A few months ago I talked about how globalisation had [potentially] made Lays chips [or should I say crisps] look like a bunch of tight asses.
As bad as it looked, at least they could argue that in terms of ‘content mass’, the pack they were claiming was bigger could have been actually bigger, but recently I came across another example of an ‘identical-but-different’ product and this time, the blatantness of the difference is not so easy to explain away:
To be honest, I was shocked that either pack had any vitamins and minerals in them because when I had my first Pop Tart – only about 6 months ago – I was convinced they contained nothing more than 100% cardboard.
But seriously, how can this happen?
Old stock versus new stock?
One pack from a country that has different definitions of vitamins & minerals compared to the other?
And more importantly, who the hell would consume a piece of cardboard with piping hot jam in the middle and covered in brown sugar cinnamon and think it is actually good for them.
There was a great documentary I watched a while back that said the reason these products exist is that the US Government give exceptionally large subsidies to farmers to grow corn products.
Corn has now become the main product ingredient in all manner of things – from [bad] food to bloody car tyres – so maybe if the governments of the World want to stop obesity and health issues, they should re-evaluate their subsidy program.
I know that is easier said than done, but if they moved their subsidies from corn products and gave it to farmers who grew a much broader base of fresh fruit and vegetables … maybe the knock on effect of that would have a longer-lasting, positive effect on humanity.
Why?
Because suddenly fresh food would be a substantially cheaper ingredient/food group than many of the convenient rubbish out on the shelves which could encourage packaged goods companies – not to mention families – to start preferring to do things with food that nurtures humanity rather than choose ‘high-profit-low-health products’ that benefits no one other than the manufacturers share holders.
Who needs to invent or identify something when you can just talk about it.
Suddenly the aspirations of the average planner have become much easier.
Mind you, we’d still end up “borrowing” something someone else said before rearranging some of the words so we could claim it as our own.
Ooooooh, I’m such a bitch but I’m simply trying to point out that “we can’t solve problems by using the same kind of insight we used when we created them”.
Filed under: Comment
A few months ago I talked about how globalisation had [potentially] made Lays chips [or should I say crisps] look like a bunch of tight asses.
As bad as it looked, at least they could argue that in terms of ‘content mass’, the pack they were claiming was bigger could have been actually bigger, but recently I came across another example of an ‘identical-but-different’ product and this time, the blatantness of the difference is not so easy to explain away:
To be honest, I was shocked that either pack had any vitamins and minerals in them because when I had my first Pop Tart – only about 6 months ago – I was convinced they contained nothing more than 100% cardboard.
But seriously, how can this happen?
Old stock versus new stock?
One pack from a country that has different definitions of vitamins & minerals compared to the other?
And more importantly, who the hell would consume a piece of cardboard with piping hot jam in the middle and covered in brown sugar cinnamon and think it is actually good for them.
There was a great documentary I watched a while back that said the reason these products exist is that the US Government give exceptionally large subsidies to farmers to grow corn products.
Corn has now become the main product ingredient in all manner of things – from [bad] food to bloody car tyres – so maybe if the governments of the World want to stop obesity and health issues, they should re-evaluate their subsidy program.
I know that is easier said than done, but if they moved their subsidies from corn products and gave it to farmers who grew a much broader base of fresh fruit and vegetables … maybe the knock on effect of that would have a longer-lasting, positive effect on humanity.
Why?
Because suddenly fresh food would be a substantially cheaper ingredient/food group than many of the convenient rubbish out on the shelves which could encourage packaged goods companies – not to mention families – to start preferring to do things with food that nurtures humanity rather than choose ‘high-profit-low-health products’ that benefits no one other than the manufacturers share holders.
I’m dreaming aren’t I?