Fake Plastic Food

When we talk about food advertising, most of the time we get concerned about promoting gross fast-food to kids, usually "because fat."

But here's a new reason why food advertising is evil: It isn't real food.

I'm not talking about the food they're advertising for. I'm talking about the prop food in the commercials themselves.

PBS has a wicked cool website for kids called Don't Buy It that's all about promoting media savviness. They have a little piece all about how to make ad-food yourself.

But they don't leave you with that. They go through the process step-by-step:

Find the perfect bun with no wrinkles. The recipe gives you a hundred to sort through, so get busy! If the bun has sesame seeds, carefully arrange them with glue and tweezers. Use waterproof spray on the surface of the bun so it won't get soggy.

Along with The Perfect Burger, there's also The Perfect Roasted Chicken and The Perfect Ice Cream Cone. The "recipes" are totally disgusting, and totally appropriate for a kids' website. I know I loved this gross-out kind of stuff when I was eight. Grotesque fascination: the perfect hook into the world of media criticism.

Besides food, the site explores other ways our perception is manipulated by the media, including a TV vs. Life quiz with questions like "How many times per year does an average police officer shoot a gun in the line of duty?" and "The number of elderly people on TV is the same as in real life. True or False?"

Giving unrealistic media a well-rounded beating-- from gross food ads to under-representation of marginalized groups-- is a pretty righteous cause for PBS Kids.

Sure, the site might be a little dated (the copyright says 2002-04), but the message is timeless: Ads are lying to you! Kind of a neat concept to explain to children. And it's more than refreshing to see a discussion about food that isn't about bodies. Because, you know, it's way more complicated (and way more gross) than that.



Picture and quote from: http://pbskids.org/dontbuyit/advertisingtricks/foodadtricks_burger1.html