https://www.naturevalley.ca/products/peanut-butter-dark-choc...
They get around the latter example by putting "Flavour" in a tiny font size and color that blends in with the background, on a new line; you have to be looking for it. For something called "Nature Valley", they sure as hell don't give off that vibe
With more basic things from the shelf, I look at the ingredients and think "Nope, nope, nope, wow even that?, nope, oh this one... has no sugar but 1200mg of sodium wtf!?"
Like if I want sugar, I want to know the thing is a thing I shouldn't be just carelessly eating. I'll get cookies, or a slice of cake, or ya some ice cream. I don't want it in my fucking tomato sauce, and I don't want the tomatoes to actually be tomato-flavoured chunks
One of the cafés I jokingly call it the "luxury space communist café" (since it recently unionized and is next to an electronics store and a buncha designer shops, which has an... interesting effect... on the customer base.)
Anyways, when you set aside the decor and are willing to tolerate a dull roar of vocal fry until you can get your headphones in, it ends up being pretty damn conducive to getting some deep work done. (Water dispenser, power plugs, espresso as bitter as my soul ... I guess designing for the user is feminine? Insert roll eyes emoji here.)
Anyways, they were selling these little squares of 100% dark cocoa and I got one with a crossoint since I was trying to cut back on the sweets and... yeah, they weren't kidding -- it's cocoa... not exactly sweet. Not all all in fact.
Reading your post reminded me of how that felt like a rip off, when really they gave me exactly what was promised -- it's just that Americans think "milk chocolate" when others would expect... something else.
So maybe sometimes they're not deceiving people, they're just trying to give them what they've conditioned them to want.
(God forbid someone have a cortado, everyone has to have a donut the size of a newborn's head with more sugar than a can of coke and a coffee the size of a loaf of bread.)
I guess what you're saying holds true for a lot of things, like people thinking that bitter dark roasted coffee being associated with quality, when it's often the opposite. I guess that would fall into somewhat misleading marketing influences though, whereas I'm thinking more along the lines of showing chocolate and calling it chocolate when in reality there isn't even cocoa in it at all, just palm oil.
I agree about the cortado, it bothers me how much sugar people get in their system without realizing quite how much or how bad it could be. If all the sugar you got was from an obvious dessert, you probably would have a hard time over-injesting it.
Then we can go after the people making "Fruity Pebbles flavor" $everything. I've seen pancake syrup, I expect floor wax and lighter fluid versions next.
Those Jelly Belly beans that they rebranded as Bertie Bott's have a "popcorn" flavor, so we definitely have the technology to do butter adjacent flavorings...
Some states only allow the sale of beer and wine in places like gas stations and grocery stores. You can't sell whiskey there, but you can sell spiced malt beverages.
Unrelated, I really like that NPR has a script-free "text.npr.org" subdomain.
The state doesn't allow liquor sales in convenience stores, but does allow the sale of beer and malt liquor.
That explains what was going on.
Is it many US states where such places can't sell liquor? (I know there's some areas with quite strict rules, but was surprised that wasn't explicitly referenced in the article)
[extremely Ron Swanson voice]
Not everyplace can you buy a handle of hard liquor in the CVS like it's Bloomington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_the_United_Sta...
Should a rational consumer find this to be deceptive?
this is lexically ambiguous and I'm not going to blame anyone, especially someone buying 99c bottles of fake whiskey at a convenience store, for mis-understanding it and thinking it meant it contains whiskey.
I do think the headline here is disingenuous to say "consumers" are suing. Some class-action-mill law firm is suing.
This seems like yet another class action created by lawyers, purely for the benefit of lawyers where the vast majority of any benefit will go to the attorneys other professionals involved and a token amount will end up going to the consumers being "harmed" here.
For the intoxicant lover, a little bottle of the whisky can provide the warmth they are seeking beyond the cinnamon itself, which a few spoonfuls of ale can not compare to.
Even though you need to be of drinking age to buy either one.
People could end up disappointed when they could have gotten a full-size beer at the convenient store for the same money.
That is not the case whatsoever... They labeled them all as containing whiskey but none of them did. Just whiskey flavorings.
The rational consumer should find this deceptive because it says it has one ingredient while not actually including that ingredient at all.
The flavourings written directly on the label. "Malt beverage with natural whiskey and other flavors and caramel color", some might find that ambiguous but that's grammatically correct syntax for writing a set.
E.g. Red, green, blue and other colours.
Not: Red colour, green colour, blue colour and other colours.
Yeah, I don't know if it's that that last 5% makes a difference or one too many cake donuts demolished my sense of taste, but the one I got was 100% cocoa and... just... not good.
I'd have rather paired my quad espresso with a savory hard boiled egg.
But, thankfully, it was just one teensy square, so I guess the experiment was worth it for the price -- I'd have been much less amused if I'd dropped a lincoln on that thing ;-)
>I guess what you're saying holds true for a lot of things, like people thinking that bitter dark roasted coffee being associated with quality, when it's often the opposite.
I started getting espresso partly because I do want bitter... but I also don't really chance getting a light roast anymore, half because it'll make me too amped but also half because when I do shell out for it, it's rarely good.
(I'm a big fan of Philz, and pourover in general, but there aren't really pour over coffee shops in my area and I'd rather keep it that way than import more Californians.)
>I agree about the cortado, it bothers me how much sugar people get in their system without realizing quite how much or how bad it could be. If all the sugar you got was from an obvious dessert, you probably would have a hard time over-injesting it.
I used to have an eating disorder -- I was quite heavy, and studied book after book on how to be social because I wanted a partner... turns out you seem much more charming when you're not 240lbs. People get so... obsessed with metrics, I suspect it's why studies show sociopaths love black coffee.
I see a lot of midwesterners that I suspect have basically induced dementia by not managing diabetes. Meanwhile, if I go down to the local gas station masquerading as a grocery store and try to make a healthy decision, I literally cannot buy a greek yogurt unless it's got fake strawberry or blueberry or whatever in it.
The Wikipedia article of the day was "Nazi persecution of homosexuals" for Holocaust Rememberance Day yesterday, and it's amazing how many people who have erased "gay" as an insult will continue to view making healthy choices as some kind of tell you're queer. Maybe it is, but it's darkly hilarious to watch folks induce brain rot to avoid lookin' gay, so sorry for a bit of a rant, but this nym, much like the texts I send on coffee shop wifi, will soon disappear when 24 hours have passed... and end up on a path where they will completely lose control of their minds and bodies as they panic that no one is obligated to be caregiver to an abuser.
Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but... I've had too much caffeine to power through some unpleasant todos, and since marijuana is not legal here I have no way to even out ;-)
(A glass of white wine can help in that regard, but I quit drinking after HOPE went online that one summer. It sure took a lot of effort to convince people Defcon was like, seriously canceled, please, no really, do not come to Defcon it is online stay in your apartments you weird ass hick-i-mori)
I've never heard the sociopaths drinking black coffee thing, but it's funny. I used to drink it with a bunch of milk and sugar in it because that's sort of how everyone starts in NA, but I'm glad I took a liking to black coffee, which is obviously way better for you. Pretty hard to drink that gas station stuff sometimes though.
I love coffee, but the roast level isn't super important to me unless it's supposed to be particularly high quality, moreso the origin and brewing method, maybe season.
Anything from central to south america will lean chocolatey/caramel in a good way, but it can be too much for me sometimes. Particularly Brazilian Naturally processed beans, so if you spot that on a sign at the fancy place you go, it'll likely be your vibe.
Most of the shops in my area have customers that are used to Italian or otherwise older euro style coffee, so it leans super bitter and dark, sometimes undrinkably so. My preference is for a bit of bitterness, and a bit of sweetness, and thankfully that's also pretty easy to come by with local roasters importing from all over. The Italian style cheap/dark beans tend to go better in a latte or mixed with milk or ice cream, because the intense bitterness is balanced by the fat and lactose in the milk, which is the most common experience across the continent imo.
Light roasts just help whatever flavours the coffee fruit would have come through, and so a light roast of a south american coffee would have a natural bitterness/cocoa vibe that's probably more pleasant than it coming from a bean that's roasted super dark. If it's from Kenya or Ethiopia, it'll be more likely to be on the fruity side if it's a light roast, or a bit fruity and a bit bitter if it's medium or dark which can be great too. Indonesian stuff is all over, and can be a bit eartht or a bit floral, and central American stuff can be all over too on the high-end.