Hoax Museum Blog: Food

Jesus Hides in Potatoes — Renee Brewster of Florida found Jesus while preparing potato salad. His image was clearly visible in the moldy rot that had formed in the center of the first potato she split open. She put aside the holy potato and finished making the potato salad, which reportedly tasted excellent.

According to MyFoxOrlando, Renee and her husband feel that "the site of their savior in a potato has reinvigorated their faith."

But Cranky Media Guy wonders if this is manufactured pareidolia, noting that, "For the first time in memory, I can actually make out the figure they think they see."

If one Jesus-in-a-potato isn't enough for you, then you're in luck, because the MyFoxOrlando article links to a second story, from just a few weeks ago, about a Houston woman who also discovered Jesus inside a potato. But I think the Florida Jesus-Potato is better.

Cheer Chains — If you've been to Starbucks in the past week or so, you've been at risk of finding yourself trapped in a "cheer chain." What this means is that the person in line in front of you pays for your drink, and in return you're supposed to pay for the drink of the person behind you. This goes on and on, ad nauseam. The Associated Press reported on one cheer chain that totaled 1,013 customers.

The question is, are these cheer chains a true spontaneous phenomenon, or are they a cynically created pr stunt? The phenomenon supposedly began when Arthur Rosenfeld offered to pay for the drink of the guy behind him in the drive-thru line who was honking and yelling. Rosenfeld is a tai-chi master, and he wanted to change the man's consciousness through a random act of kindness. The guy who was honking decided to pay for the car behind him, etc. etc.

But I'm in the camp of those who, like consumerist.com, believe they're a pr stunt. Consumerist points out that Starbucks is even issuing coupons to encourage the cheer chain movement, plus they've set up a website about it. (Thanks, Bob)

How to charge an iPod with an onion — I'm not sure what to make of this video. Is it true or false?

It describes how to charge an iPod with an onion. The instructions are that you first poke a hole in the onion, then you soak it in an electrolyte solution (Gatorade). Once the onion has soaked up enough of the Gatorade, you simply push the usb adapter of your iPod's power cable into the onion, and according to the guys who made the video "your iPod will power up and it should begin charging."

I'm sure that the onion would generate some electricity. It's the part about sticking the usb adapter directly into the onion that surprised me. Somehow it just seems too easy. And I don't want to potentially ruin my iPod by testing it out.

Can of Dehydrated Water — Dehydrated water is an old joke, but I've never actually seen a can of the stuff. Here one is, posted on Flickr by David Reeves. His caption reads, "Spotted on the chemical storage shelf in an adjacent laboratory." The strange thing is that Bernard Food Industries, the company listed as the maker of this product, is a real company. Why were they manufacturing this stuff? I assume it was a joke.



Update: Looks like these cans must have been a gag product that Bernard Foods produced at some time, because someone is selling one on eBay. Perhaps I'll bid on it.

Pork Stone — No, it's not pork. It's "pork stone." Sohu.com has posted these pictures (which they, in turn, got from the China News Network) of stone that looks like pork. Apparently this stone has been on display at the Suzhou International Expo, and has been attracting a lot of attention.

Reportedly, the stone hasn't been altered in any way. It's naturally formed in the earth to look like slabs of pork. It's selling for 120 yuan (about $16) per kg. (via spluch)

Making Mountain Dew Glow — Can you make Mountain Dew glow simply by adding some baking soda and hydrogen peroxide to it? That's what this video claims. I was so excited after watching it that I was all prepared to go out, buy a bottle of Mountain Dew, and try the experiment myself. Thankfully I didn't, because the video is a fake. If you watch it closely, you can see that a break occurs after the person pours the Mountain Dew into the glass. During this break is when the contents of a glow stick were added to the Mountain Dew bottle. According to Wikipedia, hydrogen peroxide serves as an activating agent for the glow-stick dye. "It reacts with the ester to form an unstable CO2 dimer which excites the dye to an excited state; the dye emits a photon (light) when it spontaneously relaxes back to the ground state." I don't know what the purpose of the baking soda is.

Mouse in Beans — Here's something else to add to my page of gross things found in food:
Apparently she doesn't want money. Or so she says. Instead she wants the company to recall all cans of its green beans. I don't think that's going to happen.

Neiman Marcus Cookie Giveaway — Today was the 100th anniversary of Neiman Marcus. The retailer celebrated by giving away free chocolate chip cookies in most of its stores, as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the $250 Cookie Recipe legend that has caused it so much trouble over the years.

And if you missed the cookie giveaway, you can still download the recipe for its cookies free from its website. One of these days I'm going to have to try them out to see how they are. (via David Emery)

Penis Peanut — Brenda has been so good as to send me these pictures of a peanut she found that she believes looks like a penis. She writes: I've already told her the name of the casino: goldenpalace.com. As for how to sell this thing, I'm not sure. But I know that, somewhere out there, there's got to be a home for the Penis Peanut.

Best of the forum - 17th August 07 — Well, after my holiday, my laptop went down, and it's only this week that I'm back online. I do extend my apologies for the lack of 'Best of the Forum' posts for the last few weeks.

Receive the Holy Oil! (Transfrmr)
Forum member Transfrmr found a rather... interesting advertisement in a local free newspaper.
The advertisement (see above link) shows the text:
"I heard voices calling my name but saw nobody. Sometimes the voices told me to throw
myself under a car. To top it off I also suffered with terrible nightmares...I had no peace
at all!
I did a chain of Prayer, used the Holy Oil and fight for changes in my life. Gradually,
the grudges and pain were replaced with peace, forgiveness and joy."
The holy oil comes absolutely free, apparently. If I lived nearby, I'd have been tempted to go along and pick some up.

Man says hold the cheese, claims McDonalds didn't, sues for $10 million (AussieBruce)
Jeromy Jackson, who is allergic to cheese, claims that a local McDonalds made a mistake in his order, causing him to have to be rushed to hospital. He's now suing the chain.
A friend says that Jackson at least five times checked they had his order correct, but when he ate the burger, the reaction was instantaneous. He allegedly ate the burger in a darkened room, causing him to not notice the cheese.
As many people in the forum have noted, surely someone with such severe food allergies would make sure to check his food for himself before consuming it. Whilst this story may be what it seems, it does tingle my spidey-sense somewhat.

CIA behind Wikipedia entries (Smerk)
A new identification program on the popular site Wikipedia has shown that, amongst others, frequent users include CIA, the British Labour Party, and the Vatican, all of whom edit and update not only their own entries, but others besides.

We Have Broken Speed of Light (Tah)
Two German physicists have broken the speed of light, they've told New Scientist magazine.
Doctors Nimtz and Stahlhofen claim to have completed an experiment wherein microwave photons have travelled up to three feet instantaneously.

Glass-Eaters Sentenced — Here's a couple that were making a career out of the inappropriate things found in food scam.

Ronald Evano and his wife Mary would go to a restaurant, purposefully eat glass, get themselves hospitalized, and then threaten to sue the restaurant. They did this at least a dozen times and collected over $200,000 in compensation. The AP reports: The things some people will do for money.

Vegansexuality — The New Zealand Press reports on a new sexual phenomenon: Vegansexuality. Here are some extracts from the article: Wow. I never thought of myself as a graveyard for animals, but when you put it that way, I guess it is technically true.

I think what's going on here is what anthropologists call the law of sympathetic magic: Once in contact, always in contact. That is, if an offensive object touches a neutral object, the neutral object becomes permanently tainted (in the eyes of the observer) by the contact. It's a totally irrational impulse, but powerful nonetheless.

I write about an experiment in Elephants on Acid in which an experimenter briefly dipped a dried, sterilized cockroach into a glass of apple juice and then asked people if they would be willing to drink the juice. Most people didn't want to, even though the juice was in no way contaminated. It's the same principle as vegansexuality. If something really grosses us out, that sense of disgust will spread to anything touched by the offensive object.

Cheap wine in a fancy bottle — Cornell University researcher Brian Wanskin arranged to give diners at a prix-fixe restaurant a complimentary glass of wine. The diners were shown the bottle before the wine was poured into their glass. Some of the diners were shown a wine bottle apparently from a fancy California winery called "Noah's Winery." Others were shown a bottle from a North Dakota winery. But in all cases the wine they were served was actually the same. It was a cheap Charles Shaw Cabernet (familiar to Trader Joes shoppers as "two-buck chuck").

Predictably, the diners seemed to appreciate the wine and their meal more when told that they were drinking a high-class California wine, as measured by how long they lingered at the table and how much food they ate.

I guess no one associates North Dakota with fine wine. Obviously they've never tried North Dakota Pumpkin Wine!

Wanskin concludes that, "Within limits, a food expected to taste good will taste good, and a food expected to taste bad will taste bad."

My theory with wine has always been that while there may be a noticeable difference between a $2 and a $15 bottle of wine, once you get over $15, there's really no appreciable improvement. People just expect very expensive wine to taste better, so they convince themselves that it does taste better. (via New Scientist blog)

Forever Fresh Bread — 85-year-old Gladys Wagner purchased a loaf of bread from her local convenience store on November 10, 2006. When she got back home, she cut off two pieces from it to make a sandwich. Then she rewrapped it in its bag and put it in her cupboard. The next day she went to live with her daughter for the winter, forgetting about the bread. But amazingly, when she returned home in the spring, THE BREAD WAS STILL FRESH! There wasn't even any mold on it.

Ever since then, the bread has sat on a shelf in her daughter's home, refusing to go stale. Finally, Gladys contacted the media about it. The academic community is at a loss to explain this miracle bread. The Canadian National Post reports: The company that baked the bread speculates that the bread might have frozen during the winter, but they have no explanation for why it would still be fresh. They insist there's nothing unusual in the bread.

Sounds to me like Gladys should try selling her loaf of bread on eBay. Though it would fetch a higher price if it bore an image of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, in addition to being forever fresh.

Wormburgers — An article in the Japanese Mainichi Daily News (which claims to be merely repeating a story that appeared in a magazine called Fushigi Knuckles) tells the story of the attempt to introduce Wormburgers in Japan. An Aomori Prefecture company, so the story goes, tried to market worms as food for human consumption because of the high nutritional value of worms: Maybe this really happened, but probably not. It's more likely that this is a recycling of the old Wormburger urban legend from the late 1970s. This urban legend got launched when papers reported that food scientists were experimenting with earthworms as a source of protein. Take, for instance, this UPI article that appeared in a number of American newspapers in mid-December, 1975: After a few articles like this appeared, it was simply a matter of time before tales began to spread of McDonalds and other fast-food chains secretly using worms in their burgers. However, worms are in no way cost competitive with other sources of protein such as beef. So there's little reason to fear that fast-food chains will start padding their burgers with worms any time soon.

Cardboard Bun Caper — China's food industry, already reeling from reports of toxins in pet food originating in China, took another blow when Beijing TV recently reported that snack vendors in eastern Beijing were selling "steamed dumplings stuffed with cardboard soaked in caustic soda and seasoned with pork flavoring." Yuck! In this case, however, the accusation appears to have been unwarranted. CNN reports that: So this appears to belong to the genre of the "gross things found in food" hoax. Assuming, that is, that the Beijing authorities are telling the truth, and that the cardboard buns were actually the invention of a rogue reporter. I wouldn't put it past the Beijing authorities to cry hoax to cover up a real problem.

Also, it's worth noting that even if Beijing vendors aren't supplementing their buns with cardboard, reports of Chinese manufacturers using human hair to make soy sauce continue to appear to be true. So I wouldn't put much past the Chinese food industry. (Thanks Cranky and Joe)

Hot dog eating champ faking an injury? — Takeru Kobayashi, six-time world record hot dog eater, is claiming to have a jaw injury which may hamper his competition today at Nathan's Famous in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. Some think the champ is faking, playing head games with Joey Chestnut, who beat Kobayashi's record of 59 1/2 franks and buns two weeks ago. The two are the favorites in this year's event at Nathan's.

Would Kobayashi really pull such a stunt, potentially tarnishing the great sport of competitive eating?

As an aside, this article I'm linking to refers to the governing body as the International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFOCE). I thought I had read that they changed their name to Major League Eating recently. I'll have to check.

Scandal in professional gluttony?

Okay, I checked. From Wikipedia:

The IFOCE, which first established eating as a sport in the 1990s, has recently launched Major League Eating to serve as an umbrella for competitive eating worldwide while also providing a recognized brand for licensing of t-shirts and other products. The Major League Eating website, www.majorleagueeating.com, is considered the most dynamic website in this sport. It features videos of contests and eaters and offers a complete online community similar to MySpace, for eating fans.

UPDATE: Sore jaw or not, Kobayashi lost to Joey Chestnut, meaning the Mustard Yellow Belt has returned to American, where it belongs, damn it! NO ONE outeats us. USA! USA!

Snake Head Found in Beans — Here's something to add to my list of Gross Things Found in Food. Philadelphia resident Earl Hartman was sitting down at home to enjoy some green beans and chicken, when he noticed something unusual in his beans. It wasn't a green bean. It was a snake head.

This seems to be a legitimate case of something odd that found its way into a can of green beans. Seneca Foods, the company that cans the beans, admits that a snake head could have found its way into the beans. Earl Hartman says: Hartman isn't suing, which also adds to the probability that the snake head is a legitimate find.

While visiting Sedona, Arizona I once tried rattlesnake. It was okay. But I wouldn't want to find a rattlesnake head in my canned veggies. (via Art of the Prank)

Did Jefferson Invent Macaroni and Cheese? — Rumor has it that Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, could include, among his many other accomplishments, inventing macaroni and cheese (one of my favorite foods). The wikipedia entry for mac and cheese mentions this rumor: I don't know how old this rumor is. I found references to it in newspapers from the 1990s, but not earlier. But needless to say, the rumor is incorrect. Jefferson does appear to have served macaroni and cheese at the White House, however he definitely didn't invent the dish.

Jack MacLaughlin sheds some light on Jefferson's relationship to Macaroni in his book Jefferson and Monticello: the biography of a Builder: So it seems that Jefferson may have served pasta and cheese, but when he did the recipe was already in wide use in Europe. Marlena Spieler, author of Macaroni and Cheese, writes that: So there you have it. No one knows exactly who invented mac and cheese, but it wasn't Jefferson, though he seems to have been a fan of it.

Fake Wedding Cakes — I've heard of renting wedding dresses, but I'd never heard of renting the wedding cake. But apparently renting fake wedding cakes is becoming increasingly popular. Here's how it works: It seems like a sensible idea to me. Though, of course, another option would be simply not to have such an expensive wedding if you can't afford it. I'm constantly amazed at the obscene amounts of money some people spend on their weddings. My wife and I had a very simple, low-key wedding, though we did splurge on an Elvis-shaped groom's cake (real, not fake).