment to properly compost it.
PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates) is a truly biodegradable plastic (ASTM D6691Marine Biodegradable). Some bacteria naturally make it. The stuff I have is very bendy/rubbery so its not really a PLA alternative plastic though if you need something stiff/hard.
Another plus is that it doesn't need a heated bed so it uses less electricity to print with.
That sounds really cool/ interesting! Keeping the bendy-ness/ rubbery-ness in mind, would you say that it could be a TPU/ PETG (certain types) alternative?
I personally have never printed TPU but from my understanding it is similar. I will say it is possible to probably get the structure of a PHA print rigid as long as a part doesn't have super thin walls.
I haven't made a significant amount of prints with PHA but from what I've seen a side that is walls/perimeters only is still very bendy while walls with some infill actually locks up into a more rigid structure better. Also, it isn't brittle and is quite a bit tougher, and is much more temp stable (I usually see claims it softens around 110C)
Edit: apparently my stuff is specifically flex PHA. PHA properties depend on a variety of factors such as the bacteria's diet. So other PHAs may be stiffer.
The BPA one is even funnier because it is used very often to coat metal food preservation containers. But thank jeebus we threw out all of those polycarbonate water bottles that contain basically zero BPA. Keep enjoying that canned chili though.
The chicken in this product is 95% scraping from carcasses, connective tissue and skin. But the 5% of it that's actually breast meat is 100% chicken breast meat.
"Safe and secure" when it comes to digital transactions. Everything is logged, stored, and saved somewhere where they very often have absolutely fuck all in terms of security and then all that shit is hacked or leaked or otherwise compromised. But its okay, because the government will force them to give you 1 whole year of another bullshit service that does absolutely fucking nothing to protect your data or identity.
15 minutes could save you 15% or more. Not will, could. We already knew that it had to be either greater than, less than, or equal to 15% because that covers everything
Generally it just means low carb as a marketing term. As a diet it's an asinine amount of fat and whipped cream fits that bill. Especially if you can find low sugar whipped cream.
A lot of Keto "friendly" food have like 1g or 2g of carb, and a part from what you mentioned of the serving sized being unrealistic small, even if it wasn't, they add up, if you consume a variety of this during the day you gonna exceed the maximum carb really easily.
Keto is about carbohydrates, not calories. Whip cream (as long as you don't do it with sugar) is absolutely keto, it has almost no carbs, despite the high calorie and fat count, but those are supposedly irrelevant on keto diets.
"No tears" is just a play on the English language. It doesn't mean your eyes won't tear up and let water out, it means your hair won't tear into pieces.
I remember L'oreal Kids shampoo commercials (like 25 years ago) very specifically showed kids happily wiping suds out of their eyes when "NO TEARS!" showed up on the bottom of the screen, clearly to exploit this misunderstanding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dEk61kajf8
The line in this one is "bye bye tears", pronounced in the way that refers to water that comes out of your eyes, and then shows a kid wiping suds out of their eyes.
Until now, I've never heard the claim that this was a play on words. I just figured it didn't work.
I feel like your comment is a little sarcastic. I have actually had a non-microwave safe plastic plate (that predated the omnipresence of the microwave) actually explode. It boiled faster than the food heated and made pressure pockets inside.
"Keto friendly". There's a guy on YouTube who shows the effects of different foods on his blood sugar, and one brand of supposedly "keto" tortillas had almost the same effect as white bread.
Sorry. Wasn't precise. I believe the term was something along the lines of "ready to shave," as in you could pull it out of the package and start shaving. Apparently that used to be the case, but one manufacturer started slacking so everyone else followed suit.
More and more I'm seeing blatant lies in marketig, which wasn't as prevalent a few years back - at least not through mainstream advertising companies.
Don't get me wrong, these companies, products and adverts existed since the beginning of the internet but we're usually shunned enough by advertisers that you'd only encounter them on sites that... couldn't use your average advertising networks. Say, porn sites. Which, to be fair, are still chock full of "grow your dick 6 inches in 12 days" kind of ads...
But the fact that Facebook, Google, Amazon, and even Microsoft are getting away with pushing the exact same scam ads - but now wrapped in almost reputable looking companies' branding - is what I find blood-boiling.
Every single social media is now full of this crap. If it's not dick growth pills, it's magic anti-hairloss solutions coming from some sketchy manufacturer in China that disappears within 3-4 weeks (and of course they upcharge for the "3 month guaranteed success or your money back" guarantee), the various dietary supplements, most of which are absolutely unnecessary for most people but they'll push it with absurd claims, or the workout apps that promise to take you from BMI 40 to visible abs in 12 weeks, or the various dropshippers that sell "miracle" inventions that are available literally on Amazon for a fraction of the price (and even cheaper on AliExpress), or the sham weight loss products, I could go on.
I just find it insane that previously respectable companies are now milking the snake oil "business" so hard and nothing is being done against it.
This is not generally true. Organic farmer can use what most would consider synthetic pesticides. These are not technically synthetic because they are derived in a lab from organic material like petroleum.
To be honest, most pepple doesnt consume leather nowadays either. Its usually plastic or a weird processed gluey mulch spread in leather shape and then dried
Some of the things I see labeled fat free or low-fat just blow my mind because sometimes it's a product that generally mostly if not entirely fat. Like what is in it then? Olestra?
Tic tacs were allowed to say they were sugar free despite being almost pure sugar, because they weigh like nothing so each 'serving' was under whatever the legal limit of "theres sugar in this" is
These are not blatant lies in Australia. There are new AUS/NZ regulations dictating flushable wipes must be made of very easy to disperse paper and not plastic like in other countries. Plastic "flushable" wipes are banned.
Survivorship bias. If the only wipes remaining in the sewers are the ones that don't disintegrate, we couldn't really say whether or not the dissolving wipes are causing problems ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Regardless of what flushable wipes are made out of, just use a bidet. Why do I need to introduce another disposable product to keep my ass clean? I have running water.
IIRC there is a legally defined set of criteria to call foodstuffs organic. It does mean something, but if has nothing to do with chemistry's definition of organic.
It's very relevant, it being codified is the foundation of your argument. Lies can be codified and laws can be ignored. And both often are. Sure it's not a traditional lie, it's more like a lie of implication. Like labeling your product "0% poison" and running a big ad campaign about how your competitors don't say their products are poison-free. Just pick a different word that doesn't already apply to all food.
the most obvious one AI, totally not a even close at all, its just advanced wolfram alpha. or glass saying its "military grade, unbreakable" in this case of screen for phones, and for containers(like coffee), more than not its made with thinnest material to cut corners.
another fun one is pyrex, pyrex lowercase uses a cheaper weaker glass laminated glass, while the og uses borosilicate(if you are buying the large dishes), some of the lunch box types are made with borosilicate. PYREX is no longer sold in the US, but mostly in the EU and maybe canada. however there is other borosilicate containers out there with varying durability.
the "eco-friendly companies" telling you to buy thier products for carbon footprint reduction type of marketing, its largest funded by oil and gas to avoid reducing thier emissions.
nHap toothpaste, questionable effects, as mos the positive effect seemed to be related to the added whitening/abrasive adjacents more than normal toothpaste.
Honestly I find that most things that say they're military grade are, it's just people think that's a good thing. Instead of essentially meaning "as cheap as possible."
Anything you can think of if there isn't a law that says they can't. One big one for me is expiration dates. Aside from, say, milk, they really don't mean much.
Former head chef who's worked in restaurants and production kitchens here. I made food for both immediate consumption, and package and sale. Food safety regulations will differ by location, as I once worked where three different regional health authorities ovelapped, but this is generally false.
In a commercial kitchens we weren't allowed to sell expired food. The "Best Before" date is different, since it's related to taste/texture, determined through structured testing, best educated guesses and/or personal tasting.
We kept dated boxes of products to taste ourselves every month, but also sent products to a lab to determine if the ingredients degraded or grew enough bacteria in different storage conditions to make it dangerous to consume. One caveat is when product quality degrades faster than it becomes a health risk, sometimes by years. Or, in the case of hard candy, probably never. In that case, companies might pick the longest range of time the product's been tested — and that's why you might see expiry dates on things that shouldn't go bad.
Best before dates are guidelines, expiry dates are rules.
I was aware that shops and restaurants couldn't sell food marked as expired but I had thought that the dates were still arbitrary. That's what I learned about today.
Absolutely true! Fresh is not a regulated term at all. Organic is, and I believe Natural is (but less than organic). Fresh doesn't have to mean anything
Yes, but there's an implied meaning (still used) that doesn't translate to legal meaning.
Many years ago, organic required a few details on how it was grown/processed. Only the more expensive (and higher quality) items followed this, and were labeled organic. As such, people quickly associated 'organic' with 'high quality', and would pay the higher prices.
Then Walmart saw the higher prices, and wanted to know the bare minimum needed to use the label. It was restricted by law, so they needed to meet the definition. And it turns out the definition is really easy to meet. So Walmart flooded the market with "organic" crap.
Some people still pay a premium for it, partly because there's no better indicator of quality.
Organic is technically everything in the living world. The marketing version of organic is just that, marketing. There may be some regulations, but the devil is always in the details.
This all leads to conundrums like organic farmers shunning organic pesticides. It really is nonsensical.
I saw a TikTok of a guy saying that eggs have a code on the carton stating what farm they were from. The guy went to a grocery store and nearly every carton had the same code, regardless of advertising free-range, or no hormones.
Note: I did not verify if this was true but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Sorry, I don't mean that as an attack on you. Just that if you extrapolate the behavior, that's what a ton of people are doing but seemingly no longer care if anything is verified or not.
"full self-driving"
"Supervised" lol
I do love GM's "Supercruise" moniker. Accurate, and my introduction was during a CTS Blackwing commercial, so it was a great pairing.
Still disable it on rentals though.
gramstandard unit of measurement for that item (edited from grams)."Up to" in terms of anything. Up to inherently also contains zero.
In regards to free, I've found that a general rule of thumb is that the larger, the bolder, the more differently colored, the more drop shadows added, the shinier, or the more 3D looking the word "free" is, the less free it will actually turn out to be.
I feel exactly the same way about “a fraction of” especially when it’s “a fraction of the price”, because 99/100 is a fraction, as is 100/100.
The "zero calories" is a US thing, in the EU manufacturers are required to show nutrition per 100g. They can add percentages and serving sizes if they want, but per 100g or 100ml is required, so you can calculate your own serving sizes easily.
You haven't met the average American have you?
For example, take a look at the "Serving size" of some cooking spray. 1/3 of a second of spray means 0.25g... So everything is zeroed out in the Nutrition facts.
::: spoiler Tap for image :::
Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about serving size chicanery.
I made some chili verde chicken, just chicken and sauce in the slow cooker and served over rice. When I tried it, it was super salty. So I go check the bottle, 85mg sodium per serving. But a 350ml bottle had over 50 servings!
A particularly egregious example is TicTacs, which are labeled as having 0 calories despite being almost pure sugar. The practice is also very common with alternative sweeteners, which have fewer calories than regular sugar but far from 0.
I think "natural" was determined in court to hold jo required quality, or be free from artificial, man-made or modified elements. So wholly opposite the standard meaning of the word.
They always come for language first.
"Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth."
Stainless steel. Because the common understanding of stainless is not what the stainless in stainless steel means.
Organic foods. Obviously this varies by location, but there are no universally standardized and enforced definitions of what it means to be organic that it comes close to being meaningless. You'd be surprised at what "organic" growers can get away with.
Genuine leather. It's so misleading it's pretty easy to argue that it's essentially a lie.
20% off. When it's the same cost as it was last month, you just upped the price, then put it on sale, so that in the end it evens out.
Genuine leather is not a lie.
It's leather that's so low quality, the only positive thing you can say about it is that it's actually leather.
Genuine leather is leather in the same way that an egg taped to a box of Betty Crocker cake mix doused in a cup of oil is a cake.
"genuine leather" is often reconstituted leather, that is leather scraps ground up and bound together with a binder, like MDF.
That is bonded leather I think.
You're bonded leather.
We live in an age where something actually being what it is is a surprise.
Or referring to the extremely small decorative patch that might as well not even be there
I've seen recycling labels that indicate the only part that's recyclable is the recycling label itself.
Part of the problem with stainless steel is that it's not a singular material. It's an entire galaxy of alloys with a huge range of properties, and some are more corrosion resistant than others. It is certainly possible to concoct some alloy that is for all intents and purposes absolutely rustproof but it's unlikely to have the other mechanical properties you need for whatever it is you're doing.
If you're looking at any object (probably a knife, or maybe a sink or faucet fixture) that simply declares itself "stainless steel" but the manufacturer refuses to admit which alloy even if you press them in a vise, that does indeed usually mean you're looking at some junk. Low chromium and low nickel stainless alloys are the least corrosion resistant but all other things being equal are also typically the easiest to cut, machine, stamp, or otherwise work into shape.
"Organic" especially pisses me off when applied to honey. There's no such thing as organic honey. Bees have a range of three miles or more, and they will forage on whatever they like.
Certainly not all organic foods, but yes, it's often enough that I don't fault you if that's how you feel.
From Wikipedia:
What this describes is branding and trademark collatoral and enforcement, not a description of food.
Is this not as opposed to fake leather (plastic)? They could just say that it is leather or real leather, but that does not sound as fancy.
It's actually a technical term disguised as common language.
Most people think genuine means "as real as you can get". Which is true in everyday language.
But when it comes to leather, "Genuine" is a quality grade that means "The lowest quality of leather that technically includes actual animal hide." Usually it's bits and pieces glued together.
Consider it the hot dog of leather.
I am pretty sure that "bits and pieces glued together" is the grade directly below it known as "bonded leather". I think "genuine leather" is the first grade that is real leather. It just isn't actually very good leather.
I wasn't very confident about the bits and pieces, so I looked it up, and calling it hot dog leather is accurate.
"Military grade leather."
"Genuine leather" is the designation for the lowest grade leather product.
Huggies diapers fucking say “up to 100% leakproof” on the box.
I just want to see a picture of the face of the person that thought that was reasonable.
Same for pads and tampons. I've noticed it a lot lately.
Well, it's true. I never saw a diaper that stopped more than 100% of leaks
Kids can pee a lot and there's only so much liquid you can absorb with a reasonable amount of material. Seems like a valid use of that phrase to me
It's completely meaningless, though. A prayer is"up to 100% leak free"
Up to is probably my favourite marketing term. Removes up to 100% of lime. Could be 0, idk.
Funnily enough, my fiber provider advertised my internet speeds as "up to 600Mbit/s" and I get about 630 in practice.
Time to sue for false advertising.
This extra insurance covers up to 100% of the costs!
It's impossible for an ISP to guarantee speeds though, because it's not just their connection that's being used.
Do they use this to weasel out of reasonable expectations of connection quality? Yes, absolutely. But they also can't do anything about the speed of the server you're downloading from.
I signed up for the "ad free experience" on Amazon.
Picked a movie, popup says "this feature is not available ad free". Cancelled
How is this legal? Oh yeah, Bezos was on the stage clapping with the other robber barons.
I gave up sailing the high seas during the golden age of streaming. Unfortunately it has already come to an end with the majority of streaming services including ads for their highest tier.
I have wasted so much of my life on watching commercials, I refuse to waste anymore.
This, 100% this.
Every streaming I have I pay the few extra bucks for ad free. Keep that fucking garbage out of my house.
Amazon was just successfully sued because of the ads in Germany. It wasn't legal in the first place to enable ads on the lowest tier.
A "family size" bag of Doritos is not sized for a family. Or I on my own count as a family.
"Military Grade" is not the flex that civilians think it is.
It's enough for a family because the portion sizes are like 4 chips.
This one is funny to me because the military commonly goes with the lowest bidder. So I take it to mean that "military grade" is absolute garbage made by the lowest bidder.
Not only that, but the US Military runs on state-of-the-art logistics. This means that military equipment can, and often is, incredibly high maintenance because you're never far from a base that always has everything you need to keep it operational. In this environment, there's no need to make anything super robust and reliable, so... they don't.
How state-of-the-art are we talking? Well, let me introduce you to forward-deployed Burger King.
How many chips are you guys eating? There's enough chips in those bags for several normal sized portions of chips. You're not supposed to eat them until you're full
Obviously.
I eat a family sized bag and I'm still hungry.
Tbf, a family-sized (now party-sized) bag of Doritos does contain a day's worth of calories (2250) for a single person. I can't keep them in the house, they call to me.
I miss the old military surplus stores. 2/3 of the stuff was cheap crap, but every now and then you'd find something insane. I had this flat periscope, it was designed to go up through a slot on the roof of a tank. You could easily stand on it, and it wouldn't have broken.
I mean yeah but who eats a whole family size bag in a day? I know most people eat more than the serving size, but whole bag in a day?
Ohh, no, i wont' say that :)
When I was in my 20's I'd eat a whole bag and 2 two-liters of diet mountain dew in a day :)
I'm just saying, portion sizes are probably correct and it's the american diet that's in the wrong :)
It should be the size of a family.
if it were liquefied
When I see "military grade", I think "use it once to blow somethink up"
“Military grade” means “made by the cheapest contractor available, using sub-par materials, to juuuuuust meet the bare minimum requirements set by the government”.
It’s like when housing developers advertise that all of their houses are “built to code”. Congrats, building code is the bare minimum requirement for the house to be considered habitable. It needs to be up to code to be able to sell. Someone advertising that a house is “built to code” is saying “we would build this worse if we were legally allowed to do so, but the law says we weren’t allowed to cut any more corners and still pass an inspection.”
Cereal is worse. I used to get regular sized. Then I got family sized. Now I try to hold out for “mega sized” for myself
"We respect your privacy"
We VALUE your privacy, by selling your info to our 2,569 partners.
No artificial flavors
"Natural" and "artificial" flavors are determined by how they're made/obtained, not by what the ingredient itself is. You can have the same ingredient labeled as either artificial or natural.
Like "Natural strawberry flavor". Made by cooking wood shavings in alcohol. No strawberry was harmed in the process.
Or like Sebastian Lege did it in one of his shows: He mixed a number of acids to make "Banana Flavor". Or when he talked about "natural smoke flavor", which is a byproduct of producing charcoal, and the company he visited claimed they produce several thousand tons a year...
Natural flavors: not synthesized from petroleum... probably.
"Unlimited"
Does this look like a man who's had all he can eat?
That could have been me!
"Unlimited data" Limited down to 2G speeds.. 😠
"No preservatives" - Sugar is a preservative. Salt is a preservative. Vinegar is a preservative. Lemon juice is a preservative.
"Sugar-free" - but they add alternative sweeteners that have a range of other health issues associated with them.
"Cholesterol-free" - I once saw this on a juice container and had a laugh.
What people don't realise is that with food formulation, what you take out, you have to put something back in to replace it. A low/no sugar product will likely be higher in something else like fat to make it a palatable product.. So labels make claims on some things, but will purposely not mention the others.
Edit: Yay! 100th comment!
Cholesterol-free is such a bullshit label anyway because dietary cholesterol doesn't do anything special to your own cholesterol. You are not a chicken and the egg yolk will not go directly to your bloodstream. Your blood has human cholesterol that you made yourself from the rest of the sugars and fats you ate, digested, converted, stored, and reeconverted.
Let me introduce you to "Gluten Free". On a sausage.
I give "gluten free" a pass because it's not always obvious. Some people do have very severe reactions and some products do, unsuspectingly, contain gluten in the form of filler content or for some other mechanical use. Sausage is specifically known to use wheat product as filler and binder. Same for deli meats and veggie burgers. Some places will even throw breadcrumbs into their ground beef for burgers to fake it's tenderness, so it crumbles like a meatloaf would.
Then there's seasonings. Potato chips are made from potatoes, right? But not all chips are potato chips. You'd hope a gluten-issue person would be able to identify pita chips or bagged crackers from the chips selection would have gluten, but it turns out, despite being a corn chip, Dorito dust can affect gluten sensitivities. Soy sauce and malt vinegar are issues, and seasoning mixes use flour to help distribution
Oh, and processing aids. That's another kettle of fish. Same with things that are added and then taken out, or vice versa, as long as they are the same amounts, they don't have to be on the label unless it's an allergen. (Australia)
I'm always wary of places that cook or bake their own food, especially home businesses. They don't have the money to pay an accredited food lab to do their labels and testing for them. I've done my share of food label auditing, and I've seen some pretty shocking things.
That is actually illegal in my country.
Germany. There is a reason German sausages are good. Part of it are stringent regulations.
Whereabouts are you?
"Nitrate free! *except for that found naturally in the shitload of powdered celery we put in there"
And "low sodium". They replace sodium chloride with potassium chloride instead.
Which can interact with blood pressure medication.
"Sugar free" is such a red flag, you know they are going to go crazy with the artificial crap. I try to eat less sugar but the same goes for alternative sweeteners, plus I can't stand the taste of them. I look for "Sugar free" so I know not to buy it, that shit's going to be disgusting.
most of the brand names one uses aspartame. some sugar gree gum, mints use omstly xylitol. some non sugar sweeteners actually contain sugar in it, they try to be deceptive by labeling it dextrose, or maltadextrin.
Indestructible or tough dog toys. My boy will have that in pieces, 15 minutes or less guaranteed
Get him a stick
When he break it. He now have 2 stick
When he have too many stick.
Go get new stick. It free.
I was in a PetsMart and I swear they had regular ass sticks that they found outside with $5 price tags on them. You could literally walk 10 steps out of their front doors and find the same thing for free.
My fucking big goofy dumball of a dog will continuously get sticks stuck in his mouth from trying to chew of them vertical instead of horizontal and its bad. He'll walk up all happy and just drip blood on my lap with his mouth stuck open. One time we came inside and didn't realize until like 30 minutes later that he had a big twig stuck in there, he was happy as can be .
I love that dog and he loves sticks
Indestructible toys are a catch 22, anyways. I found a couple of toys my old bud couldn’t destroy but he got bored of them very quickly. All of the satisfaction comes from the destruction.
We just started getting him soccer balls from 5 Below. Cheap enough and big enough to last a little longer.
Only two things ever last in my house. Beef femors and nylahide chewable. Everything has a lifespan of minutes.
Same with my dog but hes not interested in the nylon or femurs, probably because he can't figure out how to tear them apart.
Same. They dislike them at first but they get bored with them quickly. I don’t mind them shredding toys as long as they don’t eat them.
You're dog has fuckered up eyes
ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ
?
"24 hour odor protection" in deodorants.
By applying a chemical precipitant that clogs sweat pores and backs up sweat fluids under the skin.
Just bathe.
Some of us live in hot climates. Without deodorant, I stink bad enough to smell myself by around noon.
Spoken like someone who lives in a cold dry climate. I could bake cookies inside of my car in the summertime, and it is regularly well above the safe wet bulb temperature for human tolerances, even in the shade. You walk outside, and it feels like you’re breathing hot swamp-flavored fog. Bathing alone isn’t enough in those circumstances, because you’ll be a sweaty mess by the time you get to work anyways. Bathing is important, but you also need something to stop the sweat from immediately making you stink again.
Just bathe in the middle of the workday in a place with no showers lol
Labeling that says “Made with xxxxx” for example “Made with 100% all white chicken!” ‘WITH’ is the key word here. The item might be only 3% chicken and 97% other junk, but that 3% of chicken is 100% all white! This isnt just food items, could be cleaning supplies, or a lot of other things too. ‘Made of xxxx’ could be better, or ‘Made 100% with/of’….
No idea who downvoted you, some dude who refuses to believe that? I didn't believe that until I met someone in the food industry and they were like "Oh yeah, that's just to make you believe it's real stuff". Turns out, McDonald's Patties with 100% Real Beef relies heavily on that with, who would have guessed. The rest is
sawdustfiller material, but hey at least some portion of it is 100% real beef.The one that gets me is the cat treats that list their flavors as "With Chicken." Like, that's the back half of the sentence, where's the front half?
Lifetime* Waranty
* For the life of the product
Calorie free. Fat free. Sodium free, etc.
Just means that it has less than a specific threshold of the item per serving. And their servings are often arbitrarily small enough in order to conveniently miss that threshold
I'm looking at you, Tic Tacs
In Australia they changed it so ISP's have to say what the typical evening (peak congestion) speed is.
Chocolate
In the states, you have to watch for phrases like chocolatey or chocolate flavored. If you see those, it is 0% real chocolate. Even our minimum standard for actual real chocolate (I think 35% cocao) is a joke.
Same thing with "Cheese"
Cheesey, Chee-z, The Chees-iest, any variant of that and it's not real cheese. Cheese is a regulated term. It's not just qWiRkY marketing, it's designed to distract you from the very fake product you're consuming.
Same with cream vs creme
Not so much a lie but jumping on the bandwagon. A lot of traditional products that never had gluten in them to begin with now show "Gluten Free!" on the label, as if they did something good for you rather than simply redesigning a product label.
I feel like in that case it's more like "We now double-check this food wasn't made in the same area as foods with gluten". Cross-contamination can be a pita for celiacs
Pita is bad for celiacs because of the gluten.
I honestly do not trust those labels without proof
Someone already mentioned the shared facilities thing that can lead to cross contamination. Another reason is: gluten-containing products aren't intuitive. Soy sauce, malt vinegar, a lot of sauces and seasonings, most canned soups(where I live,) and some cheeses contain gluten.
https://xkcd.com/641/
Oh yes, so many products claim this pointlessly.
Gluten free beer, corn chips, ketchup, fruit snacks, dairy products, etc.
beer usually has grain. it's reasonable to demand the mash bill.
Unless you are hypersensitive to gluten, gluten free beer is nonsensical. A slice of bread contains 124,000 ppm of gluten. Lagers have 63 ppm, stouts 360 ppm, and ales can have up to 3,000 ppm. So even an ale has roughly 3% of the gluten a single slice of bread has.
87% of beer sold in the US is a lager. That is .0005% of a slice of bread's gluten.
you would have celiacs at that point, sensitivity to gluten is just marketing for the gluten free companies that people that dont have celiacs. wheat allergy is a different disease. best way to check is through blood tests, and noticible symptoms. most people that buy gluten free foods, that doesnt have the disease dont even know the connection between the proteins and the disease.
I have been conditioned to think of "Free & Clear" as having no coloring or nasty scents added and then I come across this and was duped
This is such bullshit manipulative marketing, similar to when companies will put out an ad saying something like "ONLY $1.99/MONTH" in large, bold letters and then below it have tiny fine print saying "for the first month, then $420.69/month".
"Free of dyes. Soft pear scent.". Boom. Done. Not only is it short, but it's clear and accurate. Almost nobody cares if it's "clear" as long as it's dye-free.
Flavored dish soap is kinda wild in general. Yes, I want the things I eat and drink off of to all taste vaguely of chemical lemons.
The default should be plain soaps and plain dish detergent. Some are so potent that the scent sticks to the dishes even after washing, and unfortunately, the food too. Especially that dawn spray soap.
that's fucking infuriating
I cry everytime
Spraying it into my eyeballs in tears YOU BASTARDS
I can't see this product without thinking of astronaut Chris Hadfield. He tells a story of going blind in space, because they apply a surfactant to the inside of the EVA helmet as an anti-fog coating, it's basically a mix of oil and soap. And a drop of it got in his eye, while in a spacewalk, it stung and his eye slammed shut and began to tear up, and because zero g, tears don't fall, so it just pooled in his eye socket until there was enough tears for it to spill over the bridge of his nose into the other eye.
"Now we use Johnson's No More Tears, Which is what we should have been using from the beginning."
Biodegradable
Where it just turns in to smaller and smaller pieces of plastic until it's tiny enough to enter your bloodstream
Also the plastic-free ones that only degrade in industrial processes.
"Our roll of toilet paper is equivalent to 234 rolls of our competitor's toilet paper!!!1"
Cage-free eggs. Chickens were probably still tortured and crammed on top of each other in a barn. Look for certified humane.
Edit: himane to humane. Spell check refuses to let me make the typo intentionally, but let it slip through the initial post. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Trying to verify a chicken's hymen is 1.) archaic, 2.) unscientific, and 3.) not your business.
The eggs have never been caged since they left the chicken
How do you humanely kill someone who doesn't want to die?
It's an egg, it's not fertilized.
Do the laying hens die of old age on those humane farms, or where do they go when their egg production is no longer at peak profitability?
What happened to all the male chickens?
There are ways of determining the gender of a chick in-ovo, meaning in the egg. This is the way they should be culling male chicks.
that being said, male chickens are eaten because they taste good.
"Waterproof" phones
*not covered by warranty
so it's a lie
We had a huge push here about waterproof vs waterresistant. "waterproof" means you can drop it into like, 12 ft of water for some crazy amount of time and it'll be fine. Water Resistant is a much more flexible term like "If you use it outdoors and a drop of water gets on it you should be fine. Of course, no average consumer knows the difference and so they assume water resistant means water proof.
I blame cheap wristwatches of the late eighties for that. Water resistant 10m, you didn't even need to think about water.
Humane slaughter.
"biodegradable". For PLA Plastics, they are only biodegradable under commercial composting environments (CNC Kitchen made a video about it). For other things, I think it is mostly the same (CBC Made a video on this too (they looked at plastic alternatives though, and the duration of their testing was a bit short))
This. In our city, many people put their organic waste into plastic bags (which are labeled as biodegradable) because they are sold at many stores. However, after doing a tour through our recycling facility, they told us they don't have the equipment to properly compost it.
Pla filament does actually biodwgrade in a regular household compost. It just takes years
Yeah, it would still be a massive improvement if it took 20 years instead of 1000.
PHA (Polyhydroxyalkanoates) is a truly biodegradable plastic (ASTM D6691Marine Biodegradable). Some bacteria naturally make it. The stuff I have is very bendy/rubbery so its not really a PLA alternative plastic though if you need something stiff/hard.
Another plus is that it doesn't need a heated bed so it uses less electricity to print with.
That sounds really cool/ interesting! Keeping the bendy-ness/ rubbery-ness in mind, would you say that it could be a TPU/ PETG (certain types) alternative?
I personally have never printed TPU but from my understanding it is similar. I will say it is possible to probably get the structure of a PHA print rigid as long as a part doesn't have super thin walls.
I haven't made a significant amount of prints with PHA but from what I've seen a side that is walls/perimeters only is still very bendy while walls with some infill actually locks up into a more rigid structure better. Also, it isn't brittle and is quite a bit tougher, and is much more temp stable (I usually see claims it softens around 110C)
There is a PHA specific subreddit (I know, I know).
Edit: apparently my stuff is specifically flex PHA. PHA properties depend on a variety of factors such as the bacteria's diet. So other PHAs may be stiffer.
GLORY TO ARSTOTZKA!
Papers please
"please"?
More like: "WHERE ARE YOUR PAPERS, YOU FUCKING ILLEGAL"
followed by: multiple armed, masked "agents" shouts conflicting commands
Mr potato man :/
Environmentally friendly
Marginally less environmentally destructive than the previous version
PFAS-free. There is just another similar chemical in it that hasn't been regulated yet.
Same with BPA free. There are like 200 chemicals in that family, BPA is just one, they just switched to another chemical.
The BPA one is even funnier because it is used very often to coat metal food preservation containers. But thank jeebus we threw out all of those polycarbonate water bottles that contain basically zero BPA. Keep enjoying that canned chili though.
Made with 100% chicken breast.
The chicken in this product is 95% scraping from carcasses, connective tissue and skin. But the 5% of it that's actually breast meat is 100% chicken breast meat.
"With" is doing some heavy lifting there.
"Safe and secure" when it comes to digital transactions. Everything is logged, stored, and saved somewhere where they very often have absolutely fuck all in terms of security and then all that shit is hacked or leaked or otherwise compromised. But its okay, because the government will force them to give you 1 whole year of another bullshit service that does absolutely fucking nothing to protect your data or identity.
Smart = vehicle for ads
smart= data mining, and easier to become damaged forcing you to buy more because of all the unneccesary components that can break down"
“New and improved”. How is it both?
I don't see an issue with this, things can be an improvement over their previous version and they would be new on release.
Yes! Yes! At most this means a minor modification of what exists.
If the innovations are truly enough to make it so different, its always marketed as a different product
"ethically sourced," "free range" amongst others for meat and dairy products.
At this point, everything the meat and dairy industry claims.
Hypo-allergenic
There is no such technical term. It is all marketing.
"Dust-free" cat litter.
Machine Washable...
...exactly three times before it disintegrates
Fast fashion and synthetic textiles are going to bury us all.
"Ribbed for her pleasure"
15 minutes could save you 15% or more. Not will, could. We already knew that it had to be either greater than, less than, or equal to 15% because that covers everything
"Sugar free" on things that are mostly sugar because the serving size given isn't great enough to overcome a rounding down to zero.
Legally, sugar-free means "less than 0.5 grams per serving."
How whip cream is keto because the serving size is 1/2 teaspoon (5mL) and it’s less than 1 calorie (1kcal).
LOL
Keto != Low calorie.
Generally it just means low carb as a marketing term. As a diet it's an asinine amount of fat and whipped cream fits that bill. Especially if you can find low sugar whipped cream.
A lot of Keto "friendly" food have like 1g or 2g of carb, and a part from what you mentioned of the serving sized being unrealistic small, even if it wasn't, they add up, if you consume a variety of this during the day you gonna exceed the maximum carb really easily.
Keto is about carbohydrates, not calories. Whip cream (as long as you don't do it with sugar) is absolutely keto, it has almost no carbs, despite the high calorie and fat count, but those are supposedly irrelevant on keto diets.
"No tears" is just a play on the English language. It doesn't mean your eyes won't tear up and let water out, it means your hair won't tear into pieces.
I remember L'oreal Kids shampoo commercials (like 25 years ago) very specifically showed kids happily wiping suds out of their eyes when "NO TEARS!" showed up on the bottom of the screen, clearly to exploit this misunderstanding
I think they really meant no crying tears, because we had the bottle with French on it and it said "pas de larmes" :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dEk61kajf8
The line in this one is "bye bye tears", pronounced in the way that refers to water that comes out of your eyes, and then shows a kid wiping suds out of their eyes.
Until now, I've never heard the claim that this was a play on words. I just figured it didn't work.
I remember that! Kids going down slides and playing with bottles that...looked like fish? O.o
FREE^*^
^*just^ ^pay^ ^£9.99^ ^shipping^
Microwave safe
It will not explode, but nothing said about microplastics.
I feel like your comment is a little sarcastic. I have actually had a non-microwave safe plastic plate (that predated the omnipresence of the microwave) actually explode. It boiled faster than the food heated and made pressure pockets inside.
Nice, I will immediately test if my microwave is modern enough. Brb
Well if it wasn't yet it soon will be!
"Keto friendly". There's a guy on YouTube who shows the effects of different foods on his blood sugar, and one brand of supposedly "keto" tortillas had almost the same effect as white bread.
Just compare the ingredients.
"AI increases productivity"
Very specific, but pre-sharpened straight razors (think Sweeny Todd) are not that. They're still pretty sharp, but not sharp enough to shave with.
Does it just mean "sharpened to the point you can use your regular re-sharpening device"?
Sorry. Wasn't precise. I believe the term was something along the lines of "ready to shave," as in you could pull it out of the package and start shaving. Apparently that used to be the case, but one manufacturer started slacking so everyone else followed suit.
Ah. Thanks for the explanation. How unfortunate
More and more I'm seeing blatant lies in marketig, which wasn't as prevalent a few years back - at least not through mainstream advertising companies.
Don't get me wrong, these companies, products and adverts existed since the beginning of the internet but we're usually shunned enough by advertisers that you'd only encounter them on sites that... couldn't use your average advertising networks. Say, porn sites. Which, to be fair, are still chock full of "grow your dick 6 inches in 12 days" kind of ads...
But the fact that Facebook, Google, Amazon, and even Microsoft are getting away with pushing the exact same scam ads - but now wrapped in almost reputable looking companies' branding - is what I find blood-boiling.
Every single social media is now full of this crap. If it's not dick growth pills, it's magic anti-hairloss solutions coming from some sketchy manufacturer in China that disappears within 3-4 weeks (and of course they upcharge for the "3 month guaranteed success or your money back" guarantee), the various dietary supplements, most of which are absolutely unnecessary for most people but they'll push it with absurd claims, or the workout apps that promise to take you from BMI 40 to visible abs in 12 weeks, or the various dropshippers that sell "miracle" inventions that are available literally on Amazon for a fraction of the price (and even cheaper on AliExpress), or the sham weight loss products, I could go on.
I just find it insane that previously respectable companies are now milking the snake oil "business" so hard and nothing is being done against it.
The "Natural Flavors" ingredient in the U.S.
Just because something claims to have natural flavoring for strawberry, doesn't mean it actually comes from strawberries.
Something "vanilla" flavored may actually come from chemically processed wood pulp, or even the anal castor sacs of a beaver.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/the-truth-behind-the-clean-label-myth-what-natural-flavoring-really-contains/ar-AA1RSQBb
I believe wood pulp but aren't beaver anus glands expensive?
Natty vs I forget the other one
"Organic" produce, like there could possibly be another kind
Organic means grown without lab made pesticides and fertilizers.
If the farm is NOP certified then that's what it means and products will be labeled "USDA Organic."
However the FDA doesn't regulate the word "organic" so anyone can just slap the word on a product and call it a day.
This is not generally true. Organic farmer can use what most would consider synthetic pesticides. These are not technically synthetic because they are derived in a lab from organic material like petroleum.
Does it though
"Green" products in general
Free credit report.
dot com
Should have seen this coming at me like an atom bomb
"Fat Free", example: cooking spray. It's literally fat in a spray can. "Vegan Leather", it's plastic. And vegans are not consuming plastic.
Vegan often refers to more than dietary restrictions.
To be honest, most pepple doesnt consume leather nowadays either. Its usually plastic or a weird processed gluey mulch spread in leather shape and then dried
Some of the things I see labeled fat free or low-fat just blow my mind because sometimes it's a product that generally mostly if not entirely fat. Like what is in it then? Olestra?
Tic tacs were allowed to say they were sugar free despite being almost pure sugar, because they weigh like nothing so each 'serving' was under whatever the legal limit of "theres sugar in this" is
There's a lot of different reasons people are vegan, and some don't preclude using plastic.
These are not blatant lies in Australia. There are new AUS/NZ regulations dictating flushable wipes must be made of very easy to disperse paper and not plastic like in other countries. Plastic "flushable" wipes are banned.
Still clog the sewers just as much though.
Gonna need a source on that because they disintegrate just like toilet paper, often before the toilet is even flushed.
Prove that easily dispersing paper clogs the sewer just as much as plastic. I'll wait.
Survivorship bias. If the only wipes remaining in the sewers are the ones that don't disintegrate, we couldn't really say whether or not the dissolving wipes are causing problems ¯_(ツ)_/¯
... what
Hard to find something truly credible bit here is what I found: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/26/disposable-wipes-sewer-toilet-cities-flushable
So our government/water agencies are actually suffering from big problems, even with modern sewer systems. They actively warn not to flush any wipes.
Take it as you will, but biodegradable does not mean it degdrades fast, or even in time.
Having a bin next to your toilet is the answer.
Article published before the new standards
Regardless of what flushable wipes are made out of, just use a bidet. Why do I need to introduce another disposable product to keep my ass clean? I have running water.
Yeah I use a bidet
We made zero or minimal profit this year so our taxable income is zero
100% recyclable!
Like, sure in theory. But if the facilities dont exist its useless. Most things are recyclable in theory.
BEST VALUE gem bundle in any freemium game.
Organic
IIRC there is a legally defined set of criteria to call foodstuffs organic. It does mean something, but if has nothing to do with chemistry's definition of organic.
Yeah, there's still legally-defined sets of criteria for how to marry a child in the majority of US states, that's not a good precedent for anything.
That's hardly relevant. All I'm saying is that this label is not a "blatant lie" like this thread calls for, it means something and it's regulated.
It's very relevant, it being codified is the foundation of your argument. Lies can be codified and laws can be ignored. And both often are. Sure it's not a traditional lie, it's more like a lie of implication. Like labeling your product "0% poison" and running a big ad campaign about how your competitors don't say their products are poison-free. Just pick a different word that doesn't already apply to all food.
Paedophilia is the new Hitler of Godwin's law.
Hitler's dead.
I hate the use of this term by the food industry. Bitch it's all organic.
Except for the salt.
the most obvious one AI, totally not a even close at all, its just advanced wolfram alpha. or glass saying its "military grade, unbreakable" in this case of screen for phones, and for containers(like coffee), more than not its made with thinnest material to cut corners.
another fun one is pyrex, pyrex lowercase uses a cheaper weaker glass laminated glass, while the og uses borosilicate(if you are buying the large dishes), some of the lunch box types are made with borosilicate. PYREX is no longer sold in the US, but mostly in the EU and maybe canada. however there is other borosilicate containers out there with varying durability.
the "eco-friendly companies" telling you to buy thier products for carbon footprint reduction type of marketing, its largest funded by oil and gas to avoid reducing thier emissions.
nHap toothpaste, questionable effects, as mos the positive effect seemed to be related to the added whitening/abrasive adjacents more than normal toothpaste.
Wolfram Alpha can (or at least could, don't know if it's any good anymore) actually reliably do math
Honestly I find that most things that say they're military grade are, it's just people think that's a good thing. Instead of essentially meaning "as cheap as possible."
Recyclable, looking at you Coca Cola.
Unlimited internet with no SLA
Anything you can think of if there isn't a law that says they can't. One big one for me is expiration dates. Aside from, say, milk, they really don't mean much.
Former head chef who's worked in restaurants and production kitchens here. I made food for both immediate consumption, and package and sale. Food safety regulations will differ by location, as I once worked where three different regional health authorities ovelapped, but this is generally false.
In a commercial kitchens we weren't allowed to sell expired food. The "Best Before" date is different, since it's related to taste/texture, determined through structured testing, best educated guesses and/or personal tasting.
We kept dated boxes of products to taste ourselves every month, but also sent products to a lab to determine if the ingredients degraded or grew enough bacteria in different storage conditions to make it dangerous to consume. One caveat is when product quality degrades faster than it becomes a health risk, sometimes by years. Or, in the case of hard candy, probably never. In that case, companies might pick the longest range of time the product's been tested — and that's why you might see expiry dates on things that shouldn't go bad.
Best before dates are guidelines, expiry dates are rules.
Nice comment! TIL
I aim to teach, not to shame. I had a few cooks who thought the same thing.
I was aware that shops and restaurants couldn't sell food marked as expired but I had thought that the dates were still arbitrary. That's what I learned about today.
That cologne - Sex Panther
Fresh
Absolutely true! Fresh is not a regulated term at all. Organic is, and I believe Natural is (but less than organic). Fresh doesn't have to mean anything
Organic. Lol.
If you live in a country that is not the US, these things are certified and taken seriously.
There are regulations around what you can call organic. Any issue you have here is probably more geared towards the laws themselves.
Yes, but there's an implied meaning (still used) that doesn't translate to legal meaning.
Many years ago, organic required a few details on how it was grown/processed. Only the more expensive (and higher quality) items followed this, and were labeled organic. As such, people quickly associated 'organic' with 'high quality', and would pay the higher prices.
Then Walmart saw the higher prices, and wanted to know the bare minimum needed to use the label. It was restricted by law, so they needed to meet the definition. And it turns out the definition is really easy to meet. So Walmart flooded the market with "organic" crap.
Some people still pay a premium for it, partly because there's no better indicator of quality.
Who makes the regulations these days? 🤣
Sure but that is not on their radar.
Organic is technically everything in the living world. The marketing version of organic is just that, marketing. There may be some regulations, but the devil is always in the details.
This all leads to conundrums like organic farmers shunning organic pesticides. It really is nonsensical.
I see a lot of food with Gluten-free labels having wheat flour as the first ingredient in the list.
They must mean wheat starch or some other derivative where the gluten has been removed?
Real cheese
"No E-numbers". They are correct. I looked through the food inside and there was not a single number anywhere.
Not really a blatant lie but more pandering to the scary unknowns of a standardisation of specifying the ingredients.
Anything "Free"
It'll just cost you time, energy, probably also money... Definitely some privacy!!!
Rewards that are cash in prizes
"Simple to use" and yet requires an entire customer support department for customers to figure out their software.
Self driving cars
I saw a TikTok of a guy saying that eggs have a code on the carton stating what farm they were from. The guy went to a grocery store and nearly every carton had the same code, regardless of advertising free-range, or no hormones.
Note: I did not verify if this was true but it wouldn’t surprise me.
"I saw a tiktok"... "I did not verify"
lol, we're so fucked man.
This is why I tell you I didn’t verify. I don’t want you to take it for fact and to check yourself if you’re interested.
I didn’t live in the same area as the man in the video so it didn’t affect me as the laws aren’t the same where I live.
Sorry, I don't mean that as an attack on you. Just that if you extrapolate the behavior, that's what a ton of people are doing but seemingly no longer care if anything is verified or not.
I'm mostly just kicking at sand, yknow?
No worries, I know exactly what you mean. I feel it too.
There’s only so many times I can explain to family members that posting the phrase “I do not give Facebook permission to use my images” means nothing.
Hell, there’s a whole political party of people who believe everything they see on TV.
No. It's cool. We can ask ChatGPT.