h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Those Barclaycard adverts fail because they fall down on the one thing that comedy adverts really shouldn't miss on.

They're not funny.

Most adverts enthuse about their product, how good it is, how much better than the competition, etc.

One at the moment for Lipobind. This must be some in-crowd code that only those that use it know what it is. Basic language tells me that lipos is fat, so can it be supposed that it's one of those "slower digestive tract" thingies?

At least most adverts tell you what they're advertising.

According to the website, "LIPObind is a patented fibre complex of a natural and organic source and is clinically proven to bind dietary fat. It is a certified medical product with safety and efficacy assessed under Medical Device Directive." From what I can tell, it stops unwanted fat being absorbed, or that's the theory.

is it just me or do almost all weight loss and balding cure adds seem rather dumb

It's just you.

Seriously though, ads for weight loss products have to be careful what they say. They can't promise a certain amount of weight loss, it has to be 'up to x lb in y weeks'. They have to say you should still eat healthily and exercise. They have to say the product may not work for everybody. Most, if not all, mention only working as part of a calorie-controlled diet.

Personally, if I still need to eat healthily and exercise when I use a slimming product, I'll save my money and _just_ eat healthily and exercise (as much as I can). Why waste money on a product that may not work?

>>> do almost all weight loss and balding cure adds seem rather dumb <<<

Fat people are dumb, too dumb to stop eating pizza as they sit in front of the goggle box in their 11th floor council flat, and they'd rather eat their body weight in crisp than a piece of fruit. Fruit being the food of the upper classes what, what! So we can sell 'em a pill to make their life better, they will take one, and because it's not a burger dripping in lard they'll not take another, and won't blame us for not getting thin overnight, but accept their own lethargic thinking is the cause if it were to occur to them at all there is a problem. - I'd guess that is the way it goes at the ad campaign meetings.

There's the other side... The not overweight, active, vaguely inteligent people who *think* they are obese (or 'a bit chubby') and cant think of any other way to achieve this mythical state that the media and their own hang-ups has invented to be an ideal for all of us all the time.

I mean, it's not unhealthy to have some body fat. It's unhealthy to be unfit and unable to move properly. However the media (ad people, clothes manufacturers, diet marketers et al) would have us believe we should all be thin and hard all over. It's unrealistic, unlikely and damaging but while people buy into it, it'll sell.

If it came down to me taking diuretics or excercising more, I'd excercise more. You're only lying to yourself in the end!

What annoys me is that it's like there have never been any fat people before in the history of time, and now there is a cure for this "disease".

Nowt wrong with a bit of meat on somebody, I'm thin (too thin for my own liking) somehow I don't think it's my intelligence that is keeping me thin, in the same way I don't think it's being dumb that keeps fat people fat, so why treat them that way?

Maybe we are all dumb, fat and thin, for still buying into this easy living of pre-made foods, (and I don't just mean 'ready meals'). What ever happened to having a roast on Sunday, then baking our own pies, making soup with what's left? Now even chickens are not fit to eat, corn fed, lacking in dark meat, just lumps of fat waiting to be mushed into nuggets. Are we all too dumb to chew solid food?

And what I find just as sad and pathetic is 'diet versions' of foods that are never going to be healthy.

Lo-fat / low salt ready meals. Sure there is less fat, but what they don't say is they are pumped full of sugar instead.

It's not just pills and potions, the vast majority of the way food is promoted to us is questionable in my opinion.

*climbs off soapbox*

How can somebody thin be a 'fluffylump'? I had visions of a tribble, or something similar.

>> Why waste money on a product that may not work? <<

Everyone knows they don't work. They *can't* work, since anything that has a measurable physiological effect could be classified as a drug and restricted to prescription-only sale. But that doesn't matter; people will still buy them just to make themselves feel better. The marketing men know this, and rely on it.

>> Now even chickens are not fit to eat, corn fed, lacking in dark meat, just lumps of fat waiting to be mushed into nuggets. <<

Actually modern battery chickens are extremely low in fat. They're bred to accumulate muscle mass quickly and don't live long enough to put on much fat. A product of our misguided belief that fat is inherently a BAD thing. But that's another rant entirely.

A tribble... Hmm, you could love me and hug me and squeeze me and call me George (Even if that's not my name).

>>> Actually modern battery chickens are extremely low in fat. <<<

What is the source of your information please?

Hugh Ferbly-Werbly got a nutritionist to check the fat and nutrient content of a free-range vs battery chicken and the battery ones were rubbish nutritionally and far fattier in comparison.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article376661.ece

"Much of the fat of a chicken is in the skin, and roasting allows it to permeate the meat. Roast chicken leg with skin now has more fat than a Big Mac. Grilled white chicken meat without the skin, however, remains a relatively healthy, low-fat option."

So, whether chicken is a high-fat or low-fat food rather depends on whether you're eating skin-on roast chicken or skinless chicken breasts.

RF

>> Hugh Ferbly-Werbly got a nutritionist to check the fat and nutrient content of a free-range vs battery chicken and the battery ones were rubbish nutritionally and far fattier in comparison. <<

I got my info from Hugh F-W's "Meat" book. I don't doubt that a modern free-range chicken of the same breed and the same age as a battery one would be leaner still (slightly) - it gets more exercise after all - but you need to compare it to a wild chicken, if such a thing even exists these days. The standard UK battery chicken is called a Ross Cobb - a horribly unnatural and evolutionarily unviable cross-breed that puts on weight so quickly that it reaches slaughter weight in only six weeks, before much fat has a chance to deposit.

Take the skin off a chicken (any shop-bought chicken) and it contains virtually no fat. That's why straight skinless chicken breasts are tasteless and dry - so we have to cook them in oil or wrap them in bacon to put some fat (and flavour) back in. Roast a chicken, collect the juice, let it cool and check how much fat is there. Now do the same with a duck, or similar-sized wild bird. You might be surprised.

In terms of nutrition, it is a extremely good protein source - it's made of meat - so I'm not sure what is meant by "nutritionally rubbish". I agree with Hugh F-Ws stance on battery farming, and find that he rarely resorts to hyperbole and doesn't try to overplay the other issues, so I'd be surprised if he said this.

I think it's a little unfair to compare a duck and chicken in relation to fat. Duck's have a layer of blubber (or the equivalent at least) under their skin like most higher aquatic creatures (that are't fish).
This makes that comparison a little invalid if you ask me.

That said, the comment about modern shop bought chicken being unfit for human consumption was utter cobblers so you were right to challenge it

The 'nutritionally rubbish' thing from Hugh Fearlessly-eatsitall was to do with cheap chickens containing less Omega-thing acids because they have less dark meat in them. I think.

I also think the Vanish "Intelligent stain remover" ad is maybe a bit wrong.

Yes to the above, and it would appear we all watch the same TV shows, not just the adverts.

My undersanding was compared to a bird from the 1970's, they are now are much higher in fat...

This apprently applies to galliformes of the chicken variety.

Gallifreyan chickens?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galliformes

All this talk of chicken, I can't wait for the next KFC advert that ask me to buy food in a bucket.