Recently someone gave me a box of fancy cereal. This made me very happy because I love cereal*.
But the box I did not love. I did not love it because all I could think was, Someone got paid to write this box.
Someone got paid to write, "Less processed nutrition you can see." (But I want less processed nutrition I CAN'T see! Or MORE processed nutrition I can see! Or best of all would be MORE processed nutrition I CAN'T see!) Someone got paid to write, "Natural Flavor With Other Natural Flavor."
I blame everybody who never told me I could be a food box writer when I grew up.
*I eat cereal. Would you like to hear about my weight, my health, my sense of personal vitality, my powerful toenails, my glistening eyeballs, the penetrating insights my personal somatic functions have given me about how everyone should eat? Huh, weird.
12 comments:
Oh, I get it. Natural flavor with OTHER natural flavor, as opposed to just plain old natural flavor without the, um, other. Yum, love me some natural flavor. Other, that is. :P
This reads like a ESLer wrote it (like those generic medical websites)
I'm just trying to think of what processed nutrition actually looks like...
What Katy said. I'm reminded of the instruction manuals for various items I've assembled over the years or the menus at some Chinese restaurants I've known.
I love my verification code. It's "ickgreen ishmenti."
Call them or write a letter. I promise you'll get a coupon for FREE cereal. (True story: I called Hebrew National when they removed "We Answer to a Higher Authority" off their labels. I simply asked why, and I got free hot dogs. BOO-yah!)
(Yes. I eat hot dogs. And I'm 36 and don't need glasses. ha ha ha!!)
Rebekah, if you had become a food box writer, 'reading the cereal box' would be an event not to miss.
Hebrew Nationals are sooo good over-cooked on the grill.
What would you write for the chocolate shredded wheat box?
Katie, you're sick. But now that I'm thinking about it, I guess an understated ironic approach makes sense. The the usual pleasantries offset with some flashboxes like "Abominable!" or "You should be ashamed!" And maybe that Willy Wonka quote down at the bottom.
Less processed: Nutrition you can see! How's that? :D As for the natural flavors part: I'm lost.
What's all this then?
"[Y]ou can see" answers the question "How can I tell that it's less processed (and therefore more nutritious) than other cereals?"
The implied assertion is that the more you process a food, the less nutritious it is (processing breaks down certain nutrients or whatever). They're claiming it's less processed, you say prove it, and they say "just look at it!"
I'm not a marketer or a copywriter; I just play one on the internet.
Maybe, Josh, but maybe it says there's an unchanged or greater amount of processed nutrition which is now less visible. O syntax!
The important thing is that I ate the whole box. By which I mean the whole quantity of cereal inside the box.
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