Do You Eat Crap?

This silly little piece of satire comes from The Pump Energy Food, a New York City restaurant that claims to serve and prepare foods from the finest ingredients -- without dipping them into a yellow bowl filled with salt and butter.

Again, this touches on the topic of food advertising and how advertisers can manipulate you into thinking that the too-good-to-be-true Chef Salad drenched in low fat Ranch dressing you're eating happens to be rather healthy.

As more and more Americans gear more towards healthier options in their diets, restaurants and other food companies still manage to find a way to convince consumers to buy their products, even if, in actuality, they aren't the healthiest option.

-Kimberly P.

Fast Food Advertising vs. Industry Vows

I recently discovered a story on NPR about a new Yale University study on fast food advertising geared towards children and families. According to the study, ever since fast food restaurants started offering healthier options on their menus, they have decided to increase the amount of advertising aimed at their most impressionable customers.

This interested me as an Ecology of Food student, mainly because it reminded me of the power advertising can have over what we choose to eat. It not only tries to convince us to buy something, but does so by appealing to their wants and desires. Thus, advertising reflects these desires by letting us know or convincing us that they can be fulfilled by buying a certain product. So I think what this story tells us is that fast food joints are still well aware of the ability of their advertising and are still able to rely on it to lure customers into buying food they know is bad, but tastes so good.

Click here for full story on NPR.org

-Kimberly P.