Speaker 1: What a busy dave friends and neighbors. Right before we
Speaker 1: started recording, we both accidentally hung out in the studio
Speaker 1: together to eat. My name is Ben, h my name
Speaker 1: is Noel, And hey, hey, you um, you're losing. You're losing.
Speaker 1: You're losing, You're losing your vitamin C donuts. It's true,
Speaker 1: it's true, And at the end of this episode, we
Speaker 1: hope that you can let us know whether it's a
Speaker 1: good or bad thing to have lost them. Of course,
Speaker 1: where would we be without our super producer, Casey Pegram
Speaker 1: And I want to ask where would we be without donuts?
Speaker 1: We'd probably be leading happier, healthier lives, have lower blood pressure,
Speaker 1: less diabetes, obesity would probably be diminished. Uh, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be a pretty beautiful world without donuts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you a fan of donuts? I just think, sure,
Speaker 1: they're good, they're they're delicious, but they're just so decadent.
Speaker 1: It's like, can you think of a more decadent treat?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure you're good if you tried, but
Speaker 1: it would probably involve slathering a donut with some kind
Speaker 1: of pudding. I'm just not you know, I've never been
Speaker 1: a donut person, I don't have crown no, just not
Speaker 1: a not not croissant would be a little bit more
Speaker 1: on the savory end. But it's strange because here in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: you know, our office is down the street from a
Speaker 1: pretty well known Crispy cream outlet, which rumor has it
Speaker 1: that Shack actually owns now the one with the sign
Speaker 1: like with the one with the old school. Yeah, apparently
Speaker 1: that is one of the many things in the city owns.
Speaker 1: And then also you and Casey and I have witnessed
Speaker 1: over the past few years the rise of the artisan
Speaker 1: doughnuts here in Atlanta, along with cupcakes. I mean it's great.
Speaker 1: There's a place called Revolution Donuts that is fantastic. They
Speaker 1: actually have a savory donut that I like that's got
Speaker 1: like gre air and like ham and it and it's
Speaker 1: really good. Um, I honestly am more inclined to eat
Speaker 1: something like that. I think I've lost my sweet tooth
Speaker 1: in addition to my vitamin C donuts. Oh really, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's it's something that I think will on balance,
Speaker 1: be better for both of us. Multiple studies indicate that
Speaker 1: the average American eats way too much sugar, right, and
Speaker 1: it's it's in so many foods that we consume. We
Speaker 1: should point out that none of us, none of the
Speaker 1: three of us, are professional nutritionists, right, so whatever we
Speaker 1: say is should not be taken as nutrition advice. I'm
Speaker 1: sort of an armchair nutritionist. I just sort of fling
Speaker 1: these whatever pops through my head and just just just
Speaker 1: willy nilly because I think you need to eat more
Speaker 1: Riboflavan band. Just looking at you look a little peak
Speaker 1: and I think Ribo flavor is what you need. And
Speaker 1: so everybody knows. Nol is pointing in the old in
Speaker 1: the style of the old World War two Uncle Sam poster,
Speaker 1: but instead the caption instead of we need you for
Speaker 1: the U. S. Army, it would be you need Ribo Flavor.
Speaker 1: And I'm also wearing a big, tall American flag hat
Speaker 1: right now, which I think is cool. And I'm really
Speaker 1: proud of you for stretching your wings and these new things.
Speaker 1: I think this could be big. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's an everyday hat, because you want to be special.
Speaker 1: I did it for this episode. I was just trying
Speaker 1: something out. But what is this episode about. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked, because this episode is about donuts. A
Speaker 1: very specific type of doughnuts, and before we get into that,
Speaker 1: we should just give a brief history of doughnuts, pretty common.
Speaker 1: I would be surprised if you have not ever heard
Speaker 1: of a donut and still somehow are listening to podcasts
Speaker 1: on the internet. Food like donuts has been around for
Speaker 1: centuries and centuries and centuries, and people tell you the
Speaker 1: American version of the donut traces back to Dutch settlers
Speaker 1: Dutch columns, right, and they didn't have that familiar ring shape.
Speaker 1: You can find and mention of donut in a book
Speaker 1: by Washington Irvine in eighteen o nine, a History of
Speaker 1: New York from the Beginning of the World to the
Speaker 1: end of the Dutch Dynasty. But over time they became
Speaker 1: a super convenient snack for Americans right on both coasts.
Speaker 1: And our story takes place in the world of donuts,
Speaker 1: but also in the world of crazy advertising, which is
Speaker 1: one of our favorite things. We're talking about the moment
Speaker 1: where before the six million dollar man happened. Uh, some
Speaker 1: food manu factors said, all right, donuts are great, but
Speaker 1: what if we could also make them healthy? What if
Speaker 1: we could build them stronger, faster. I can't remember the
Speaker 1: rest of the six million dollar man thing faster? Do
Speaker 1: you deeper? I don't know you are? I think I
Speaker 1: am to That's all that comes to mind. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's it's it's it's utter flam flam,
Speaker 1: you know, And we're gonna get to that. But uh,
Speaker 1: what if Ben, you know, what if you could do that,
Speaker 1: that'd be cool, But you can't. So the next best
Speaker 1: thing is just to figure out a way to convince
Speaker 1: people that it's a thing, and then you know, it
Speaker 1: takes the burden of guilt off of them for eating
Speaker 1: this trash food. Basically right right exactly. Back in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen forties, the biggest donut maker of the time,
Speaker 1: an outfit named, in a burst of creativity, the Donut
Speaker 1: Corporation of America changes a little on the nose. Someoneuld say,
Speaker 1: but we're fans. Uh. They tried pushing this product, They
Speaker 1: try to do this thing, and they created something called
Speaker 1: vitamin donuts. But what what what the heck? Man? What's
Speaker 1: a vitamin donut? It's a donut um that is fortified.
Speaker 1: It is made with flower that is enriched with various vitamins,
Speaker 1: um synthesized vitamins and It was a popular trend in
Speaker 1: general at the time. Kellogg's even had a cereal called
Speaker 1: Pep Cereal, and uh, companies like Libbies and Bird's Eye,
Speaker 1: which are still around today and they still like frozen
Speaker 1: pot pies and stuff. We're all about this language of
Speaker 1: it being enriched, vitamin infused or whatever. There are different
Speaker 1: ways of putting it, and there was a golden age
Speaker 1: for this nonsense. Absolutely, Vitamin Donuts specifically had diamine and
Speaker 1: vitamin B three and iron. No ribo flavoring fortification that
Speaker 1: I can find, which is a crime. That twitch I'm
Speaker 1: seeing in your eye, I feel like magnesium maybe it
Speaker 1: would be the maybe it's magnesium and nol is absolutely correct.
Speaker 1: There was a there was an advertising craze to make
Speaker 1: you think that product A was healthier or a smarter
Speaker 1: investment due to this extra nutritional bang you got for
Speaker 1: your buck. You know what I thought of when we
Speaker 1: were looking at some of this stuff off air was
Speaker 1: the cycle of language in advertising again the nineties. Remember
Speaker 1: everything was what was it? Was it digital in the nineties, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the the indie glow watches and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: or like organic in the early two thousand's and so
Speaker 1: maybe fortified was one of the buzz terms of the forties. So,
Speaker 1: you know one from today I get too up far
Speaker 1: off topic that I heard the other the other day
Speaker 1: that really, I think it's totally accurate. Is things that
Speaker 1: are like recyclable or like made from supposedly made from
Speaker 1: recycled material, like water bottles they say up to and uh.
Speaker 1: And in an interview on NPR that I heard, the
Speaker 1: question was posed to like a recycling expert, like, does
Speaker 1: that mean it could be Like my answer is yes,
Speaker 1: oh boy, yeah, we have to be careful with that language.
Speaker 1: I had thought of that with recycling. I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 1: It's similar to like a portion of the proceeds from
Speaker 1: this will be donated to you know, this amazing charity.
Speaker 1: But speaking of the ads you're talking about, these campaigns
Speaker 1: were everywhere and the poster for Vitamin Donuts is delightful
Speaker 1: and horrifying. Uh. It says vitamin big red letters surrounded
Speaker 1: by these like hashtags of sparkling energy and then donuts
Speaker 1: and then um on either side are the most rosy
Speaker 1: cheeked you know, uh, just up and atom little tykes
Speaker 1: that he could ever imagine, one of them holding a
Speaker 1: donut with a bite taken out of it. Their cheeks
Speaker 1: are blood red. And I think that was meant to
Speaker 1: imply health and vitality. And what's the catchphrase, ben oh
Speaker 1: gosh for pep and vigor. Each donut fortified with a
Speaker 1: minimum of twenty five units of vitamin B one vitamin
Speaker 1: donuts gorge your way to health. Yeah, right, Look at
Speaker 1: the way that poor little girl in the bottom left
Speaker 1: of the posters staring at those wants them. She wants them.
Speaker 1: And the size is all wrong too. The scale is
Speaker 1: really this perspective is very strange because the donuts are
Speaker 1: kind of on the four and the girl is sort
Speaker 1: of on the same visual plane, but the donuts are
Speaker 1: like the size of her head. Uh, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a very odd ad um. This was a failure
Speaker 1: not just from the donut contingent um, but from other
Speaker 1: companies that tried it as well. And that's because of
Speaker 1: the Nutrition Division of the U. S Government's War Food Administration.
Speaker 1: Right then, absolutely, right now. So the Nutrition Division of
Speaker 1: the War Food Administration had a lout and it awarded
Speaker 1: a seal of approval to companies when it approved their
Speaker 1: nutrition claims. But The problem with the donuts was this.
Speaker 1: The donuts were made with as as you had mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: and enriched white flower, and this meant, according to the
Speaker 1: boffins at the Nutrition division, this meant that the donuts
Speaker 1: themselves were not enriched with vitamins, only the flower they
Speaker 1: were made from was enriched. See I picture them like
Speaker 1: instead of sprinkles, you have horse pills with all your
Speaker 1: vitamins are just like, you know, with a nice cream
Speaker 1: filling intermixed with you know, flintstones chewables, which that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound half bad. I do a lot of people who
Speaker 1: ate flintstone stewables like candy, just for for the taste.
Speaker 1: They're the lifefull. I'm not a fan of chalky things,
Speaker 1: but I like gummy vitamins. Actually, of the those for
Speaker 1: fun once ode on Vitamin C. It was not a
Speaker 1: pretty Really how old were you? It was like last week?
Speaker 1: Is that why you have that kind of I didn't
Speaker 1: want to say anything to Okay, that's what they say
Speaker 1: about me. It's a glow. Okay, Well, I'm glad you're
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're all right. Uh it's so it looks
Speaker 1: like I'm a riboflavan vampire and you are the citruacy
Speaker 1: door of vitamin C death. Well, yeah, it's like that
Speaker 1: character and and Superman movie with the nukes and stuff
Speaker 1: who kind of was birthed from the sun and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden sort of growing creepy fingernails and could
Speaker 1: shoot fireballs out of his eye. That was me when
Speaker 1: I ate the whole jar of vitamin C gummies. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do that again. Yeah. Yeah, we have to
Speaker 1: be careful because even though we are taught often to
Speaker 1: associate vitamins with health and good decisions, medically speaking, it
Speaker 1: is absolutely possible to have too much of a good thing,
Speaker 1: and there are consequences to that. But here's another thing
Speaker 1: about this enriched white flower. It sounds great, and even
Speaker 1: today in twenty eighteens, we record this. If you're in
Speaker 1: the United States and you go to your average grocery store,
Speaker 1: you're going to see that quite a few food products
Speaker 1: that use flower use enriched white flower. It's just the
Speaker 1: most common thing. But it's not a superfood. No. It's
Speaker 1: sort of like, uh, figuring out how to turn pig
Speaker 1: parts into gelatin, you know. It's sort of like making
Speaker 1: lemons into lemonade. It's just taking a unpleasant byproduct or
Speaker 1: just something that was just happening anyway, and figuring out
Speaker 1: how to sell it, you know, put a bow on it.
Speaker 1: That's what this whole. Hey, we've got this stuff, we
Speaker 1: already used and it's the cheapest product available in the
Speaker 1: easiest natural path to making this stuff. Let's let's call
Speaker 1: it something cool as people think they're buying something different, right,
Speaker 1: So what do dietitians think of this snol? Like? What what?
Speaker 1: What are the experts saying about enriched flower? Yes, Sarah Glime,
Speaker 1: who is a palle of oars in the office, wrote
Speaker 1: this article for How Stuff Works. Vitamin donuts were a
Speaker 1: thing question of mark question mark added the second question
Speaker 1: mark um. But she spoke to a dietitian from Birmingham,
Speaker 1: Alabama at the Health and Wellness Center St. Vincent's One
Speaker 1: Night Team, and she asked her about the efficacy of
Speaker 1: enriched flower and that's how she responded. As much as
Speaker 1: I would love for them to be healthy, she says,
Speaker 1: I really wouldn't consider donuts made with enriched white flower
Speaker 1: a healthy source of nutrients. Donuts are made using only
Speaker 1: refined white flower, and these refined carbohydrates have been shown
Speaker 1: to be worse for your health than saturated fats ouch oh.
Speaker 1: Also an editorial correction here on my part. The enriched
Speaker 1: flower did contain ribo flavor as well as full of acid,
Speaker 1: so rest rest assured everybody who was about to throw
Speaker 1: away their collection of Vantage vitamin donuts. So the Nutrition
Speaker 1: Division wanted the Donut Corporation to call them not vitamin donuts,
Speaker 1: but to call this product in itched flower donuts, which
Speaker 1: is just not a sexiest name. What do you think,
Speaker 1: absolutely not. I mean, it certainly does not fill my
Speaker 1: heart with them vigor and pep. Right. And so even
Speaker 1: though the Donut Corporation lost the battle regarding vitamin donuts
Speaker 1: with the Nutrition Division, the donut Corporation went on to
Speaker 1: do decades of business as donut advocates. It's probably the
Speaker 1: best way to say it, almost like a donut lobby.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get close to calling them big donut,
Speaker 1: but I think that's a hilarious phrase when you say
Speaker 1: big done, and it makes me think of that donut
Speaker 1: shop in l A near the airport with the big
Speaker 1: giant donut on top. Yeah, I feel like I just
Speaker 1: gonna spend every trip to l A. I have seen
Speaker 1: that donut shop and never going in because I'm aways
Speaker 1: in a hurry to go from the airport. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're lucky if you get a chance to stop it.
Speaker 1: In and Out Burger. That's true. That's true. And this
Speaker 1: is not related to anything. Did I tell you I
Speaker 1: went to an in and out Burger for the first time?
Speaker 1: What do you think? I? You know, I at first
Speaker 1: I was a little bit let down because there's been
Speaker 1: so much hype about it. And then I tried the
Speaker 1: burger Burger is solid. It's really good. It's really good.
Speaker 1: It's good. It's got like a almost like a cinnamon
Speaker 1: e vibe to it. There's something they put in the
Speaker 1: patties that like really has an interesting, robust flavor. I'm
Speaker 1: a fan. Did you get an Animal Style? I did not.
Speaker 1: That's the way to go. That's what I should have done.
Speaker 1: I think double double, double double Animal Style. Hopefully I'll
Speaker 1: be back there again sometime. And I'm all about Nolan
Speaker 1: and I are both all about exploring not just fast food,
Speaker 1: but any different local food that we run across in
Speaker 1: our travels. Trash food the world over, world over. So
Speaker 1: for instance, this includes things like Crown Burger and Utah
Speaker 1: Pals in East Tennessee, which is thought that take you
Speaker 1: two if we ever get get up around that way
Speaker 1: in the hollers and the cricks. I know we're off
Speaker 1: topic a little bit, but I saw an article on
Speaker 1: Mental philost today that was a map showing what the
Speaker 1: most popular burger is in every state, and you know
Speaker 1: what it is in most states, five guys, they really
Speaker 1: really did. Only one was Burger King and then obviously
Speaker 1: the West coast is all in and out and what
Speaker 1: a burger reigned supreme in Texas and I think a
Speaker 1: couple of the surrounding states. But five guys was the
Speaker 1: champion time. I was surprised. It's pretty good, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know it was such a force and good burger.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's a good quality burger. We
Speaker 1: have around here a thing called cookout, which I think
Speaker 1: is sort of a southern regional thing. It's pretty cool
Speaker 1: because you can you get a combo and for your sides,
Speaker 1: you get to choose two sides. You can choose chicken
Speaker 1: cause sodilla and chicken nuggets or double chicken nuggets like
Speaker 1: a corn dog, or two chicken cadillas or two corn dogs.
Speaker 1: It's really really good for your health. I have no
Speaker 1: idea how they make money. You got to order the trade.
Speaker 1: It's like four dollars to anyway, we digress, Ben, What's
Speaker 1: say we wrapped this episode up with a fun hodgepodge
Speaker 1: of some other abysmal food failures uh and or misleading
Speaker 1: ad campaigns. I completely agree. How about you kick us off?
Speaker 1: Only because Casey mentioned it. McDonald's has had some pretty
Speaker 1: hilarious food fails over the years. One was called the
Speaker 1: Mike Africa uh. And this was a confection that was
Speaker 1: only available in southern Africa and in a pr nightmare,
Speaker 1: um Max pulled that product because apparently calling something Mick
Speaker 1: and the whole country is in bad form. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: looks like it's made with just flat bread, and it
Speaker 1: looks like a like a big Mac, but with like
Speaker 1: two pieces of flatbread. It doesn't look particularly appetizing. But
Speaker 1: the Mike Africa I always think of it. We're talking
Speaker 1: about the old food products from fast food. I always
Speaker 1: thinking the Hula Burger. The Hula Burger was also from McDonald's,
Speaker 1: made by Ray Kroc himself, the driving force behind McDonald's
Speaker 1: success who always had a million ideas. He was just
Speaker 1: throwing ideas left and right. They wanted to make a
Speaker 1: burger for Catholics who didn't eat meat on Fridays, so
Speaker 1: instead of be for a chicken patty, it had a
Speaker 1: grilled pineapple slice topped with cheese. People hated it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the picture of it that I see here, it's obviously
Speaker 1: not a professional shot, but it looks. It looks like something.
Speaker 1: It looks like a dead thing. Yeah, it looks. It
Speaker 1: looks bad. I mean, you can't blame the folks for trying,
Speaker 1: But what about market research? You know, did they just
Speaker 1: not have that at that time? Well, you know, it
Speaker 1: probably wasn't as easy to conduct as it is today.
Speaker 1: You had to go like door to door or or
Speaker 1: get people to fill stuff out, and no one wants
Speaker 1: to do that. Um, we're not gonna harp on McDonald's
Speaker 1: and fast, but I just wanted to mention those those
Speaker 1: are on. But let's talk about some more campaigns. Remember
Speaker 1: ovaltine Oh yeah yeah yeah, also uh fortified right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like you know, malted powder drink you mix with
Speaker 1: your milk and it, you know, to be fair, contains
Speaker 1: quite a bit of fortification in the form of calcium,
Speaker 1: folic acid, iron, zinc, are pal riboflavan, viamin, vitamin B six,
Speaker 1: vitamin B twelve, vitamin C, and vitamin A. And it
Speaker 1: is a legacy product in that same period that we
Speaker 1: were talking about, but they seem to have managed to
Speaker 1: uh continue to promote it as kind of a healthful
Speaker 1: supplement type drink. And people love the stuff. It is delicious,
Speaker 1: People love it. It is Its status is a healthy
Speaker 1: beverage is controversial, but I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: get it for nostalgic reasons as well, you know, like
Speaker 1: Grandma always made oval tine. It's an immediate like blast
Speaker 1: to your childhood when you take a sip of it,
Speaker 1: and then you know, not to mention more oval team please,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's pretty interesting when the companies build
Speaker 1: such strong pr that goes so far back and they're
Speaker 1: able to just kind of ride that snake to like
Speaker 1: perpetual ubiquity in the public consciousness. Even though a team
Speaker 1: you don't hear about it too much. They don't like
Speaker 1: have ads all over the place, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely a thing. Also not to mention ben. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've heard about this, but there are studies
Speaker 1: that are saying that vitamin supplements not this is big
Speaker 1: of a thing. Is we maybe used to think absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: because there's there are questions about how much benefit they
Speaker 1: actually convey to your body, depending upon the manner in
Speaker 1: which they are ingested or the manner in which they
Speaker 1: are included in the manufacturing process. Like vitamin water is
Speaker 1: a perfect example exactly. And again I think they are
Speaker 1: able to get away with calling the product vitamin water
Speaker 1: because on the side, it does list a crap ton
Speaker 1: of additives that are, you know, things you would find
Speaker 1: in multi vitamin supplements. But I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it has to do with like, if you're deficient in something,
Speaker 1: your doctor can prescribe you to take something that like,
Speaker 1: you know, gets you to the levels you need to be.
Speaker 1: But if you're not and you're just like loading yourself
Speaker 1: up with all these different vitamins, is there benefit there?
Speaker 1: And there are studies out there that that seem to
Speaker 1: think there may even be harm, right, especially when consider
Speaker 1: how much sugar comes along with the deal. There's you know,
Speaker 1: there's a world of foods and drinks that skirt just
Speaker 1: beneath the threshold of being legally culpable for their claims,
Speaker 1: and advertisers do spend a lot of time figuring out
Speaker 1: language that sounds good but does not really promise something right,
Speaker 1: like is there a definition of natural? What is natural
Speaker 1: other than something that sounds good on a box in
Speaker 1: the grocery store, and even beyond that. This makes me
Speaker 1: wonder if vitamin water is gonna seem as silly in
Speaker 1: a few years as vitamin donuts seem today, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like, I can see future historians going,
Speaker 1: why don't you just water and get a doctor to
Speaker 1: give you vitamins because it doesn't taste like dragon fruit.
Speaker 1: Remember he had a big stick in virotmin water and
Speaker 1: there was that formula fifty flavor. Someone someone told me
Speaker 1: that they thought that tasted like the way you would
Speaker 1: think grape sweat would taste. That's so gross, Just leave
Speaker 1: that right there. Oh, speaking of drinks, we found some
Speaker 1: other failed, like spectacularly failed beverages. Did you ever hear
Speaker 1: of pepsi a m because like breakfast pepsi? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had never heard of this. So they thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: people aren't really drinking soda in the morning, So let's
Speaker 1: do exactly what you're describing. Let's get some breakfast soda drinkers.
Speaker 1: And they introduced this thing in the late eighties called
Speaker 1: Pepsi a m It had all the sugar and twice
Speaker 1: the caffeine of regular pepsi. Finally, right, Uh, it lasted
Speaker 1: about a year. Well, speaking of soda, let's have some
Speaker 1: more fun. Uh, we're talking about like more current things
Speaker 1: that that fit in this fail model. But let's let's
Speaker 1: go back back back to the nineteen fifties where there
Speaker 1: was a campaign for seven Up that shows an infant
Speaker 1: downing a seven up. It says why we have the
Speaker 1: youngest customers in the business. And I think the capture
Speaker 1: there or the motto is like seven up for babies exactly,
Speaker 1: and it says nothing doesn't like seven up. And then
Speaker 1: it has a nice little recipe on the side here,
Speaker 1: you know, for kids, a little trick that makes a
Speaker 1: treat seven up in milk mix mixed chilled seven up
Speaker 1: and cold milk and equal parts. By pouring the seven
Speaker 1: up gently into the milk, do not stir. The seven
Speaker 1: up adds a light and delicate flavor, making the delicious
Speaker 1: blended food drink food drink, the villa food drink, I
Speaker 1: don't know what that is. Food drink sounds like a
Speaker 1: terrible translation of a traditional beverage Somewhere. It's like, oh, welcome,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming. Now we will have the ritual
Speaker 1: exchange of food drink. So we we found so many
Speaker 1: strange advertisements that that clearly would be illegal today, and
Speaker 1: then also food products that even if we allow for hindsight,
Speaker 1: they still sound like just horrifically bad ideas. And props
Speaker 1: to Hunter Oatman Stanford over at Collectors Weekly. He made
Speaker 1: a list over there that we are pulling from for
Speaker 1: some of these, and and they're delightful. I want to
Speaker 1: point out that, uh, to go back to fast food,
Speaker 1: just briefly, I want to point out that Taco Bell
Speaker 1: had deserves a metal for all the strange things they've
Speaker 1: tried over the years. There was most notably I remember
Speaker 1: the Taco Bell seafood salad, which just sounds like a
Speaker 1: terrible idea. Any notion of seafood from a fast food
Speaker 1: restaurant typically is a red flag for me. Although I
Speaker 1: will occasionally do a Captain Dee's, you know, under under duress.
Speaker 1: At least that's all they do. It's not just an afterthought,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, like the mclobster back picking
Speaker 1: on the Yeah, they had a mc lobster that was
Speaker 1: only available in the main area. But do you remember
Speaker 1: that I Love Lucy episode where she gets the commercial
Speaker 1: for this thing called Vita Meat of vegamin it's very
Speaker 1: very popular, and she's trying to do it, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out, it's just chock full of alcohol and
Speaker 1: every time, like she takes a swig of it, she
Speaker 1: just gets more and more plastered. And their slogan to
Speaker 1: spoon your way to health, and it's like totally clearly
Speaker 1: just chock full of of straight booze um. This one
Speaker 1: I found here from the American Meat Institute from the fifties. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's just a big old meat platter featured in
Speaker 1: the center and then like nine hot dogs kind of
Speaker 1: like raining down from the sky and it says two
Speaker 1: delicious ways to help keep yourself trim. And the be
Speaker 1: here is very similar to what they're making fun of
Speaker 1: in that Lucy sketch. In this hot weather, do you
Speaker 1: feel tired, listless, all washed out? Don't blame it all
Speaker 1: on the heath. Look at your diet too. Scientific studies
Speaker 1: show it might well be due to a lack of
Speaker 1: high quality protein, the kind you get in meat. And
Speaker 1: for long time listeners, you've you've got to check out
Speaker 1: the visuals on this ad because they have what looks
Speaker 1: like an aspect or meat jelly in the center of
Speaker 1: the platter. I think you're right. I thought, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what it is. At first, I thought it
Speaker 1: was like a cheese uh, you know, like a Pimento
Speaker 1: cheese mountain or something like that. I think it is
Speaker 1: exactly that. Ben uh. We We also found an ad
Speaker 1: that was for sugar, just sugar. It says sugar might
Speaker 1: just be the willpower you need to curb your appetite.
Speaker 1: Sugar's quick energy can be the willpower you need to
Speaker 1: eat less. And it has close up shots of people
Speaker 1: drinking soda and eating candy. And this was part of
Speaker 1: a very large cover up that we only recently learned about.
Speaker 1: And the woman in this picture on the left, she
Speaker 1: looks terrifying and is drinking this soda in the most
Speaker 1: unnatural way. It's like cocked off in this weird canted angle,
Speaker 1: and it's like one of those paper straws and she
Speaker 1: is absolutely just chewing it. It's just clamped between her teeth,
Speaker 1: and she's got this kind of wandering I thing going on,
Speaker 1: like she is just jacked on sugar. It's a very
Speaker 1: troubling image. Yeah, and check out how sketchy this one
Speaker 1: is too, because these ads come from nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 1: and they include advice like have a soft drink before
Speaker 1: your main meal, or snack on some candy an hour
Speaker 1: before lunch. And there's not a company name you can
Speaker 1: follow up by mailing someone named sugar Information. Also, sugar
Speaker 1: Information sounds like a pretty cool code name. I'm sure
Speaker 1: it's like the sugar lobby, right that it has to be.
Speaker 1: Is it weird enough for you? I'm feeling weirded out? Man,
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling like we have we have not yet
Speaker 1: reached peak ridiculous advertising and failed food campaigns. But I
Speaker 1: think this, I think we should save the rest for
Speaker 1: another day. What do you say? I think that's why
Speaker 1: has been so Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know had the fortune to
Speaker 1: try a vitamin doughnut, we'd like to hear about the taste.
Speaker 1: Was it different from a regular donut? And what are
Speaker 1: your favorite failed food crazes. We'd also, of course like
Speaker 1: to thank our author Sarah Glme and our superproducer Casey
Speaker 1: Pe andF I'm not mistaken, man, most of the flower
Speaker 1: you buy today of the store is enriched flower. It's like,
Speaker 1: there's nothing special about it. It's not magic vitamin flower.
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true, it's pretty much regular flower. Now
Speaker 1: let us know any bakers out there and let us
Speaker 1: know how you feel about this stuff. Um, is it
Speaker 1: possible to make healthy baked goods? We're interested, right too,
Speaker 1: said ridiculous at how stuff works dot com. You can
Speaker 1: check us out on all the social media's Again, I
Speaker 1: second my co host Ben and thanking our super producer Casey,
Speaker 1: and also Alex Williams who composed Arthy, and most importantly you,
Speaker 1: So goodbye for now. We'll talk to you very soon,
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, send us all the weird ads
Speaker 1: who can find. Please do