Hoax Museum Blog: Food

The Toilet-Paper Eating Mom

Does she really crave eating toilet paper, or is she full of it? more…

Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2014.   Comments (5)

Is it organic, or is it McDonalds? —

Two guys (Sacha and Cedrique) from a Dutch show called LifeHunters visited a food convention in Houten where they offered the "food experts" in attendance samples of what they said was a "new organic alternative to fast food." In reality, they served bite-sized pieces of McDonalds food.

The result: the attendees were not only impressed by what they tasted, but also a number of them said that it tasted much better than McDonalds fast food. One commented that, "you can just tell this is a lot more pure."

Sacha and Cedrique concluded that, "if you tell people that something is organic, they'll automatically believe it's organic!"

It's not surprising that people reacted positively to the samples. After all, researchers who study the psychology of eating have long known that how we perceive food to taste is closely linked with how we expect it to taste, based on visual and contextual cues.

For instance, in a famous study conducted in 1998, Frederic Brochet asked wine experts to sample and review a selection of red wines. But Brochet actually gave them white wine colored red, and not a single one of the experts realized this. They were expecting to taste red wine, so that's what they tasted.

Likewise, the attendees at the Houten food convention expected to taste an "organic alternative to fast food," so that's what they tasted.

Of course, the LifeHunters segment hardly ranks as a scientific study. It's more of a prank, really. For a start, we have to assume that LifeHunters didn't edit out all the negative reactions from their video. Also, a lot of the "food experts" in the video looked a lot like regular people.
Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2014.   Comments (0)

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Miracle Machine wine maker — Several weeks ago, some wine-industry veterans (Kevin Boyer and Philip James) announced the invention of a gadget that would allow people to make wine at home in only 3 days. They called it the "miracle machine."

The gadget seemed somewhat plausible, given the existence of home-brewing kits for beer. Plus it was promoted by a slick video and accompanying website. So over 600 media outlets took the bait and reported it as news.




But yesterday, the "inventors" issued a press release revealing that the 'miracle machine' was just a hoax. But it was a hoax for a good cause. The idea was to promote a non-profit organization called "Wine to Water," which is trying to provide global access to clean water.
Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014.   Comments (0)

Posted: Fri Mar 07, 2014.   Comments (13)

Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014.   Comments (0)

Celebrity Salami —

A new website has many people slightly puzzled. It claims to be producing artisanal salamis made from lab-grown meat from celebrity tissue samples. So it's kind of like a celebrity version of Manbeef.com (from way back in 2001) — except that it's celebrity beef and the human meat is grown using in-vitro meat production.

Salon.com got a response from "Kevin" on the BiteLabs team who explains that "the site is partly a commentary on food culture, the ethics of meat, and 'the way celebrity culture is consumed.'"

So yes, it's a parody site. However, Kevin also insists that they do actually plan to make salami from celebrity meat.

I'm not sure about the current state-of-the-art of in-vitro meat technology. But I'm doubtful that the technology is good enough to make salami that tastes appetizing. Even if it is meat from Jennifer Lawrence of James Franco.

The idea of celebrity salami recalls an idea PETA proposed a few years back of making George Clooney-flavored tofu.
Posted: Thu Feb 27, 2014.   Comments (1)

Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2014.   Comments (0)

Cardiff Giant Wine —

Sort This Out Cellars has announced the imminent return of its Cardiff Giant Wine, which it describes as "one of our most popular wines ever."

I've come across quite a few hoax-themed beers (Bigfoot Ale, Nessie's Monster Mash, Jackalope Ale, etc.), but not many hoax-themed wines. I always assumed that wine marketers thought that hoaxes were too low-brow to appeal to the sophisticated tastes of wine drinkers.

The illustration of the Cardiff Giant on the wine label comes from a poster created by the sideshow banner artist Fred G. Johnson in the 1930s or 40s. But I'm not sure Sort This Out Cellars realizes this, because the blurb on the back of the label (from the 2005 bottling) describes it as an "1869 carnival poster," which it isn't. It's pretty obvious the artwork couldn't be from 1869 because the "Average Man" in the picture isn't wearing nineteenth-century style clothing.


For the true Cardiff Giant enthusiasts out there, Sort This Out Cellars is also selling Cardiff Giant coasters. [Correction: it was selling them. They're now out of stock.]


Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2014.   Comments (1)

Christmas Tinner Update — Thanks to "anonymous" who posted a comment to my recent post about "Christmas Tinner" (the entire Christmas day meal in a tin), alerting me to this video in which "steviejacko" has a can of the stuff, opens it up, and eats it.

This suggests that, at the very least, someone created a prototype of this product.

In the youtube comments, steviejacko says: "The one shop where it is available in basingstoke is sold out, it was done as a trial to see how much interest there was, it wont be available now for 2 weeks and even then it will be pretty scarce."


Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2013.   Comments (2)

Squirrel Meat For Sale — These North Omaha homeowners keep signs outside their home advertising fresh meat (squirrel, raccoon, fish, etc.). But no one seems to have ever bought the meat. So are they really selling it? Or are the signs just there to give their home a little curb appeal?

Health Officials Worry Rabbit And Squirrel Meat Are Being Sold Illegally
kptm.com

Fish, raccoon, and squirrel are now on the menu, but who's buying it? "It hasn't come from a USDA approved plant to where it's been processed properly, stamped and inspected," Gaube said.
Neighbors said the homeowners have lived there for years and the signs have been there just as long. "They're really good people and nice and all that," neighbor James Jones said.
But no one has seen anyone buy the meat. "Have you ever bought the meat or has your grandmother ever bought the meat? No ma'am, not that I know of. No? Do you know of anybody in the neighborhood that's maybe bought from them? Um...not that I know of."

Posted: Thu Dec 12, 2013.   Comments (0)

Christmas Tinner — Game.co.uk is selling something they call "Christmas Tinner," which it describes as "the ultimate innovation for gamers across the nation who can’t tear themselves away from their new consoles and games on Christmas Day."


It's an entire Christmas Day meal, from morning to night, conveniently layered into one tin:

Layer one – Scrambled egg and bacon
Layer two – Two mince pies
Layer three – Turkey and potatoes
Layer four – Gravy
Layer five – Bread sauce
Layer six – Cranberry sauce
Layer seven – Brussel sprouts with stuffing – or broccoli with stuffing
Layer eight – Roast carrots and parsnips
Layer nine – Christmas pudding

However, the product is listed as "SOLD OUT — Check Back Christmas 2014." But it seems that it's always been "Sold Out," which makes it a near certainty that Christmas Tinner is a joke product.

It reminds me of those stories of gamers who use pee pots so that they won't ever have to move from in front of their computer.
Posted: Sun Dec 08, 2013.   Comments (1)

eMeringue — If you need a meringue top for a pie, and you need it fast, then look no further than eMeringue.com. They're the "Internet's #1 meringue delivery service." Their fleet of eMeringue trucks are gassed up and ready to hit the highway, to deliver your meringue top directly to your door.


eMeringue was an April Fool's Day hoax by the Motley Fool investment people. But it dates back to 1999, so I'm impressed that they've kept the site up all this time.

If you look at the eMeringue welcome page, you'll see a photo of "eMeringue chef Serge LeGrenouille." My wife is the food geek in the family, but she's rubbed off on me enough that I recognized that chef Serge LeGrenouille is actually Chef Patrick O'Connell of the Inn at Little Washington. I wonder if he knows that in addition to being one of America's top chefs, he's also the head chef at eMeringue?


left: eMeringue chef Serge LeGrenouille -- right: chef Patrick O'Connell

Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013.   Comments (0)

Rat-Milk Cheese Redux —
Back in 2005, I posted about the website of The Federation of Rodent Cheesemakers, promoters of rat-milk cheese. That website is suddenly back in the news, thanks to an article in Modern Farmer, "Rat Cheese: Internet Hoax or Future Delicacy?"

The author (Sam Brasch) acknowledges that the Rodent Cheesemakers site is a spoof, but then he seriously addresses the question of how to make cheese from rat milk. He notes that you would need a lot of rats: "You’d need an army of 674 rats to produce the 31 kilograms of milk one dairy cow puts out each day."

But if you had that many rats, they might produce a surprisingly good product:

"Rat’s milk is high in protein (8 percent) and contains almost four times the fat by volume when compared to raw cow’s milk, so it would make a great brie and stand as a rich addition to a cup of coffee in the morning. A rodent dairy farm would also earn a stellar environmental report card. 674 rats would only produce .003 percent of the methane that comes from a dairy cow, so a piece le fromage de rat could end up being the most sustainable high-end cheese at the deli counter."

My thought here: depending on what you fed the rats, their milk might also be quite tasty!

But the International Business Times has also weighed in on this issue and throws cold water on the promise of rat-milk cheese by pointing out, "We don't have milking machines small enough to make rat dairies a viable option."

But they're wrong about this. There are milking machines for rats. Back in 1946, Prof. B.L. Herrington of Cornell University designed a "midget milker" — the world's smallest milking machine mounted on a board 18x6 inches. He designed it primarily to milk guinea pigs, but also used it on rats, rabbits, and hamsters. A Science News Letter article noted that "milking guinea pigs is a two-man operation, with one person holding the animal, and it takes about 10 minutes."


I haven't been able to find any pictures of Herrington's midget milker in action, but there is a diagram of it in a 1951 article in the Journal of Nutrition ("Milking Techniques and the Composition of Guinea Pig Milk").


So there wouldn't be a technological problem with milking rats. It could be done. The problem would be the labor involved. It would take too long to milk enough rats to produce a decent amount of cheese. So it would never be done except as a one-off thing.
Posted: Fri Nov 22, 2013.   Comments (0)

Soylent Food — Soylent describes itself as "food without the hassle." It's basically a protein shake. But unlike most protein shakes that bear notices warning that they're not intended as a food substitute (merely a diet supplement), Soylent claims that it is a food substitute. You can live on this stuff.


According to Fox News, the makers of Soylent chose the name as a playful reference to Soylent Green, the well-known 70s sci-fi movie about human cannibalism. However, Soylent doesn't contain human meat.

Which is to say that Soylent is NOT a hoax or a joke. Even though it may sound like one. (I, for one, was confused for a while.) It's just a product with a weird name.

Whether Soylent will sell well, or end up going the way of other cannibalism-themed food products such as Hufu (human-flavored tofu) remains to be seen.
Posted: Fri Nov 01, 2013.   Comments (1)

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