Sunday 23 September 2007

Finding Nemo (in all the wrong places)

Corporate fish mongery has really lucked out with this Omega 3 fatty acids hoopla. Apparently Omega 3 fatty acids are good for kiddlywinks' brains. Apparently Omega 3 fatty acids reside in fish (and flaxseeds and walnuts, but that's beside the point). "Boo yah!", says everyone from the fish monger to the candlestick maker, "Let's put essence of fish where it's never been before and market our fishified wonderworld to the Omega 3 crowd".

Yesterday I bought pomegranate juice. "Pomegranate juice", said the label, which also happened to sport the letters "OMEGA 3". Omega 3, schmomega 3, thought I, and thought nothing else of it at all, until, idling away from the juice providore, inspecting the packaging from all angles, indulging in pomegranatical thoughts, I glanced at the list of ingredients. Refined fish oil. This, in letters the size of flea droppings, tucked down the bottom of the rear guard label. Refined fish oil. And why would it be, I wonder, that they don't mention the refined fish oil somewhere where an unsuspecting pomegranate juice fancier might actually notice it? Big letters: Pomegranate and Fish Juice, Freshly Pressed European Carp and Fruit Extracts, Do Not Sup From This Bottle Oh Ye Who Would Prefer Not to Drink Liquefied Fish, etc. I'm in a minority, I know, but these things matter to me.

18 comments:

Martin Kingsley said...

Another deranged and highly fishy faux pas on the part of the international fruit juice marketing machine.

Why would you put fish oils in there when you could be including, oh, I don't know, fruit, something most fruit juices out there seriously lack?

In the words of the late, great Bill Hicks, "If any of you out there in the audience work in marketing or advertising...kill yourself."

Shelley said...

I'm quite good at ruining things for vegetarians/vegans, in future just ask me :p

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Martin, there was fruit. Plenty of it. Pulpy business, too. They went and took a perfectly good juice and added fish oil.

Thanks for the offer, Nails, though you'll find I'm an easy target. Just mention "Monsanto" and I start feeling guilty about my tofu.

Martin Kingsley said...

That's...even more deranged. They went to the trouble of actually doing the right thing by fruit juice and only then, having arrived at this pinnacle of tooty-fruity perfection, added trouty goodness? What?! Mind, expanding, cannot, contain, madness, the colours...

Shelley said...

Oh dear, don't mention Monsanto.
I was so relieved to have tv again last night that I watched a documentary on a poor little girl in a Chinese sweat shop Now there's some guilt. I almost swore off clothing altogether.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Swearing off clothes could work, but only if you notify the right people. You need to tell the owners of your local skankgear outlet the reason you're standing on the footpath outside their shop wearing nothing but figleaves and a feisty placard, that reason being that they're making their profits with underpaid child labour and you'll none of it. You also need to tell the customers. A nude-in in the privacy of your own home probably won't make much difference.

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Not to imply that in the normal course of events you'd patronise the local skankgear outlet. I'm not even sure exactly what I mean by skankgear.

Shelley said...

That's a hell of a lot of figleaves. I may have to choose another plant.

A nude-in would make me feel very John and Yoko...I might have one anyway, once summer hits, as it could be quite a lot of fun.

I think all clothing made by 14 year olds who work the clock round for about 20c a week [or was that a day? and at those prices is it worth quibbling?] is pretty much skankgear.

Martin Kingsley said...

Skankware, eh? Good term, good term. Says all it needs to say.

Anonymous said...

A point which I feel all learned commentators have missed is that the juice is the worthy recipient of refined fish oil. No malingering dole-bludging, daily-tabloid-reading fish were harmed in the fortification of said juice!

TimT said...

Perhaps the ingredients are trying to say that people who drink fruit are fishy, or that people who drink fish-oil are fruity? Not that there's anything wrong with either of those things.

There is probably a difference between skankgear (gear that a skank wears) and skankware (wares owned by a skank).

THIS is skankgear.

And -

THIS is skankware.

Martin Kingsley said...

Ha! Didn't even see my mistake. It's my fault for being a massive nerdshoes. I inhabit a world built entirely from software, hardware, wetware, freeware, shareware, donationware, and now skankware.

Martin Kingsley said...

In which case, skankware would have to be this particularly odious piece of source code from '05.

Mildly NSFW, but no more than Tim's last link. So I'm in the clear. :-P

Shelley said...

Skankgear, skankware, or Timmy having a moment?

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

Try NSF Feminists Eating Their Breakfast. "The chance to have the hottest woman ever do what you want"? Could they be any more loathsome?

Given the self-evident connotations, I'll subtract "skankgear outlet" from my vocabulary. Please replace with "clobber shop".

Martin Kingsley said...

Back when it was originally released, I recall, it was pretty much universally reviled as a particularly offensive, and categorically pathetic, attempt at tuning into some kind of non-existent geek zeitgeist regarding simulated interaction. That may aid your digestion slightly, alongside the fact that it has a relatively infinitesimal user base composed entirely of mindless slavering zombies, and has become a byword in the industry for bucolic stupidity.

There's always one, ain't there?

There was something in the water in '05, I think. For some reason, 'ha ha breasts' had become a valid philosophy in the field of video game design, and the majority of gamers (you know, the ones who weren't violent misogynists) bemoaned the Niagara Falls of poorly made bullshit suddenly flooding the market and making money on account of the fact that, for a small fee of AU$80, you could view polygonal mammaries constructed by a work experience kid in Bulgaria.

I could probably rattle off the names of a a dozen games that attempted to slam together an accepted video genre, like BMX riding or residential micro-management, with naked women, in the space of that year.

Thankfully, with the exception of the basket cases playing Second Life, the trend seems to have all but died out in the mainstream market.

I don't know why it is I think you will think this even vaguely worthy of note, but there you go. :-P

Alexis, Baron von Harlot said...

No, no; this is completely noteworthy. Apart from my regular appearances on the internetian scrabble circuit, online gaming and I (does scrabble even count as gaming?) have very little to do with each other. But it's nice to be informed, so that I can formulate appropriate levels of disgust, &c.

This, readers, is where fish oil in fruitjuice will get you.

Anonymous said...

Yukon gold casino review